The Chicago Bulls are a Wailing Pit of Despair

The Chicago Bulls have nothing at stake this season and yet they remain the most infuriating team in basketball outside Sacramento.  They had virtually no chance of contending for a title this season; LeBron James cruelly lords over the Eastern Conference like a surly Prohibition-era bouncer who no longer recognizes the password "Derrick Rose," and the Western Conference superpowers loom on the horizon like mythical creatures from medieval map. But they have had reasons to hope for a good season.  Jimmy Butler has improbably blossomed into an All-Star.  After years in the wilderness, Pau Gasol has become a stalwart.  Yet, with all of this good fortune, the Bulls remain wracked by injuries, haunted by the ghost of a spurned coach, sunk into the fringes of playoff contention, and constantly mired in a never-ending saga of ludicrous intrigue that has made following this team an exhausting slog.

The Bulls are a professional basketball team that pays millions of dollars to find tall people to violently slam a basketball into a hoop more often than the other team of tall people and they are attempting to do this by going about their business like a coterie of Holy Roman burgraves making hushed midnight plans to assassinate someone with a poisonous reptile or otherwise disrupt the nuptials of the Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg to the daughter of a fossilized Spanish count.

Many mediocre teams play in the NBA.  The Bulls operate with operatic levels of dysfunction, backbiting, reporter-assisted character assassination, and Shakespearean press conference statements delivered from a windswept cliff imported to Chicago at great expense.

Reinsdorf's press release announcing the firing of coach Tom Thibodeau was unusually venomous

The Bulls front office has a history of feuding with coaches.  Jerry Krause drove off Phil Jackson and then hired Iowa State head coach Tim Floyd.  John Paxson literally attacked Vinny Del Negro over a dispute over Joakim Noah's minutes. 

Reenactment

The Bulls then fired Del Negro and hired Tom Thibodeau, a basketball monomaniac who spent most of his time screaming ICE at the top of his lungs at a slightly less frequent clip than Arnold Schwarzenegger in that terrible Batman movie.  Thibodeau built the Bulls into an East contender until Rose began tearing his knee ligaments on an annual basis.  Even without Rose, the Bulls had an enjoyable never-say-die team that remained a pain in the ass for the East.  The Thibs Bulls reached their zenith in the 2013 playoffs when Joakim Noah and a vomiting Nate Robinson led them past the Brooklyn Nets.  The Nets were so aghast that they traded away all of their drafts to bring in some aging veterans and now are left a smoldering wreck.  After that triumph, Thibodeau began to feud with the front office over minutes.  At one point last year, Adrian Wojnarowski reported that a Bulls' assistant coach had been using fans in his office to drown out conversations because he was worried the room had been bugged and he was apparently using the Moscow Rules.

Thibodeau was fired in order to hire another coach from Iowa State.  Fred Hoiberg's first season has not gone smoothly.  Hoiberg removed Joakim Noah from the starting rotation and claimed it was his idea.  Noah disagreed.  Jimmy Butler criticized Hoiberg in the press.  The Bulls' offense, which Hoiberg was supposed to revolutionize, has languished.  It's not fair to write off a rookie coach in his first half-season, but it appears possible that the only person who wasted more money in Iowa this century than Jerry Reinsdorf is Jeb Bush, he blogged almost topically.

Following a sports team is silly; following a sports team through the bizarre edifice of interviews, statements, leaks to beat reporters, bloviation by local sports radio bloviators and calls from and endless number of Stans from Glen Ellyn, blog posts attacking beat reporters for being allied with various configurations of agents and front office sources and the Soviet Union, and players cryptically tweeting emojis is so profoundly stupid that it is irresistible.  I suppose it is possible for a smarter and more well-adjusted fan to follow the Bulls without falling victim to the miniature tempests of dysfunction that infect everything the Bulls do, but I don't know how.

Storylines from the Bulls' thrilling season have included: is this the year Derrick Rose is back; is this Jimmy Butler's team; is Derrick Rose jealous of Jimmy Butler; Derrick Rose buys Jimmy Butler a watch; Noah is coming off the bench by request; Noah denies asking to come off the bench; who elbowed Derrick Rose in the face; when is Derrick Rose back; Jimmy criticizes Hoiberg publicly; is Derrick Rose the worst player in the NBA; does Hoiberg know the NBA rules; is Derrick Rose back now that he no longer has a mask; is this Jimmy Butler's team; is Niko Mirotic being operated on with Bulgakov instruments; Derrick Rose-- is he back.

Is Derrick Rose back

I have no idea how a sports front office works.  They control a multi-million dollar business based on the skills and health of a dozen players and a group of coaches and support staff. They are constantly assailed by thousands of fans who literally boo and cheer them and are covered by an absurd network of reporters, bloggers, television personalities, and interested amateurs who delve into the workings of the team with the tenacity of a Nicholas Cage character splitting the Declaration of Independence in half to reveal a Secret Declaration of Independence written in a code that can only be solved by stealing the Liberty Bell and aligning it with the moon on a secret panel hidden underneath Monticello. Yet, the Bulls have decided that they should be portrayed in the media as an organization that runs by smashing goblets against walls, by hurrying rumors out to the press by their swiftest courier, by publicly telling employees they have failed them for the last time and then paying them millions to go away only because it is not currently legal in the United States for basketball teams to operate trap doors that open into a bottomless pit.

The Bulls are no longer in contention for anything.  Joakim Noah is injured and has probably played his last game as a Bull.  Jimmy Butler hurt his knee and plans to return this season before inevitably succumbing to the endless cycle of back and not back.  Derrick Rose has become an albatross.  Niko Mirotic lies languishing on in a hospital.  Pau Gasol may or may not be traded in the next several hours.  Kirk Hinrich is now more compression sleeve than man.  The fate of the Bulls remains in the hands of their Brains Trust: John Paxson, the Latrell Sprewell of General Managers, and Gar Forman, a dead-eyed human iguana.  The Bulls may look radically different by the time you read this, but the endless Bulls soap opera will continue until a long-lost twin Derrick Rose with amnesia is discovered with two healthy knees and the picks the Bulls traded for Doug McDermott.

Northwestern 2016: This Is Our Concern, Dude

It is February, we've subjected ourselves to ritualistic rodent-bothering, and Northwestern athletics have sunk into a pit of despair.

The innovative camera-tophat gives viewers a livestream of groundhog manhandling

On New Year's Day, Northwestern took its 10-2 record and dominant defense to the Outback Bowl and got mercilessly trampled by Tennessee.  I've spent the last several weeks painstakingly editing the Outback Bowl footage to show exactly where the 'Cats went wrong with an in-depth look at Northwestern's football strategy:


In the end, Northwestern's defeat at the hands of the Volunteers looked identical to its previous two losses.  A tight defensive game gave way to a complete dismantling in the second half as the offense sputtered to a halt and turned the ball over repeatedly.  The 'Cats were unable to pull off another upset, and their bowl streak halted at one.

Despite the sour ending, this has been one of the greatest seasons in the history of Northwestern football.  The Wildcats, predicted to spend the season scrapping with with the likes of Purdue and Illinois in the dustbin of the Big Ten West, went 10-2, tortured opponents with a legitimately great defense, and, in classic Northwestern fashion, attempted to kill fans with a series of cliff-hanging wins.  These victories included an opening-day upset against one of the best teams in college football that involved turning Stanford's own body clocks against them, which, if you think of it, is the greatest defense of them all.  They also saw the return of Big Kick Jack Mitchell, a Legitimate Victory granted when referees disallowed an apparent game-winning Wisconsin touchdown catch because a catch is now an indefinable abstract concept determined only by communion with unholy forces beyond our comprehension, and a reclamation of the Hat from a listing Illini team in front of what appeared to be a dozen people at Soldier Field.  This is a glorious season.  Not every team gets to go home a happy bowl winner; in fact, a recent study shows that nearly half of all bowl participants lose their bowl games.

Next season, the Wildcats face Big Ten East powers Michigan State and Ohio State.  Their perfect record in close games will likely not repeat.  Pat Fitzgerald and the coaching staff will have to figure out how to replace Dean Lowry, Nick VanHoose, Deonte Gibson, Superback Dan Vitale, and other senior standouts.  At some point, Fitzgerald and Mick McCall will have to devise an offense besides Justin Jackson The Ball Carrier and his Merry Punting Brigade.  The playbook will hopefully expand as Clayton Thorson enters his second year under center; the Wildcats have enough talent returning on defense that even a mediocre offense could put a good scare into Big Ten opponents beyond the possibility of the deployment of a Spooky Tarp.

Northwestern should just lean into the gothic uniform and put unsettling 
images on the tarp so an opposing wide receivers will be startled and 
chilled in the crucial seconds before making a catch

Northwestern does not win ten games often.  It has happened only three other times.  Next year, The Wildcats will come into the season with higher expectations.  Hopefully, next season the 'Cats can keep the momentum going, securing the Hat, making a bowl game, and claiming adding another city to its expanding list of cities Northwestern is the Big Ten Team of.

NORTHWESTERN BASKETBALL IS AN EDVARD MUNCH PAINTING

This was supposed to be the year until it wasn't.  Everything had set up for Northwestern to make a run at the NCAA Tournament with an emerging young team and old Carmody stalwarts Tre Demps and Alex Olah.  Instead, the Dance dream ended before the season began with Vic Law's injury.  The 'Cats still flew out of the gate with a 12-1 record to enter Big Ten play, losing only to basketball superpower North Carolina.  The record, however, was deceptive in that many of the Wildcat's famous victories came against obscure teams that materialized at Welsh-Ryan arena, lost, then vanished into the night never to be heard from again.  Both big men, Olah and The Flying Dutchman Joey Van Zegeren, injured their feet and literally limped into Big Ten play.  Then, as the season threatened to fall apart entirely, Chris Collins unleashed The Pardoning on Nebraska.  In only his second college game, freshman Dererk Pardon, who had been slated to sit out the entire year, burned Lincoln to the ground with a 28-point 12-rebound performance. 

Nebraska is mercilessly Pardoned

Northwestern basketball inspired dreams of a long-awaited tournament berth that were quickly dashed by the Big Ten.  The Wildcats faced an unprecedented gauntlet of top-ranked teams who formed themselves into a single gigantic forward that dunked furiously on the entire city of Evanston. Though they annihilated Minnesota and beat a rebuilding Wisconsin team, the 'Cats have also been unceremoniously blown out by Maryland, Iowa, Indiana, and Michigan State in home and away venues.

At the very least, Northwestern is coming precariously close to developing a mini-rivalry with Maryland.  Though the Terps blew Northwestern off the court in Evanston, the 'Cats managed to take them to overtime in their College Park rematch.  In this second game, NU played strong defense and destroyed Maryland on the glass in order to drag them into a miserably unwatchable early-twenty-first-century Big Ten slopfest.  Last year, only a ridiculous tip-in buzzer beater from Dez Wells with no time remaining prevented the Wildcat upset.  I think we can work with this.  As the old college sports rivalry saying goes: "Nearly lose to Northwestern once, shame on you, nearly lose to Northwestern twice I will send away for an ACME Bob Diaco Rivalry-Starting Kit."

UCONN's Bob Diaco spent most of 2015 in a truly remarkable 
attempt to unilaterally create a rivalry with Central Florida 
by making his own trophy, creating a Beckman Clock, and 
persevering in the face of UCF not wanting to have anything 
to do with it before winning his own trophy back. "They [UCF] 
don't get to say whether they are our rival or not," Diaco said,
inadvertantly creating the first postmodern college 
football rivalry

Northwestern's already-gossamer tournament hopes are completely gone.  The chances for NIT qualification are vanishing with every clanged jumper.  On the other hand, the most terrifying stretch of the schedule has passed.  A few wins against teams that are not already tournament locks could give them enough momentum to sneak into the NIT or one of those sub-NIT tournaments where entry is granted only by reciting the password through a slotted door should Collins and the Wildcat brass deign to participate.

SUPER BOWL ANALYSIS

The Super Bowl arrives this Sunday and the entire beer-guzzling, nacho-hoovering, going on websites to see the unrated version of the commercial population of these United States is focusing on Denver's superstar quarterback.  And, with the lights on him, Chicago's Big Ten Quarterback Trevor Siemian is going to turn Super Bowl L into Super Bowl "El."

Siemian, who made his stunning debut against the Pittsburgh Steelers, has been described as the "Bronco's secret weapon" and "the linchpin of the Super Bowl" by Outlandish Pullquote magazine.  

Siemian calmly rallying the troops before organizing a critical half-ending kneeldown
  
Siemian had success as part of a two-quarterback system at Northwestern with Kain Colter.  Colter handled the option and the it's third and long and everyone in the solar system knows he is going to take off right here no one can stop it and he got the the fourth down against Ohio State I have several hinged videos about this on Youtube offense while Siemian threw passes.  Now, though, Siemian is in the NFL where two-quarterback systems are laughable anachronisms.  Instead, he is part of an innovative three-quarterback system.  Peyton Manning's job is to gesticulate for 39 seconds like a frustrated middle manager hell-bent on promotion before wobbling passes into the void.  Osweiler's job is to stand on the sidelines and use his height to shield manning from the sun.  Siemian's job is to instruct Manning on when to switch from Omaha to another Midwestern city in a move that will paralyze the Carolina defense in the same way that Rocky switched from right to left-handed against Apollo Creed in Rocky II.  Imagine the look on Luke Kuechly's face when Manning paces behind the line of scrimmage with his face scrunched up, pointing to the mike and key popcorn vendors with an unusual cadence that can screw up the snap count before looking Kuechly right in the eye and yelling ROLLA or DAVENPORT or OCONOMOWOC and then handing off to a running back with the Panthers on their heels.

Here's ace CBS analyst Phil Simms's breakdown of Siemian's game from his NFL debut:

@insidenu Trevor's NFL debut pic.twitter.com/RHs62GBi18

— Sports Godfather (@sportsgodfather) December 20, 2015

"WELL I KNOW THEY LIKE 'EEM," Simms says, "WELL OF COURSE THEY LIKE 'EEM THAT'S WHY HE'S THE BACKUP QUARTERBACK. BUT WE'VE BEEN OUT TO A FEW BRONCOS GAMES, I'VE WATCHED HIM PRACTICE, HE THROWS THE FOOTBALL VERY WELL."

As you can see Football Expert Phil Simms is pointing out that Siemian's got all the tools to succeed in the National Football League.  First of all, he's on the team, and, as Trent Dilfer has said "YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM TO SUCCEED IN THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE EITHER THROUGH THE DRAFT OR THE FREE AGENCY PROCESS IN THE [glances quickly down to his palm where he has discreetly written in marker] NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE."  Second, he throws the football.  There's some controversy over this lately, but according to advanced numbers, a quarterback has to throw the ball to help his team in this League that is National and Football.  Otherwise, quarterback is left with few options: to run and risk fumbles and injury, to lateral the ball to a nearby running back or offensive lineman while screaming "AAAAHHH YOU THROW IT" before scampering in the direction of the sideline, or to propel himself across the line of scrimmage by rigging up an illegal slingshot mechanism in the dead of night.  No, my misinformed friend, the quarterback needs to be able to the throw the ball and according to Phil Simms, Siemian throws it, and this is a direct quote from his months of painstaking Siemian analysis "very well."  Expect the Broncos to sign Colter this off-season and rig up an offense that will propel them into an NFL dynasty.

BATTLE OF THE DUDES

Nineteenth-century America was a rough-and-tumble time when an ordinary dude could not walk down the street without being forced to change into dandyish costume at a moment's notice.  At least, this is what happened in the "Battle of the Dudes" between Evander Berry Wall and Bob Hilliard.  The nineteenth-century dude differed from his contemporary counterpart; it referred to clotheshorses with elaborate costume, sartorial flourish, and, it goes without saying, impeccable mustaches.

Evander Berry Wall (l) and Robert Hilliard, whose ferocious dude battles 
terrorized New Yorkers who lived in constant fear of getting hit by a stray 
greatcoat flourish

Berry, who had already been crowned King of the Dudes in 1883, defended his title in 1888 in a newspaper-sponsored Battle of the Dudes.  I'll let a 2005 article from the New York Sun that unfortunately does not have any further sources that would let me fall down a dude rabbit hole explain:

Wall became famous after meeting Blakely Hall, a reporter hungry for good copy. Thereafter, every week or so, Hall's articles publicizing Wall's adventures in clothing appeared in newspapers across the country. Then one of Hall's competitors set up a rival, actor Robert "Bob" Hilliard, another flashy dresser. Thus began the Battle of the Dudes, in which each sought to eclipse the other in sartorial extremes. According to the Times, Wall finally won when, during the Great Blizzard of 1888, he strode into the Hoffman House bar clad in gleaming boots of black patent leather that went to his hips. (Nonetheless, some social historians claim Hilliard won with the high boots, supposedly part of his Western gambler's costume from a play in which he was then appearing).

Yet, some dispute this result, explained in this glorious Wikipedia sentence that I want as my epitaph: "Nevertheless, some historians still consider it was Hilliard who won that dude battle."

Wall, however, would not let his Dude Crown rest upon his head.  As the Sun article elaborates:

Wall won another contest in Saratoga when daredevil financier John "Bet-A-Million" Gates wagered that he could not wear 40 changes of clothes between breakfast and dinner. On the appointed day, Wall repeatedly appeared at the racetrack in one flashy ensemble after another until, exhausted but victorious, he at last entered the ballroom of the United States Hotel in faultless evening attire to wild applause.

The visual on this is astounding: Wall, flying to and from the racetrack changing his clothes like a panting off-stage Daffy Duck before crushing Bet-A-Million Gates with his splendor of his tuxedo.  Gates made his initial fortune in barbed wire, where, according once again to a brilliantly stilted Wikipedia editor, he "provoked cattle into charging into a barbed wire fence which did not break."
 
WALL: You mean I need forty combinations, each unique, 
                 each mesmerizing, each perfectly-tailored, tip-top-fashion, 
                 elegant, graceful, beguiling, all in the course of the single 
                 day my man?
GATES: That is our concern, dude.

CHEER UP, DUDES

Northwestern football ended its glorious season on a sour note.  Northwestern basketball has suffered a string of blowout losses during a brutal stretch of games against some of the best teams in the country.  Nevertheless, there is reason for optimism.  The basketball team is still very young and may have discovered an inside force with Pardon.  It is still possible for the 'Cats to catch fire at the end of the season, steal a tourney game or two, and make an unlikely run at the NIT.  The football team just received a bunch of faxes from teenagers who want to smash into people for Northwestern.  Trevor Siemian has a chance to win a Super Bowl ring.  And, should all else fail, and should the Wildcats fall short this spring and next fall, they can still win in the way that counts more than any other: by changing into 40 nineteenth-century gentleman's outfits in the course of a single day climaxing, of course, in the donning of a wearable Hat trophy, together we can do this.

OUTBACK BOWL PREVIEW

The ball will drop on 2015 and the curtain will  rise on a bowl sponsored by a dubiously Australian chain restaurant in stadium with a pirate ship.  The Outback Bowl pits a surprise 10-2 Northwestern team gunning for a record eleventh win, continuation of a storied bowl winning streak, and the coveted Crystal Boomerang.

Much like the #WEARABLEHAT campaign, this blog site endorses the 
#DETACHABLEBOOMERANG because you should be able to menace a group of Kangaroos, 
which Wikipedia tells me can be called a mob, a troop, or a court

The most disappointing thing about the Outback Bowl is not its exclusion from the mysterious New Year's Six grouping or its noon kickoff time in the Eastern time zone; it is the lack of absurd and bogus Australian trappings.  The Outback people should have the game announced by a perplexed Australian Rules Football broadcaster who spends the entire time making fun of the teams for wearing helmets and padding and unable, under the rules of football, to jump on each others' heads.  The chain gang should should be replaced by a pair of taxidermied kangaroo hands like in this classic Australian television program.

Skippy's tiny paws signal fourth and inches

BOWLS AND VENGEANCE

The 2016 Outback Bowl marks a return from a two-year bowl wilderness.  The Wildcats had managed to make five in a row, climaxing in the 2013 drought-snapping Gator Bowl that marked their first postseason win since 1949 and the savage demolition of a monkey stuffed animal, its head paraded to a press conference like it was a scene from Christopher Nolan's Curious George.  Now, the Wildcats not only return to bowl play but get a chance to exorcise the ghosts of Raymond James Stadium.

Five years ago, Northwestern played in its first Outback Bowl against Auburn. The opening kickoff shattered the space-time continuum and the rest of the game was played in an alternate dimension, one identical to our own world with the exception that football games become maelstroms of insanity.  Quarterback Mike Kafka was simultaneously the best and worst player in the game, in a performance that cannot be described with a literary reference.  He threw five interceptions but also scored five touchdowns.  His 47 completions (on 78 attempts! This would be remarkable, but remember this football game took place in an alternate dimension), 532 passing yards and also his five picks all set Outback Bowl records.  The 'Cats came back from 14 down twice in the second half and took to the game to overtime.  During overtime, Auburn hit a field goal.  As Northwestern attempted to tie it, kicker Stefan Demos was injured. Undaunted, the Wildcats lined up for another attempt as Fitz signaled in the the play, the World's Most Obvious Fake Field Goal.  It failed, Northwestern lost, and the hole in space-time sealed; no evidence of the game exists except for Kafka's Outback Bowl records and the existence of the 2010 direct-to-video Bulgarian Steven Seagal movie Born to Raise Hell.

According to an anonymous IMDB contributor, 
"Fueled with vengeance, he leads us on an action 
packed thrill ride while avenging his friend's death." 
If Northwestern and Auburn had played a normal 
football game in our dimension, Steven Seagal 
would have starred in a Bulgarian action movie called 
"Headbutt Mercenary" where a vengeance-fueled 
Seagal avenges his partner's death, vengefully

The 2010 Outback Bowl is somehow not the most insane way that Northwestern has lost a bowl game in the twenty-first century.

If the last Outback Bowl is not enough for you, then the Northwestern Wildcats have a bone to pick with the University of Tennessee.  They last met in the 1997 Citrus Bowl.  The '96 Cats repeated as Big Ten champions and returned Fitzgerald, Darnell Autrey, Steve Schnur, and many of the 1995 Rose Bowl mainstays.  The Volunteers had Peyton Manning, who went on to a glittering NFL career highlighted by several prominent commercials and getting to be on the same team as Trevor Siemian.  Manning strafed the vaunted Northwestern defense using his arm and the secret third eye hidden in his gigantic forehead, and Tennessee prevailed 48-28.  This is the only game these two teams have ever played so the stakes have never been higher; Knoxville-area Northwestern alumni are prepared to launch a "do you remember when you beat us eighteen years ago? No? Well, you did, and now we are even" parade at a moment's notice.

VOLUNTARISM

Tennessee football is a program on the rise.  They finished 8-4, with two losses to playoff powerhouses Oklahoma and Alabama.  They share with Northwestern a disdain for deceitful and unsporting passing offenses, ranking 98th in total passing yards to Northwestern's Roosevelt-era 122nd.

Northwestern's complex offense broken down

I have not watched a single second of Tennessee football this season and have no idea what to expect.  They have an excellent running back in Jalen Hurd, a quarterback who doesn't turn it over, and a good defense that will need to contain Justin Jackson from The Ball Carrying Northwestern into better punting position.  Though they are ranked below Northwestern, odds-makers favor them heavily over the Wildcats.  Northwestern has managed to bludgeon its opponents with its defense all season and eke out close wins.  The question is whether Anthony Walker, Dean Lowry, and the rest of the tackling horde can hold off the Vols even without injured star cornerback Nick VanHoose.  While the numbers people, the gambling community, and the general Knoxville area believes that Tennessee will win in a romp, there are several factors that can contribute to an Outback Bowl upset, according to the latest science.

The latest science

Clayton Thorson: Northwestern's freshman quarterback has not put up gaudy passing statistics this year, but he does have one thing that can tilt the game in Northwestern's favor-- the ability to take off on ungainly gallumphing runs that freeze opponents in disbelief at their majesty.  Here's how Northwestern media guides describe Thorson's runs:

The Thorson was sprinting down the High Street. He was running so fast his black cloak was streaming out behind him like the wings of a bird. Each stride he took was as long as a tennis court. Out of the village he ran, and soon they were racing across the moonlit fields. The hedges dividing the fields were no problem to the Thorson. He simply strode over them. A Purdue defense appeared in his path. He crossed it in one flying stride.

Big Kick Jack Mitchell

The Annexation of Tampa: Northwestern has declared itself Tampa's Big Ten Team, thus securing home field advantage, according to the age-old NCAA rule "Whatever Team first declares itself the Official Big Ten Team of that City, Village, Dwelling, or Post-Apocalyptic Thunderdome-adjecent Settlement becomes the Home Team for the Football Contest by proclaiming it on a Bus.  All otherwise-unaffiliated Residents of said City must comply with the Home Team Advantage for the duration of the Bowl-Game under penalty of Chop Block. This is the Law, we can really enforce this."

Northwestern unilaterally declaring itself the official Big Ten Team of a variety of indifferent 
cities is the greatest marketing gimmick of all time that would only be better if it were done 
by a cape-wearing administrator and his or her retinue of trumpeters and parchment-holders

An Unorthodox Travel Route to Tampa: Traveling west, across the continent, crossing the Pacific, taking the Trans-Siberian railway from Vladivostok to Moscow and continuing across Europe and finally sailing across the Atlantic, rounding Florida to the Gulf of Mexico and into Tampa Bay, the Northwestern Wildcats mitigate the ruination of their body clocks.

General Northwestern Bowl Insanity: Northwestern does not play football in bowl games.  Instead, the team agonizes through a series of trials, calamities, and triumphs that I am currently selling as a Young Adult book trilogy called The Onsiders: A Sun Bowl Novel.  The 2010 Outback Bowl is just one small example the chaos-laden world that a Northwestern bowl game thrusts fans into.  By the end of the game, it is entirely possible that the game has, against all predictions, turned into a shootout, that the pirate ship has become fully operational and in the throes of a mutiny, that Pat Fitzgerald is pumping his fists at another Fitzgerald that is wearing an eye patch, or that Northwestern may even somehow win eleven games.

I SAID G'DAY

The Outback Bowl is the culmination of one the greatest seasons in the history of Northwestern football.  The Wildcats can, with a win, win two consecutive bowl games for the first time, win eleven games for the first time, win the Outback bowl for the first time, beat Tennessee for the first time, and win a bowl game without severing the head of a plush monkey doll for the first time since 1949.  This has been a season of outrageous fortune, reversing two years of seeming to be on the end of every bad break and bounce possible to continually seize close wins.  Perhaps it is possible that the 'Cats can pull out one more in 2016, hoisting that crystal boomerang to the sky, and putting it in its rightful place next to the Hat. 

WELCOME HOME, HAT

 at!  The Hat has returned to its rightful place in Evanston after the Northwestern Wildcats managed to pry it from the heads of the Illini.  Last year, a miserable debacle, the Hat game to end all Hat games with an appropriately miserable bowl berth on the line, the Illini won.  Northwestern turned the ball over four consecutive times and Northwestern's Hat-Nemesis Tim Beck Man stood in Ryan Field cackling as his three-year reign of madness in Champaign finally culminated in him hoisting the Land of Lincoln trophy to a horrified purple throng.  "Look upon this Hat," he bellowed defiantly.  "This justifies my ludicrous three year anti-Northwestern campaign.  This is normal! This is normal!"

In the year since, things have changed.  Tim Beckman became Shit Canman.  Bill Cubit, toiling as interim, took over the Illinois program in perpetuity, the Cubit name guaranteed to ring across Illini football for two entire years.  Northwestern rode a spectacular defense, a running game led by Justin Jackson-TheBallCarrier, and the sane and rational decisions of referees to a 10-2 record, a national ranking, and a bowl game.

Clayton Thorson came out firing in the first half as the 'Cats scored three touchdowns.  It appeared as though the Wildcats had spent the entire season refusing to throw before unveiling the Trojan Pass in the crucial Hat Game.  In the second half, though, Pat Fitzgerald and Mick McCall turned to their innovative Run 'n Punt offense, relying on Jackson The Ball Carrier to Carry The Ball while the defense took over.  All-Big Ten linebacker Anthony Walker terrorized the Illini backfield and the Wildcat secondary kept the passing game in check.  They were helped out by Illinois receivers who dropped an almost unfathomable number of balls-- Illinois quarterback Wes Lunt had a much better day than the box score indicates.  No sequence better sums up the snake-bitten Illini than their effective drive to a fourth-and-one near the Northwestern goal line.  The Illini lined up to go for it, then false-started.  Down ten, Cubit decided to kick a chip-shot field goal which then shanked wide right.  This series of plays will be displayed in the Van Pelt Museum of Football Cruelty.

HAT IS GREAT. ALL HAIL HAT

Illinois fans seem disappointed with the Bill Cubit contract.  Cubit was certainly not one of the marquee names changing jobs during this Flight Aware season.  On the other hand, Cubit presents a few advantages to the University of Illinois:

1. Players seem to like him and he has weathered the storm of general administrative tumult.
2. Probably believes in hamstring injuries.

Illinois's interim athletic director seems less than excited about the hire.  Here is what Paul Kowalczyk has to say about Cubit:

"Obviously, it's not ideal but for now, I don't think it'll put a dagger in the heart of the program."

 
I am not an athletic director.  But I am fairly sure that is not a ringing endorsement.  And I am also sure that you should use the phrase "dagger in the heart" unless your profession involves antechambers.

It is disappointing to see Illinois fans disillusioned about their football program, even if the schools are sworn enemies forever destined to clash as foretold by Beckman's Clock.  There would be nothing more satisfying than seeing a Hat Game have actual consequences in the Big Ten West.  There would be nothing more exciting than seeing ESPN College Game Day come to a Northwestern/Illinois game not because it is an embarrassing one-endzone baseball stadium sideshow novelty act, but because the winner would be going to Indianapolis.

Both Northwestern and Illinois have had great seasons this decade, just never at the same time.  The Northwestern/Illinois rivalry is in that way like a seesaw, although most of the time it is more like a rotting plank of wood moldering in a dirt patch four feet from a rusted seesaw mechanism.  Yes the teams compete for recruits, for media coverage, and in a grimly farcical branding war futilely focused on the Chicago market that climaxed in Saturday's game at a well-nigh empty Solider Field.

But, in the larger Big Ten, both are traditionally moribund programs overshadowed by the conference's Football Brands that expect to effortlessly plod through them on their way to yet another Rose Bowl.  Despite the in-state rivalry, Northwestern and Illinois remain bound together in Big Ten also-ran solidarity.
 
HATCHAT SIDEBAR

Northwestern's stirring victory over the Illini not only gave them bragging rights in America's Greatest College Football Rivalry, but it also gave them America's Greatest Rivalry Trophy, the Land of Lincoln Hat.  But there is one thing about the Hat trophy that has bothered me and that is this: the Hat is permanently attached to the base and it cannot be worn.

Take a behind-the-scenes look at our locker room celebration after we reclaimed the Land of Lincoln Trophy. #B1GCats https://t.co/cSaz4SPUeK

— #B1GCats Football (@NUFBFamily) December 1, 2015

Look this Wildcat sadly attempt to mime wearing the Hat.  He cannot.  There is a base in its way.  This is madness.  The Hat should be removed from its base and worn triumphantly upon the victorious heads of the hat-winners, not reduced to a grotesque locker-room burlesque.

Abraham Lincoln did not travel through Illinois carrying his hat on a trophy base.  That would be ludicrous.  The Lincoln-Douglas debates would have never helped publicize Lincoln enough to take Democratic nomination in 1860 because no one would consider voting for a hat-carrying maniac. 

LINCOLN: That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of 
                     Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these 
                     two principles—right and wrong—throughout the world.
DOUGLAS: Why do you carry around your hat on a base instead of wearing it on your head?
LINCOLN: At this time of strife and division, you wish to discuss my hat?
DOUGLAS: Your hat practices are discomfiting and peculiar.
ANGRY BYSTANDER:  Answer the question, Lincoln!
ANGRIER BYSTANDER: Go back to Kentucky, you hat-carrying scarecrow!

I urge you to write school administrators and your representatives about this travesty and to engage in pointless hashtag activism about this by tweeting #WEARABLEHAT at all involved parties.  I plan to publish a 3,000 page screed about this in a new screed format I have invented called the monomaniagraph. Together, we can unite and probably amuse ourselves for nearly 45 minutes.

BOWL POSITION: DANGER ZONE

By Monday, Northwestern will know its bowl fate.  The Playoff Committee awaits the results of Lucrative Conference Championship games.  The bowls begin their dance of selecting teams by trying to land the biggest Brand Teams allowed by their slotting.  The combination of bowl selection and playoff rankings have made this a week for the brandishing of advanced statistics, complex transitive property arguments, and the traditional claims that teams ain't played no one.  It's Recrimination Week.  Northwestern, for once, is in the middle of this because they are jockeying for a more prestigious bowl game and higher rankings.  This is exciting because it implies a small amount of relevance for Northwestern's football program and also because it is fun to complain about things on the internet and make snide remarks about body clocks.

Of course, bowl positioning does not really matter.  The entire hierarchy of bowl games after the playoffs is a meaningless system where older bowl games that have names that appended by ridiculous sponsors rank higher than games that are named completely by their ridiculous sponsors; thus, the Gator Bowl (now known as the TaxSlayer.com Bowl) is more prestigious than the GoDaddy Bowl, the Quick Lane Bowl or the arrestingly bellicose Armed Forces Bowl.
 
The Beef O'Brady's Bowl, played at the decrepit Tropicana Field, was such a perfect shitty 
bowl game name that it burned out like a glorious comet.  Then, it metamorphosed into the 
BitCoin Bowl, which was somehow even more ridiculous before settling into the 
disappointingly stolid St. Petersburg bowl.  I have pledged $45.00 in naming rights for the 
bowl to be called the Bringyourchampionstheyreourmeat.blogspot.com St. Petersburg Bowl. 
If you are a representative of the St. Petersburg Bowl, please contact me and let me know 
when to fly down a present the trophy.

The hierarchy of bowl games is, I suppose, a way to differentiate the bowl games that have multiplied across the nation.  This year, there are more so many bowl games that there are not enough teams that have reached the magical 6-6 threshold of Bowl Eligibility to play.  Therefore, 5-7 teams will receive invitations, in order of Brand Status.  This means that Illinois, despite dashing itself upon the rocks of Northwestern's defense for four quarters last Saturday can still go to a bowl (and I hope they are selected).  Nebraska, America's most prominent 5-7 team, will almost certainly receive one.  At this point, matchups and rankings and hierarchy are all that separate the bowls until the NCAA decides to thrust all of the non-playoff teams into a giant fishbowl and select bowl matchups by lot.

This is not a time to become stressed about Northwestern's ranking or bowl positioning.  The Wildcats have won ten games and they are ranked and I am still sort of dreading a flood of hail marys that will somehow take them all away.

NORTHWESTERN SEASON IN REVIEW

Northwestern has finished off a season of the impossible.  In the past two years, the Wildcats won ten games combined, and lost in mind-bogglingly improbable ways.  In two games, Northwestern fell victim to passes bouncing off a defenders hands at the last possible second.  In one game, they lost to a field goal team that successfully assembled itself like they were in aBuster Keaton movie.  They lost in overtime and they lost in the final seconds of regulation attempting to prevent overtime when the quarterback fell on his buttocks.  They literally lost to Tim Beckman. 

This season, the Wildcats went an astonishing 8-0 in games decided by a ten points or fewer and every one of those weird breaks fell their way.  This season, Northwestern managed to stop the tying conversion.  This season, the winning field goal went through the uprights.  This season, the referees took an apparent game-winning touchdown off the board because the whimsical hands of fate have decided that Northwestern should have that win fair and square by redefining what the terms fair and square mean.  This year, the Wildcats got the Hat.

Northwestern won with ugly football.  They unleashed a defense rivaled only by the 1995 team and seemed content to score only as many points were necessary, as if by winning by more than the bare minimum would trigger a loss through an innovative Price is Right scoring system.
 
Coming this spring to Big Ten Network, contestants bid on Rotel, extra-large men's pants, 
and luxury vacations to Indianapolis

Fitzgerald and McCall were content this year to let Justin Jackson ball carrier at people until they got within scoring range.  If not, they were happy to punt and let the defense back onto the field.  Every once in awhile, Thorson would find a receiver or, more excitingly, find a lane to gallop down the field with gangly strides through a baffled defense.  This offensive approach was effective, but also kept Northwestern's games within terrifying range of Northwestern events at all times.  Wildcat football is not often going to roll into a Big Ten stadium and demolish the opposition, and good seasons thrive on plays designed for wild swings of fortune.  The head football coach doubles as the endowed Dr. Ray Arnold Chair in Butt-Holding. 

It is possible to look at the Wildcats' numerous escapes this season and see their record as dependent on luck.  Advanced statistics appear to think the Wildcats have wildly overachieved.  But college football is itself an anarchic scrum relying on young people, the bounce of an oblong ball, BODY CLOCKS, weather conditions, referees deciding on increasingly arbitrary and obscure definitions of a catch, and a host of a zillion other things that wreak havoc on a twelve-game sample.  No teams, not even the championship-caliber, coach-firing, juggernaut nightmare teams win all their games without weird bounces and luck.  Northwestern not only played lockdown defense and had an effective running game, it also enjoyed the favor of the football chaos deities for once.  They won ten games, went 6-1 at home (and 1-0 at Chicago's Big Ten Neutral Stadium), and will finish the season ranked and in a prominent bowl game.  And our reward is to get to watch them one more time without the pressure of a bowl drought that originated in the Truman administration.  Most importantly, we have The Hat.

Week 13: The Sound Decisions of Learned Referees

Winter arrived last weekend in Madison.  The northern winds swept ice and snow across the Midwest and buffeted the stadium with freezing air and football misery.  It is as if Jim Delany, sitting comfortably in his LeaderLegend Big Ten Command Center flipped the switch from "football" to "Big Ten football" all the way up to "Ludicrously Big Ten football" and a torrent of sleet and cold and inability to pass the football like it was 1944 and we needed to send all our forward passes to the front and the Big Ten chaos referees all flooded into the stadium while the Big Ten Network beamed the debacle to dozens of American homes.  And, in the end, the Wildcats came away with a 13-7 victory, their ninth of season, and a chance to make it a 10-win Hat season. 

Both defenses played heroically.  Wisconsin's held even as the offense refused to hold onto the ball.  The Badgers turned the ball over five times; Wildcats continued to bedevil quarterback Joel Stave, who threw two picks and fumbled.  Tanner McEvoy, who threw an interception as a quarterback last year and now has become a receiver, fumbled as well.  Yet, time after time, the Badger defense held in their own end of the field as the Wildcats stalled out and missed field goals.  After an early pick led to a Northwestern touchdown, the coaches decided to run the Besieged Citadel offense.  Justin Jackson's 139 rushing yards accounted for about two-thirds of their entire output.
 
The Wildcats' play calling was so conservative that they only ran packages called "The 
Bourbon Restoration"

But the entire game was overshadowed by referee decisions. 

CALL ONE: THE RETURNER'S PREVARICATION


With the third quarter winding down, Northwestern had satisfactorily run into the Wisconsin enough times to get in punting position.  Badger receiver Alex Erickson caught the punt, shrugged off two Northwestern tackles, and weaved his way into the endzone to put Wisconsin up as Camp Randall erupted.  OR DID HE?  As the punt bounced its way towards him, Erickson signaled for his teammates to clear out.  As the referees later explained, Erickson's attempt to move the ball was an act of deception, of grave duplicity where he would signal a fair catch-- when the fair catch becomes not fair at all.  There is some precedent here.  Two weeks before, a Penn State returner had clearly made a fair catch signal then advanced the ball in an act of fair-catch signal derring-do that the officials ignored.  An apoplectic Fitzgerald charged onto the field,  his head so red that he resembled a human matchstick.  This time, the ball was handed back to an incredulous offense with six points removed.  The Badgers could do nothing and punted.

As a Northwestern fan, I applaud the officials for their enforcement of clear, well-known rules against that rogue Alex Erickson.  If Erickson wanted to make sure he got credit for his touchdown, he should have gone to the Memorial Library, requested a book from off-site storage entitled "Approved Football Gestures," and studied up on it instead of deceiving the Wildcats and preventing them from ineffectively attempting to tackle him.  I will quote here from the NCAA rule book:

VERDICT: THEY GOT IT RIGHT

CALL TWO: THE POSTMODERN CATCH


With less than a minute remaining, the maligned Stave drove Wisconsin down the field.  Tight End Troy Fumagalli appeared to score the winning touchdown.  Instead, his knee was ruled down at the one subatomic molecule line.  On the next play, Stave appeared to have hit Jazz Peavy for the winning touchdown.  Peavy caught the ball, ran several steps, and then bobbled the ball as he fell out of the endzone.  After a lengthy review, the referees determined that every Wisconsin football player has an incredible name.  Then they lit up a few Gauloises cigarettes, consulted their Derrida, determined that it is impossible to determine what a "catch" is anyway, and ripped away the winning score.  On the next play, Stave was sacked and knocked out of the game.  Backup quarterback Bart Houston entered the field through swinging saloon doors and tossed an incompletion aimed at McEvoy. 

While Peavy appeared to snag the ball and possess it for several steps, the rules are clear.  Peavy may have caught the ball, stopped, filled in the proper catch paperwork (the Transfer of Football from Quarterback to Receiver is available as a PDF on the NCAA website), but failed to get it properly notarized before falling out of bounds.  This unfortunate oversight on the part of the Wisconsin coaching staff cost them dearly, but is clearly stated in the rules.

VERDICT: NORTHWESTERN WINS YOW YOW YOW YOW YOW YOW

The sloppy pace of the game and the numerous sound and rational refeeeing decisions left a small but rowdy group of Badger fans with no recourse but to pelt their own cheerleaders, officials, and Northwestern players with snowballs.  It was a difficult loss on senior day, particularly for Stave, who thought he had rallied his team to victory twice.  Northwestern had numerous opportunities to extend the lead to the point where the referees would have no part in it, but the Wisconsin defense and the Wildcats' ultra-conservative play calling kept it close.  Northwestern fans in the stands had no idea how they won.  Pat Fitzgerald was delightedly perplexed.  And the Wildcats canceled their bus service back to Evanston so they could ride back in rum-running getaway cars.

HAT HAT HAT HAT HAT HAT HAT HAT

The Hat Game is upon us!  This blog has already covered hat-lore in Thirty Days: Hat November, An Oral History of the Northwestern-Illinois Game at length.  Last year, the Hat Game reached its apotheosis as it became a bowl eligibility game.  With the Beck Man at the height of his powers and Northwestern desperate to salvage a miserable season, it is hard to imagine a more perfect Hat Game scenario than as the Golden Ticket to what turned out to be the Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl against a superior Conference USA team.

This year, the teams have gone in opposite directions.  Northwestern has powered its way to a 9-2 record.  The Illini are reeling.  They fired Beck Man eight days before the season and released a 1,200-page report that depicts him as Will Ferrell's impression of George W. Bush.  After making fun of Beckman's absurd anti-Northwestern crusade for the past three years, many of his actual, real life behaviors turned out to be something like 15 percent less insane than this nonsense blog that claimed that he had an anti-Northwestern command center and crafting shed where he built shoddy replica Willies to set on fire and assault first-year players during Illini training camp.
 
There's no evidence that this is Beckman's car, but the man has crossed into the Beck Man 
Valley, where no piece of ludicrous anti-Northwestern activity can be ruled out unless 
specifically mentioned by a 1,200-page report.

The University of Illinois is also in turmoil.  The university sports an Interim Chancellor, an Interim Athletic Director, and an Interim Football Coach; the game will be played at Soldier Field, making this an Illini Interim Home Game.  Bill Cubit is playing for more than just a Hat.  He hopes a win and a bowl game will keep him in Champaign-Urbana for a long time.  It is hard to root against the Illini this season as the team has fought through the disorder, and Cubit's Northwestern-related pronouncements remain within the bounds of normal football person behavior.

What happens to the Illinois-Northwestern rivalry now?  I've noted earlier that the intensity of the Hat Game developed as a rivalry not between the two schools but between Northwestern and Tim Beckman himself.  Without the Beck Man and his avant-garde dada interpretation of football rivalry, can the Greatest Rivalry in College Football persevere?  The Illini, like Northwestern, are a historically moribund team often left for dead by the Big Ten Football Brands, all of whom are insufferable.  Nevertheless, it is important to soldier on and remember that, no matter how well the Illini have coped through a tumultuous season, they have The Hat.  That is no way to live.
 
After last year's debacle, Northwestern has hired its Assistant Dean of 
Procuring Rivalry Trophies By Any Means Necessary

So, it is with a heavy heart and with all respect to our friends at That School South of What Beckman Called The School Up North, I say: 

Give us that hat, Cube Man.
Give us that hat back.
Want that Hat.
Hat Hat Hat

Hat.