When Northwestern lost at Michigan, it was easier to say that the Wildcats simply ran into a better team. When Northwestern got blown out at home by Iowa, the people of Evanston, Illinois, had to wonder if this season would spiral out of control.
On Saturday afternoon, head coach Pat Fitzgerald’s team moved in the right direction.
Northwestern escaped Lincoln with a 30-28 win over the Cornhuskers to right the sinking ship that was the last two weeks of its season. After being outscored 78-10 in those two weeks, the Wildcats put up 30 points and successfully defended a two-point conversion in the fourth quarter before controlling the clock in the final minutes to seal the win.
The win puts the Wildcats in a good spot for the rest of the season. Northwestern sits 6-2 and will have more than a puncher’s chance to run the table the rest of the way (versus Penn State and Purdue, at Wisconsin and Illinois). The biggest benefactor of all this is Fitzgerald. After the last few years, the team’s attempt to unionize, and a pair of 5-7 seasons, a winning year was a must.
The Wildcats rebounded from two small deficits to pick up the win on Saturday. They weren’t spectacular, but the team — specifically Clayton Thorson — did all the little things to win. After a terrible stretch of games in terms of ball control, the Wildcats didn’t turn the ball over and managed to pick off Nebraska’s Tommy Armstrong once. Nick VanHoose took the pick back for a touchdown.
Thorson looked a lot more impressive than he had in previous weeks, passing for 177 yards and rushing for 126. He accounted for both of Northwestern’s offensive touchdowns, a rushing score in the first quarter and a passing touchdown to Dan Vitale in the fourth. Unless Iowa has a total collapse, the Wildcats have no shot of winning the Big Ten West, but rebounding with a gritty road win is a step towards finishing the season as successfully as it started.
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On the other sideline, Nebraska took another loss right on the chin. All five of the Cornhuskers’ losses have come by a combined 13 points. The team isn’t lacking for talent, but the Huskers, yet again, couldn’t finish a game. Tommy Armstrong had another good day with 304 all-purpose yards and three scores, but the pick-six was a gut punch. The Huskers had seven more first downs, and ran 30 more offensive plays, than Northwestern did. The result still wasn’t there.
With games still against Michigan State and Iowa (although both are in Lincoln), it’s hard to think that Nebraska will be able to salvage a winning, or even .500, season. The last time the Huskers didn’t go to a bowl was 2007, Bill Callahan’s last year at the helm.
As the seconds ticked off the clock, the emotion from Lincoln bled through the television screen: dejected apathy. There was no booing or screaming. There was just a silent malaise that echoed across the stadium and was transmitted across the country.
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The month of November looks full of promise for Northwestern. The month of November looks like a continued descent into mediocrity in Nebraska. Mike Riley has shown that he can succeed on the sideline: He went 93-80 at Oregon State and won a pair of Grey Cups with Winnipeg, but nothing is falling his way in Lincoln. He has the ability to turn it around, but the Nebraska fan base, the same one that pushed out Bo Pelini, might not give him the time to do it.
