Freaky Friday

As Chicagoans seek an ark in the wake of seemingly never-ending rain, it appears gameday tomorrow will be a balmy, rain-free 50-degree day with substantial winds (estimated 20mph). You've got to figure strong winds favor both ground game (edge Penn State) and dink/dunk passing (Northwestern). It also may neutralize the deep ball threat (helps NU on D). There are all sorts of last-minute nuggets of NU-ness heading in to tomorrow's Penn State match-up. Despite the home of NU homerism, more than half of you (at the time of post) believe NU will lose by more than 14 points (the spread). A quarter of you believe it will be Halloween magic. Perhaps Penn State will be distracted by their "fat little girlfriends". Let's get in to some Friday must-reads:

Link-Worthy

• ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg offers up a multi-part Pat Fitzgerald feature here and dives in to Fitz's take on the Paterno-like Fitz possibilities.
• Part II of Rittenberg's interview with Fitz and as you can see he doesn't care so much about LTP's disappointment in the season to date. Stay the course and read all the way through. Click here.
• Aaron Morse offer's up this curriculum suggestion on History of NU Football. LTP would be happy to join the guest lecture circuit. See here.
• You may want to close your eyes on this one, but check out the North By Northwest photo of some purple streakers getting arrested on campus! Hilarious! If we only had 25,000 more just like them, tomorrow night would be quite the scene.
• Zombie Nation has a decent game preview here, but makes a mistake about Brendan Smith getting knocked out last week (he meant McManis). His attendance prediction is a tad harsh. Although, I've got it at 30,000.
• The staff at Black Shoe Diaries is calling for a slaughter, so hopefully Fitz can use these as bulletin board material. Add my 41-20 prediction to the mix. As I say whenever I predict a "loss", I love to be wrong. I'm 6-2 on the season, straight-up.

Stats To Stew On:

"3" - The number of Big Ten Titles both Northwestern and Penn State have since the Nittany Lions joined the Big Ten in 1993.

"6" - The number of straight games lost by Northwestern on Halloween, with the last being against Michigan State in 1998.

Going NUMB on Halloween:
Brittany Petersen serves up her usual marching band preview here:
Mid-season tends to be the toughest time for NUMB, given midterms, weather (you know you're in trouble when your mouthpiece freezes to your face), and the fact that adrenaline is starting to run a bit low. Plus, NUMB had one week -- ONE WEEK -- turnaround time to learn an entirely new show. Luckily for NUMB, this week's Halloween game day has provided some direction, and everyone seems really excited. After all, on a game held on Halloween, how can you not have a little fun?

For their halftime show, NUMB will be busting out a stands favorite called "Frankenstein," which was arranged by a NUMBALUM, as well as the epic "Night on Bald Mountain" (from Fantasia) and Michael Jackson's "Thriller," which has also made an appearance or two on the stands tune list this year. The only thing that could make this show more awesome would be a Glenn Opie cameo.

Have a wonderful Halloween weekend, and without giving anything away, let's just say that while NUMB perhaps can't moonwalk, MJ is sure to be proud of their performance tomorrow.