Just to clarify, we’ll occupy the west sideline only in the second half. The teams will switch at halftime. I still consider this an advantage, especially since the first drive is usually scripted.

One thing about the “westward ho!” rules that I haven’t heard discussed is the fact that most of the game will now be played on the sodded-over infield, possibly causing bad footing for the players. Isn’t that just as unsafe as a brick wall? Or possibly more so, because you can avoid a wall, but it’s hard to avoid the field.

Oh well. (another deep subject)

Go ‘Cats!

GameDay signs I’ve seen on the air so far:

“Northwestern
95% Graduation Rate
100% Ownership of Iowa”

“Hey Corso, show us your Willie!”

“Ron Zook: Coming soon to your nearest retirement home”

“Dan Persa 4 Heisman 2011”

Looking forward for more when I can actually run GameDay on the next hour.

Most disappointing sign:

Fire Demos

Not sure if anyone outside the program or fan base will get this, but why be a hater?

Best Sign:

I have to go with the 100% ownership of Iowa that was featured on this site.

I also liked the “Keep Zook” in purple. Nice.

Nice GO U/NU chant going on now. Nice feature on the band too on the ESPNU pregame show.

Erin Andrews is beautiful, but she is horrible on camera. Historical? Really? Gotta love her purple coat though.

LOTS of purple, but nothing compared to some of the Gameday mobs I’ve seen in other weeks.

LOVED the opening montage/tribute to Wrigley and the final shot of the Cats entering the field at Ryan field.

I take it back. My FAVORITE sign is the Fitz for Prez sign with the Land of Lincoln trophy on his head and a Lincoln beard on his chin.

As long as Purdue has Kerrigan, you have a chance in any game just due to your defensive strength.

As for us, we’ll need all the help we can get. Illinois’ offense has been quite prolific, and we don’t have that great a rush defense, so this is a bad matchup for us on paper.

We’ll need our offense to gel quickly if it comes to a shootout, which is tough to imagine, so right now the only way I see us winning this game is if we hold Illinois to only 3 TDs. That’s a really tall order.

“How about the powder puff pink visitors’ quarters in Iowa City?”

Doesn’t Gameday have to bother going to Iowa first?

There was no doubt that Corso was going with Illinois — and he made a point of picking Wisconsin over NU next week. Guy loves to stir the pot.

Yep, it was pretty much all positive about Northwestern and Fitz especially. Hopefully, this can be part of a nice video montage which culminates in Corso putting on the Illini helmet and then highlights of Northwestern whooping up on them.

Whole team looks jittery. Hopefully it passes, and they play more smoothly, but we can’t dig too big of a hole for Watkins.

This game is just exposing how important Persa was to the offense, no idea what happened to the defense though.

I would guess 70-30 at worst for purple.

Yeah vaudvillain, thankfully our defense came alive in the second quarter to hold them to two made FGs.

And Watkins is making quicker reads; he looks more comfortable. We still can’t use him to run which is a problem, but we’ve gotten a lot of breaks to be in this game at this point.

Hopefully, we come out fast in the 2nd half, maybe since we came out slow this game as opposed to the rest, we’ll do the opposite in the second half unlike previous games…

Ouch. Our run D looked kinda like it did against Penn State. Mikel LeShoure just ran all over us, and our O never found a rhythm.

@Zeek-

I’d say the Wrigley, was about 33% purple, 33% orange, and 33% neutral from my viewing of the game on ESPNU… Agreed, it was positive this was not the main event on ESPN/ABC and NU was reminded of the lesson we have learned via multiple bowls dating back to 95, in regards to visibility, exposure, and publicity, “Be careful what you wish for”… Disappointing, to get gashed like they did in the second half, and the fact, the “O” pretty much got stoned as well… Thought, we had taken Illinois’ best shot in the first half… Caved like a house of Cards, or moreover, The Cubs in the playoffs… Let’s not forget, Papa Bear Halas was an Illini, and if NU wanted to shake down the thunder as it were, might have shook down the wrong echoes from one of the Mount Rushmore of Football…

Net/net, they had better get some rushing “D” quick or Bucky might put up 80+, and Watkins, needs his reps to have a chance at making a bowl game win a reality… That from the get-go, was the main objective for the season… Still, plenty to play for on that level…

Let’s hope this publicity stunt is one and done, and the next time we play Illinois at home, will be at Ryan Field… The Home, of The Northwestern Wildcats, be it Dyche or Ryan….

That was embarrassing.

It appears not only that our defense has little heart, but that we decided not to change the offensive gameplan one bit to adjust for the loss of Persa. Really a bad effort from all involved.

If I weren’t from Wisconsin, I really would not be looking forward to next week in Camp Randall.

This was really tough to watch. While I expected some issues with the offense, I didn’t expect the defense to get crushed by the run. This does not bode well for Wisconsin. However, I do not expect the Wildcats to just roll over next week. If the Cats can play a full 60 minutes, they can have a shot. But a repeat of tonight would be ugly.

Go Cats!

In terms of the pregame atmosphere, the visit to Wrigley Field was electric, but so was the night game against Purdue. The results were the same, but today’s loss to Illinois stung a little less because we were opposing a better team (Illinois is a middle of the road program now) while we were missing our star quarterback. Illinois had much more to play for. I think Northwestern played too conservatively on offense and that may have made the difference. We saw some thrilling plays, but did not secure the “W.”

From a marketing standpoint the game was another public relations success, but I wonder if the Wildcat players struggled with all of the pregame hype? Nonetheless, I was really glad to be there despite my displeasure with the final results on the scoreboard and my annoyance that so many Pumpkinheads were able to secure tickets. It was a Purple majority, but the margins were not as great as I would have liked. The scalpers must have obtained some tickets somewhere as Illinois seemed to be well over its customary visiting team allotment. Our entire group of ten was composed entirely of NU fans. Other people must have resold their tickets.

Our upperdeck seats were good. We studied the diagram which was available online and purchased seats based upon the view of the gridiron, not the highest available ticket price since a good baseball seat does not always equal a good football seat. The decision to make all of the offensive plays in the direction of the West end zone actually helped us see more of the action, but we had good views of the entire field.

Some trickeration from the Illini backfired and Peters proved to the student section that the East end zone was still in play. I was really surprised at this gift pick six since the Illinois player could have easily eaten the ball and taken a sack rather than putting the ball up for grabs.

A final comment on the East end zone and player safety: At the end of the day, the conference probably made the correct call. My objection was to the timing of the decision which seemed to be a reaction to a media manufactured controversy (the Chicago Bears played at Wrigley for decades with short end zones) in that the way that it was handled created a distraction that everyone could have done without. Jim Delany or his staff should have had this straightened out weeks ago. By the way, how is that no similar controversy attended the Emerald Bowl? That game is also played on a baseball diamond with tight dimensions.

What was most discouraging is that Northwestern started the game so slowly on defense and Illinois managed to put points on the board without being seriously challenged. If not for the timely interception returned for a touchdown, it would not been much of a contest. After this play, Northwestern gained some momentum and made the game interesting for a time.

I was surprised at the inability of Northwestern to finish tackles as Illinois made so many yards on the ground today (the disparity in statistics for rushing yards was painful to read) , including many important third down conversions, on second effort pushes that picked up additional yards. On other plays, the Illini runner literally pushed the entire pile of defenders forward while the officials allowed plays to continue and did not whistle the play stopped when the scrum continued. After half time, it seemed as our defense could not get off of the field. Illinois totally dominated during the second half.

The Big Ten officiating lousy as usual. The Illini QB, Scheelhasse, gained valuable time to scramble and to complete plays because the officials elected not to throw flags for what should have been blatant holding. We all know that holding occurs frequently in games, but this crew missed almost everything. In fact, the slow footed officials seemed to be almost immobile. The crew did have to spot the ball frequently due the rules imposed upon the game, but to say that the zebras were less than mediocre may be putting it mildly. Given the final score, some will say that it did not matter, but the Wildcats entered this game at a distinct disadvantage and not getting some basic penalties called when the Illini were holding so often compounded their difficulties.

I will not fault Evan Watkins for not coming off the bench and equaling Dan Persa in his first start. He is a work in progress and needs to gain experience and confidence. He seemed to hesitate on several runs when openings were available and he failed to pick up the maximum number of yards possible on his scampers and missed one first down just before crossing the needed yard marker.
Trumpy made a great run today, but, I believe that the Offensive Coordinator did not mix in enough passing plays, once again. So many rushes for two or three yards at a pop that netted us nothing. I will renew the argument that Northwestern ought to be a pass first offense and this is a decision made out of necessity. On the day, Watkins did misfire on a few passing downs and one of his receivers seemed to quit running on a long route that looked like it could have been a possible touchdown reception. I do not blame the quarterback for this particular incompletion.

Our special teams had a good day, but I silently cringed when a long 63 yard return was stopped without a touchdown being scored. The way things were going on offense, I felt that the special teams unit had a better shot at finding the end zone then did the offense which was out of synch.
I was disappointed that Dunsmore and Ebert were not utilized more often. For most of the day, it was as if they were not there at all.

I am discouraged about the upcoming Wisconsin game to finish the season. The Wildcats need to play much better on both sides of the ball or it will be a total rout. What bothered me the most is that after halftime, Northwestern had no answers while Illinois had made some adjustments. Scoring a grand total of three points in the second half continued the Wildcats woes after the break.
Three and outs or piling up yards by moving the ball without scoring. Ugh!

In the second half, the Illini were able to move the ball on the ground and eat up serious amounts of clock time. It became clear that the Wildcats were not going to be able to mount any late heroics this week since there was insufficient time to stage a rally. The game was really lost in the third quarter when the Wildcats received the opening kick off and did nothing.

For Illinois, this may be a Pyrrhic victory of sorts. If Gunther is rehired and Zook is not dismissed on account of attaining a lesser bowl (It is sort of nice to think of Illinois visiting Ford Field in December), the Illinois program may continue its underachieving ways for a few more years to come under the current management.

I-L-L, I-N-I.

Is there a more annoying chant in college football? Seriously, I believe that this simple spelling exercise is an important part of the entrance exam at the land grant college in Champaign-Urbana and, arguably, it may be one of the few things that most of its graduates learn while in attendance there.

I hope that the Wildcats prove me wrong, but I think that Wisconsin is likely to send the team home with a 7-5 record overall and a 3-5 record in conference play. As always, I am concerned about the bowl implications. I am worried about Northwestern being jumped by a 6-6 Big Ten School.

Illinois is going to jump us. But look, we didn’t even come to play on defense, and they did, so there’s nothing we can do about it anymore.

@ Zeek, so you are assuming Fresno State won’t win at home against Illinois? Or are you saying I’m wrong?

Next Saturday against Wisconsin will be 2:30 on ABC with a reverse mirror on ESPN nationally.

That’s amazing. I would have thought that the 2:30 ABC game would have been MSU-PSU (as it is most years). Is NU turning out to be a good TV draw?

Well, not quite; it would come down to BCS ranking if Wisconsin, MSU and OSU all win (or if we beat Wisconsin and the other 2 win). The Badgers are leading in the BCS coming in to this week, though we don’t know how much of a boost beating Iowa will give OSU.

Granted, more neutrals probably care about Wisconsin’s game than MSU’s since UW is higher ranked.