Cats get all juiced up
Northwestern manages to find motivation, start strong despite few fans on hand
The weather was cooperative, the field was immaculate and the North western Wildcats were ready on Saturday to erase the nightmare of the 2019 season.
It wasn’t exactly the kind of atmosphere anyone had hoped for in their season opener against Maryland at
Ryan Field, with no crowd noise, no band and a glaring lack of the color purple thanks to the Wildcats’ black uniforms and the absence of fans— outside of the families of players and coaches. But in 2020, everything’s relative. You take what you can get.
“Bring your own juice,” was the catchphrase coined by linebacker Blake Gallagher, who wasn’t referring to NCAA protocols.
Sure, the Wildcats are a work in progress, but the early returns were considerably more impressive than the late returns from’19. They brought in a new starting quarterback with an impressive resume in Peyton Ramsey, a new offensive coordinator with an up-tempo philosophy in Mike Bajakian and a shared vision that the past would not be a prologue. After ranking 123rd in the nation
in offense last year while winning only one conference game, things could only go up, right?
Coach Pat Fitzgerald, always a bit over juiced no matter the time of day, was seeking his 100th career win Saturday, far and away the most of any coach in Northwestern history. He watched Ramsey engineer three long touchdown drives to take a 30-3 halftime lead as the Wild cats compiled 336 yards of offense. The Wildcats went on to win 43-3.
A.J. Hampton and JR Pace intercepted Maryland quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, younger brother of the Miami Dolphins’ Tua Tagovailoa, and Drake Anderson, son of former North western star Damian Anderson, broke off a 37-yard run with less than six minutes left in the second quarter to break things open.
Fitzgerald is coming off his most frustrating season in Evanston, and the eternal optimist proved to be a little oversensitive to criticism during the three-win
season, famously tweeting: “I understand there are 40,000 experts on Twitter that can call plays for me. My email address is hashtag I don’t care.”
Northwestern markets itself as “Chicago’s Big Ten team,” but in reality Fitzgerald’s kids need to win in order to maintain interest outside of Evanston and the alumni base. If not, their new email address will be “Hashtag Chicago doesn’t care.”
But perhaps Fitzgerald has reason to believe his trouble are in the rearview mirror.
Ramsey, a grad transfer fromIndiana, and Bajakian, who replaced MickMcCall, are the keys to regaining interest. Ramsey threw for 2,454 yards and 13 touchdowns last year with a 68% completion rate at Indiana and ranked fifth in the Big Ten with a 147.7 passer efficiency rating. With Bajakian, whose resume includes coaching stints with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Chicago Bears, they could take the offense to another level.
Itwas onlyMaryland, of course, but the combo platter should be a vast improvement overMcCall and the smorgasbord of quarterbacks who flopped in 2019.
The Big Ten schedule makers also gave theWildcats a nice break by bringing the Terrapins in for the opener of the reduced eight-game schedule while leaving off Ohio State. They don’t face a formidable opponent untilWisconsin inWeek 5, though nextweek’s game at Iowa should provide a better indication as to whether they’re the real thing.
No matter howgood the Cats are, at least they’re playing football. At last.
When the league’s 14 schools voted Aug. 11 to postpone the season to early 2021 by an 11-3 vote— with Ohio State, Nebraska and Iowa dissenting— itwas a done deal with no turning back. Starting the college football season without the Big
Tenwas like starting the party without Snoop Dogg.
But when the SEC, ACC and Big 12 decided to take the plunge in spite of the risks, the Big Ten did a 180-degree pivot and decided unanimously on Sept. 16 that itwas safe enough to make a fashionably late arrival in October and play a shorter, conference-only schedule.
“Each of the 14 of us might have a different answer as far as the presidents and chancellors,” Northwestern President Morton Schapiro, the chair of the Big Ten council of of presidents and chancellors, said at the teleconference announcing the conference’s change of heart. “Forme, it wasn’t about political pressure, itwasn’t about money, itwasn’t about lawsuits and itwasn’t about what everybody else is doing. Itwas the unanimous opinion of our medical experts, and that sort of evolved over the course ofweeks.”
The game-day experience atNorthwestern obviouslywas going to be somewhat muted during thisCOVID-19 season, and itwas eerie outside the stadium with no tailgating or any activity whatsoever. Down the street at Bluestone, a local hangout for purple-clad fans, owner John Enrightmoved a large, flat-screen TV onto the sidewalk cafe and made sure the tables insidewere ready for a socially distanced game-day crowd.
“We had curbside service even before COVID because fans tailgating didn’twant to cook and just pulled up for some smoked wings and turkey,” Enright said. “Without tailgating it’s going to hurt this year, but people knowthis is still the place towatch the game, sowe’ll dowell tonight. We’re doing whatwe can.”
AtMustard’s Last Stand, the celebrated hot-dog joint next to Ryan Field, only a few peoplewere munching on fast food.
“We’d normally be packed now, especially for a night game,” manager Samuel Licea said. “Having no fans at the games is amajor loss of business for us.”
It’s not going to be the same for a while. But at least college footballwas back in town, juice or no juice.