[Bryan Fuller]

PUNT

By Bryan MacKenzie
@Bry_Mac

While doing my usual in-depth research for this week’s column, I discovered a subtle issue with Northwestern football. Like Jeff Goldblum decoding the alien signal in Independence Day, or Jeff Goldblum foreseeing that single-sex dinosaur communities will breed, or Jeff Goldblum doing whatever unrealistic deus ex machina plot cheat he used in Independence Day: Resurrection, or… okay, I generally acted like Jeff Goldblum. And here is what I discovered:

Northwestern is bad.

I know, right? I was shocked too. But Northwestern is apparently not particularly good at football.

Peter Falk was 23-37 in five seasons as Northwestern’s head coach

Northwestern is currently bad. They’re 1-2, with losses to Akron and Duke. They’ve been outgained on a per-play basis in every game. They can’t run the ball. They can’t throw the ball downfield. They’re the #12 in the Big Ten from an offensive efficiency standpoint, ahead of only Minnesota and Rutgers. And they just lost their best offensive player to injury.

Northwestern is recently bad. Since Pat Fitzgerald took over in 2006, the Wildcats have finished #66, #93, #53, #92, #72, #84, #44, #63, #69, #57, #49, and #45 in the country in S&P+, and currently sit at #60. That’s an average of the 65th-best football team in the country on any given year. There are currently 65 “Power 5” teams. This is… not great.

[After THE JUMP: Raj sings Happy Birthday to Bow Wow. We have video!]

You know what Michigan ranked in S&P+ in 2008? #63. Northwestern has been cruising for the last dozen years at “oh my god what have we done is Les Miles still available” levels, give or take. Northwestern peaked at #44, which is a touch better than the #48 Michigan squad from 2014 that got Brady Hoke fired. It’s probably not a surprise that Michigan won 7 of 8 in the Fitzgerald Era, including all four matchups with Brady Hoke.

#NeverForget

Northwestern is historically bad. They currently have a losing record against all but two Big Ten teams; they’re 47-31 against Indiana, and 1-0 against Maryland. Against the rest of the conference, they are 236-446 all-time. They have a winning percentage of 25% against Penn State, 21% against Michigan, and 19% against OSU. THEY HAVE NEVER BEATEN RUTGERS.

Michigan, meanwhile, is coming off wins by margins of 46, 25, and 46 points. Northwestern hasn’t won three consecutive games by 25+ points since ’05. Nope, not that one… the one before it. The Northwestern Purples beat Marquette, Ohio Northern, and Michigan Agricultural College. They lost the next week 72-6.

Not sure why they were called the “Purples” when their colors were clearly gray and white

I have a few possible explanations for the badness:

• Name is “Northwestern” when they’re pretty much in the center.
• Still trying to live off the fumes from Glenn Thistlethwaite’s 1926 conference title.
• Fought draining multi-year long war with Illinois for control of Chicago. Millions perished in the brutal trench warfare, but no real ground was gained.
• Putting too much faith in the idea that the “Superback” has some sort of super powers.
• Continue to employ a guy who thought running an option at Jabrill Peppers was a good idea. Multiple times.

But determining the ‘why’ is, as they say, academic. And it may be the only type of “academics” that Northwestern fans don’t want to talk about. Sorry, fellas, but the US News and World Report rankers ain’t walking through that door. And if they did, I’m not sure you could rush for 5 yards per carry against them. Michigan 31, Northwestern 3

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Counterpunt

By Internet Raj
@internetraj

I once mistakenly attended a Ja Rule concert and then drunkenly serenaded Lil Bow Wow at his birthday party on the same night.

Let me back up. This was a few years ago, back when I used to live in New York. A few colleagues and I decided to spend a weekend in Atlantic City to blow off some steam and escape the oppressive crucible that is being a junior law firm associate. Up to that point, I had never been to Atlantic City, but it did not take me long to realize what many others have long known–Atlantic City is both a hellscape of degenerate senior citizens and a veritable graveyard of C-list celebrities.

So there we were, at one of the many casinos lining the Boardwalk, tentatively navigating row after row of slot machines commandeered by various Ernests, Agathas, and Mildreds, each of whom I can only assume had taken out reverse mortgages to gamble away their social security checks and/or oxygen tank refills. Apart from our own token overtures into gambling, we didn’t know what to do, so when we saw a random poster advertising a pool party at our hotel, we were immediately all in.

Whether it was the sudden realization that we chose the wrong destination for our weekend getaway or the unshakable feeling that we were trapped in some twisted, hedonistic Celebrex commercial, we undertook a particularly intensive pre-gaming session at the hotel bar. This would set the stage for the truly bizarre evening to follow.

When we arrived at the pool party, I was immediately struck by how hard the DJ’s playlist banged. 90’s jam after 90’s jam. It was awesome. I was feeling it, bopping my head to the distant beat of nostalgia. I even forgot for a second that I was in Direct-to-DVD Las Vegas. But—and most likely due to my tequila consumption—I quickly realized that what I was hearing was more than just any 90’s playlist: it was an exclusively Ja Rule playlist. This DJ really had the audacity to just play Ja Rule songs in the year 2014.

Atlantic City slot machine gamblers when they heard this playlist

“Damn this DJ loves himself some Ja Rule” I almost certainly slurred to my friends about 900 times. That’s about when one of them tapped my shoulder and directed my attention to something behind me. I turned around and realized I was standing, unwittingly, in the fourth row of an actual Ja Rule concert. And by all indications, one that was at least 20 minutes in progress. By complete accident. Ja Rule, who once dropped back-to-back triple platinum albums, was now performing sets at second tier casino pool party in Atlantic City. What a world.

This remains the best concert I’ve ever attended.

And you know what? It R-U-L-E-D. We hung out for all his hits, but once he started to venture into the deep cuts, we made our exit. Word-of-mouth led us to another random party that evening: Lil’ Bow Wow’s birthday party. While the precise details of what followed is somewhat hazy, I do distinctly recall the throng of 50 or more teens waving “Happy Birthday” posters and crowding around what can only be described as a rock-bottom Bow Wow. After a half-dozen attempts, Bow Wow finally convinced the crowd to sing happy birthday to him. At this point, my friends were hanging out on the upper balcony and had lost me. A quick scan of the crowd downstairs, however, quickly dispelled any fear they might have had, as it wasn’t too difficult to pick out the lone, six-foot-tall Indian man amongst a thicket of teenagers, eyes closed, arms in the air, swaying, and unabashedly singing “Happy Birthday” to Bow Wow. I’m not going to mince words here. It was an unmistakable low point of my life.

Still better than joining hands and singing Josh Groban at a banquet.

Here’s the deal. The last time Michigan lost to Northwestern in Evanston was in the year 2000. That’s one full year before Ja Rule dropped his smash hit “Always On Time”. This is the kind of stat that makes me want to predict yet another blowout victory. But, just like a certain columnist who found himself singing happy birthday to a third-rate rapper, life comes at you fast (just ask Bow Wow and Ja Rule).

Michigan wins, but not without a bit of unshakable shame.

Michigan 42, Northwestern 31