A Sound of Sheer Silence

Northwestern (4-1) faces off this week against Michigan State (2-4) in East Lansing.  The game starts at noon Eastern and can be seen on Peacock, which is the NBC streaming service.   The subplot of this game is that the new coach of Michigan State is Pat Fitzgerald.  Pat Fitzgerald played for Northwestern from 1993-1996, which coincided with the renaissance of the Northwestern program and the trip to the Rose Bowl in January 1996.  Certainly in the modern era of Northwestern football, he is the most decorated player in the history of the program.  In 2001, he became an assistant coach at Northwestern.  In June 2006, Northwestern head coach Randy Walker passed away suddenly and Fitzgerald became the head coach.  He was Northwestern's head coach from the 2006 through 2022 seasons, amassing a record of 110-101.   His 110 wins are the most in school history.  At the time, it was widely believed that the only reason Northwestern was at ...

On Saturday, Northwestern (3-1) plays Ball State (1-4) at the new Ryan Field in Evanston at 12:30 pm on the BigTen Network.  Ball State is located in Muncie, Indiana, which I happened to visit a couple of weeks ago with my wife and daughter.  Ball State is a member of the Mid-American Conference (the "MAC"), which is considered to be at least a level down from the BigTen conference.  For this reason, Northwestern has scheduled Homecoming for this game.   I want to talk about Homecoming for the majority of this post, but before we get to that we need to discuss last week's game against Penn State.  If you didn't see, Northwestern won 34-13, and it was not nearly that close.  The eye-catching number here is 413 yards rushing for NU, versus 48 for Penn State.  Part of that is that Penn State was behind the whole game and had to pass, but 413 yards rushing is still a crazy number. Northwestern has won a number of games in my time watching the team, in...

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed: And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away. --"Ozymandias", by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1876) Tonight, Northwestern (2-1) opens its new football stadium against Penn State (3-1).  For the second week in a row, it is the Friday night FOX game that starts at 8 pm Eastern.  Last week, Northwestern gave defending champion Indiana a big time scare, losing 29-23.  This is especially noteworthy given that t...