It certainly wasn’t exciting by any means, but winning comfortably, in any way shape or form, is exactly what you wanted to do today if you’re the Northwestern Wildcats.

They did just that, cruising past FCS foe Indiana State 24-6, with only a late, garbage time touchdown from the Sycamores preventing a Wildcats shutout. Coming off a decisive defeat at the hands of Michigan State in week one, NU needed a comfortable win like this. However, you can’t really call it a dominant performance.

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It’s quite possible that Northwestern football is just keeping up its semi-annual tradition of starting very slowly. The list of September games NU never had any business losing, during the 2000s and 2010s seems to get a bit longer by the year, but you know that they always course correct, and the story ends well.

The 2016 team started 1-3, including a very unsightly loss to lowly Illinois State, but ended up making and winning a bowl game. In 2018, the first Big Ten West division title season, they went winless in preconference, including an inexplicable and inexcusable defeat at the hands of Akron.

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At Big Ten and Northwestern Media Days, I had a conversation with All-American safety Brandon Joseph about my all-time favorite passage from the old NFL Films’ prose, entitled the “Fringe of Battle.” John Facenda, who talks exactly like God himself must sound, says:

“To the players, reality is one-on-one, helmet-to-helmet move and counter move. Nowhere is this conflict more evident than at the fringe of battle where the receiver and cornerback match glare. One and one, speed and cunning decide the victor, and the battle where the loser bleeds alone on an open field.”
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