Don’t let the 27-0 score fool you- this game was a much bigger whopping than those numbers would indicate. Similar to Northwestern football‘s season opening 16-6 win over then #21 Stanford, today’s victory over the Minnesota Golden Gophers was a lot more decisive than the final margin conveyed.
In week one, it was the pace and tempo of the game that made the final point spread deceiving. This Saturday, the Gophers got some help from the officiating. Indeed Northwestern football got hosed on a couple of bad calls today. You can see the frustration with the referees expressed by the official Northwestern football and Northwestern Athletics Twitter accounts:
Absolute highway robbery on replay. Ruled incomplete. #B1GCats
— Northwestern Athletics (@NU_Sports) October 3, 2015
WE WANT REPLAY JUSTICE! #B1GCats
— Northwestern Football (@NUFBFamily) October 3, 2015
Maybe Northwestern football was playing against 12 men today (the Gophers 11 plus the officials), but it didn’t matter as this game was, in the words of Sir Ian Darke, “a true rout.” The words of a knighted individual befit the mood at Northwestern’s Ryan Field today as the Wildcats sported their Gothic, Medieval font uniforms today. The script on these extremely eye-catching yet still underrated purple, gold and black unis was inspired by the University’s cathedral, a structure modeled after architecture of this bygone era.
NU out-gained Minnesota 312-173, and held the Gophers passing “attack” to less than 100 yards total.
To paraphrase Marcellus Wallace in “Pulp Fiction,” Northwestern football “got Medieval on their ass” today. It was a one-sided contest in all aspects from start to finish.
“Pretty solid performance across the board, in all three phases,” said Northwestern football Coach Pat Fitzgerald after the game.
At 5-0, ranked #16 in the country, with a defense that was giving up just an average of just 8.8 points per game heading into today’s shut out, 2015 Northwestern football is already drawing comparisons (at least defensively) to that magical season of 1995. After today, they are now surrendering just 7 points per game.
“I have every chapter of that group in ’95,” Fitzgerald said. “I’m not ready to even put this group in the same category. We have a lot of chapters left to write. But if they continue to progress, I think it has a chance to be much better. It’s much more athletic; it’s much deeper.
“The challenge is: Will we continue to put weight on the bar, so to speak? As you go up in Big Ten play, it gets heavier and heavier and harder and harder. The potential is there to be something we’ll be very proud of.”
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and sometimes writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. The website is also featured on News Now.
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