Some people may have wondered about #19 Northwestern football being a favorite by two touchdowns and field goal over the Syracuse Orange. Well, the doubters were wrong about the #B1GCats. The Northwestern football team dominated the Cuse so badly that by the middle of the second quarter, making jokes about the Orange had already gotten stale. Twenty minutes in, the Wildcats had built a 20-0 lead, and they never looked back.
The final was 48-27, and that’s very misleading. It was 34-7 at half, so the second half was garbage time.
This Big Ten ACC Challenge was no contest at all. And now, a lot of people have penciled in Northwestern football at 4-0 heading into their big prime time showdown #3 Ohio State on October 5th.
It’s easy to look ahead, as NU has Western Michigan, Maine and then a Bye Week (Vegas already has Northwestern football as a 77 point favorite over Bye Week) before the Big Ten conference opener. If OSU beats #21 Wisconsin at home in week four, and if both the Wildcats and Buckeyes are undefeated heading into that game…would ESPN College Gameday come calling? Northwestern football hosting Lee Corso and company?
Maybe Northwestern alum Mike Greenberg could use his influence to make that happen? He was Honorary Captain at Ryan Field today and featured on GameDay this morning. Co host David Pollack said Northwestern is “the hardest team in the nation to game plan against” this morning, so NU is clearly on their radar.
“We looked at this two week stretch as a tremendous challenge,” Pat Fitzgerald said afterward.
No Venric Mark. No problem.
Northwestern football established the ground game with Kain Colter, who started the game, and Treyvon Green. The other QB, Trevor Siemian and Kain Colter were both 11-for-12 passing, with 277 combined yards…at the half. If you didn’t know the name of Northwestern football player Tony Jones; you do now. He had 131 yards receiving, in the first half alone. He finished with 185.
“It’s back to back weeks that he’s played at an All-Big Ten level, and we need to get creative and move him around,” Fitzgerald said of Jones.
“What about those two quarterbacks? Both played like rock stars tonight. ”
“They both had a hot hand, which is nice, a bonus,” Pat Fitzgerald. Colter finished 15-18 for 116, 1 TD, o INT. Siemian was 15-19 for 259, 3 TD, o INT
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. An analyst for 95.7 The Fan, he also writes on Chicago sports media for Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)