I did not believe.
I thought about going to Northwestern’s game Saturday at Michigan State but didn’t want to go all that way to write about Cinderella turning back into a smashed pumpkin.
NU shocking Wisconsin 47-44 in double OT at Madison was a gas. But it had to be the shoes. Six Badgers, including two starters, were serving suspensions for improper shoe discounts. If NU had allowed TCU’s LaDainian Tomlinson to run for 243 yards and Wisconsin’s Michael Bennett for 293, Michigan State’s T.J. Duckett would go through the Wildcats like Gary Barnett through job possibilities.
Besides, who wanted to try getting from East Lansing to Green Bay for Sunday’s Bears game? So, planning to write about the White Sox, I tuned in to watch 15th-ranked Michigan State, an 11 1/2 -point favorite, show Northwestern how far it has to go in size, strength and athletic ability to compete consistently with the Big Ten’s big boys.
Instead I saw Gary Crowton’s fantasy.
I saw the kind of pass formation running assault Bears coordinator Crowton envisioned, if he hadn’t been saddled with a big, slow back and a thick-headed gunslinger of a quarterback. Crowton continues trying to fit Curtis Enis and Cade McNown into his pinball-wizard schemes. NU coach Randy Walker did just the opposite.
Replacing Barnett two years ago, Walker found the cupboard basically bare of tight ends and fullbacks. But he had a low-slung scatback, the 5-foot-11-inch, 210-pound Damien Anderson, and Notre Dame transfer Zak Kustok soon gave him a clever, careful leader with decent feet and a nice arm.
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Prognosticators who picked NU last apparently didn’t realize Walker also had added two dangerous receivers (Kunle Patrick and Jon Schweighardt) to holdovers Teddy Johnson and Sam Simmons. So Walker tried fitting a more wide-open offense to his underrated talent. He and his staff picked the brains of St. Louis coaches about the Rams’ shotgun-based, single-back attack built around the NFL’s best weapon, Marshall Faulk.
Result: Northwestern is the wide-eyed talk of college football after scoring 47 at Wisconsin and 37 at Michigan State. NU 37, MSU 17 was no fluke. The Spartans were left in a purple haze. Look out below, Big Ten. NU is flying high.
This team has little to do with Barnett’s overachieving underdogs of 1994 and ’95–grind-it-out, gotta-believe teams longer on scholars than athletes. But NU in the Rose Bowl opened lots of recruiting doors for Barnett, and Walker apparently has a fine eye for academically excellent talent.
This just in: “Cinderella” has been going to a personal trainer. Walker, a former power lifter, made it his off-season mission to put a bigger, stronger, tougher team on the field. His Wildcats jump off the screen with speed, strength and–yes, professor–athleticism. This isn’t exactly new basketball coach Bill Carmody running his Princeton back-door offense with future lawyers and stockbrokers.
This is Purple People Eaters like Dwayne Missouri and Salem Simon flying at the quarterback and helping hold Duckett to 71 yards. This is Kustok taking shotgun snaps and slipping handoffs to Anderson, who ducks behind trap blocks and flashes free at breakaway speed. Anderson went for 219.
The Wildcats are what the Bears want to be: An up-tempo, spread-you-out passing team that can murder you with the run. If only Crowton had a Damien Anderson. Chicago got excited about the wrong football team.
Walker is putting the wild in the Cats. Don’t let the spectacles, sport coats and ties fool you. Walker has been known to chew a little tobacco, throw deep on third and short and blitz on first down. On an early fake field goal Walker tried a “fumblerooski,” fooling the cameramen even if it didn’t take Michigan State by surprise. But the message was sent: Northwestern no longer just wants to keep the score respectable.
Charleton Heston, Ann-Margret and all the other star-studded NU alums will love riding this bandwagon even more than ’94’s. Cat scratch fever.
This team is growing up after self-destructing at TCU. Down 24-14 with the ball, NU went interception, fumble, interception–41-14. But look at the 4-1 Cats now. Indiana and Purdue at home. At Minnesota. Home for what could be a Very Big Game against Michigan. At Iowa. Home against Illinois.
Wouldn’t it be great if Colorado came after coach-of-the-year Walker to replace Barnett, now 0-4, and Walker stayed at NU?