Less than seven minutes remained and lowly Northwestern was poised to upset No. 11 Purdue. This was 13 months ago in West Lafayette, Ind., where the Wildcats were not only trailing by a mere point but also had the Boilermakers pinned back on their own 1-yard line, facing third-and-11.
Just one more stop was all they needed to be in position to pull off a stunner in Randy Walker’s fourth game as their coach. But as Drew Brees dropped into his end zone, NU free safety Mycal Jones lost track of Vinny Sutherland. Brees hooked up with his wide receiver for a 99-yard touchdown pass that did nothing less than send Northwestern’s season into a death spiral.
Some costly injuries also contributed to that demise.
“But I’ll be the first to admit I don’t think we were mentally tough last year,” middle linebacker Billy Silva recalled. “If you talk to a lot of guys on that team, that was the turning point of our season. Before that, we felt we were doing all right. But after Purdue it was like, `Aw, gosh, I can’t believe that happened.’ A lot of people were like, `Our season’s over.'”
Said cornerback Harold Blackmon: “We were getting adjusted to a new coach and a new style of coaching. It took us a while to accept coach Walker’s philosophy. It was different from what we were used to, more demanding. We went into the Purdue game, we were 2-1 and had just won a close [overtime] game at Duke. But when we lost, a lot of players stopped believing what was being taught.”
Walker remembers Purdue as “a huge game for our season, the way it finished, the way it ended, and our response. And notice I said `our response.’ We were real fragile a year ago.”
This is an important piece of history to recall as the 17th-ranked Wildcats await a Saturday visit from Brees and his No. 21 Boilermakers. Just short of a month ago they absorbed another defeat that was similarly crushing and could have doomed them to another season bereft of success.
The Wildcats went into Ft. Worth with a 2-0 record and a swagger in their collective walk. But there they were blasted by Texas Christian, which ripped them apart with the option, and as they prepared to open the Big Ten season at Wisconsin, they were a modest 2-1 and again surrounded by questions.
Walker himself had questions, and it was not just the 27-point loss that concerned him as he flew home after the TCU game. His team had lost its composure, had performed without discipline, had gone off on solo flights of fancy rather than playing within the team concept. Those were the realities that gnawed at him, and he found himself wondering, Where do we go from here?
“To me, that was maybe an even more devastating defeat,” Walker said. “We did some things very uncharacteristic of our football team. But again, response is always what’s critical, and I thought we responded the right way.”
After last year’s Purdue game, the fragile Wildcats’ response doomed them to six lopsided defeats–average margin, 23.6 points–and a two-point victory over hapless Iowa.
This year they reclaimed their season with a steely-eyed, double-overtime triumph at Wisconsin. And now, as they await the Boilermakers, they are atop the Big Ten, in the national rankings and only one victory shy of the six needed to be eligible for a bowl.
They are healthier than they were a year ago, and that, too, surely has contributed to their success. They are also bigger and faster and stronger and more skilled, but it’s something they’re not that has made the biggest difference.
“I don’t think we’re fragile anymore,” Walker said. “I’ve told our kids [to take] all the weight training and conditioning and talent and repetitions, take all that stuff and throw it out. I think we’re mentally tougher than we were a year ago.
“I think there’s a little stronger belief mechanism in place. Last year everything was new. There was no confidence in how it’s going to work. There were so many question marks popping up in their heads.
“Now I think our guys have a pretty good bead on what I’m about and how to do it. I just think the comfort zone is a lot greater now and there’s a confidence, a greater confidence here.”
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There is also the memory of Silva on the sideline at the Wisconsin game, the image of Silva prowling that sideline and yelling at anyone who would listen, “I’m sick of being a loser! I’m sick and tired of being a loser!”
“And that’s what we were–losers,” Silva said. “If you lose, you’re considered a loser. I think that’s something that’s had the biggest effect on this team. Everybody’s sick and tired of being a loser. That’s one of the things that has helped us win.
“In the back of our minds, we realize what happened last season, and we don’t want to go back there.”