This one was truly a treat for the ticket-holders.
Here they were, thinking they had purchased seats just for Iowa’s visit to Ryan Field. Instead, they got more. They got to see all of Northwestern’s confounding season in a single Saturday.
These Wildcats are an enigma wrapped in a riddle and topped by a puzzle instead of a bow. They astound, then confound, bedazzle, then unravel, soar to heights where only eagles dare, then gambol in the gutter aside other hapless curs.
They have done that all through this fall, which has given new meaning to the term mind-boggling, but usually their dual personalities are separated by at least a week. Not Saturday, when in the space of 3 hours 30 minutes, they offered up both a highlight reel and a blooper reel.
More Top Picks Ladder Tosssssssssssss
That not only allowed Iowa to walk away with a 28-17 victory, it also doomed them, for the second Saturday in a row, to choke up a fourth-quarter lead on their way to defeat.
“I can’t. I can’t,” Tyrell Sutton, their passionate running back, whispered when asked if he could explain the dramatic changes that had just occurred.
“It is kind of strange,” quarterback C.J. Bacher then said from a seat next to him. “You feel you’re executing very well, moving the ball … then all of a sudden it stops. You didn’t change stuff. You’re running the same plays. It’s just not working out.”
Everything worked out exceptionally for the Wildcats (5-5, 2-4 Big Ten) in the first quarter. They shut out the Hawkeyes (5-5, 3-4) and scored 14 points. They collected 11 first downs and held their opponents to none. They rolled up 196 yards while limiting Iowa to 12 and kept the ball for a staggering 11:15.
Their defense was a marauding band, their offense was a sweet machine, and through most of the minutes to come, their defense retained its character. The one exception was corner Sherrick McManis, who instead spent part of his day in a revolving door.
It was he who roughed the Iowa punter early in the second quarter, which allowed the Hawkeyes to escape a deep hole, and he who lost Iowa receiver Trey Stross, who caught a 20-yard touchdown pass from Jake Christensen to give them their first points with only 49 seconds left in the half.
That play resuscitated Iowa, which rode out of the locker room to a touchdown on its opening possession of the second half. Yet the Wildcats responded to go up three on Amado Villarreal’s 42-yard field goal.
That was the lead NU carried into the fourth quarter, the same lead it had when that quarter began a week earlier at Purdue.
“When we get to the fourth quarter, we don’t flinch,” Wildcats coach Pat Fitzgerald had asserted before that game.
But they flinched in West Lafayette, and they would again flinch Saturday.
“I didn’t see us flinch. I didn’t see us making plays,” Fitzgerald insisted.
Whatever. Bacher certainly didn’t make plays. He threw two interceptions, one inside the Hawkeyes’ 35, and went 4 of 13 in the final 15 minutes. Nor did his offense help. It abandoned the run, managed only two first downs and picked up a mere 28 net yards.
“They kept making plays and kept making plays. It makes us start doubting what’s going on, perhaps, or starts playing mind games,” center Trevor Rees said when asked about this disappearing act.
McManis, too, remained AWOL, giving up the passes that set up the Hawkeyes’ two final scores. And with that, theWildcats fell for the third time after leading in that quarter they once felt they owned.
“We talk about [finishing games] every day,” Sutton said. “It’s one of the pillars of our program and, you know, we’re not standing on it anymore.”
———-