Northwestern secured a critical 20-14 victory over the 17th-ranked Wisconsin Badgers on Saturday, and Skip Myslenski looks back at some of the defining moments from a memorable day at Ryan Field.
Just over four minutes remain now and the 'Cats are still up six, but all the momentum -- and the good feeling that comes with it -- belongs to Wisconsin. It has just scored on a two-play, 43-yard drive that used only 32 seconds, and here it needs only one more defensive stop to get back on offense and to have the chance to steal this one away.The 'Cats set up on their 34 after the kickoff and here Justin Jackson, who has been superlative on this afternoon, slithers through a crack on the left side for five. They go to Jackson again on second down, and he sweeps left for two, and now the Badgers quickly burn their last time out with 3:29 left.
No one play ever decides a game. But every game contains a handful of plays on which the result turns. One of them is now at hand.
The analogy can be overused, but here it is appropriate to describe what unfolded Saturday at wet-and-windy Ryan Field. For here the 'Cats and the Badgers truly engaged in a bare-knuckled brawl, a 15-round slugfest replete with punches and counter-punches and occasional haymakers that rattled the senses and buckled the knees. There was no backdown here from either side, no blinking in the face of even the most-vicious hit. There was instead just a series of memorable plays, and performers who were memorable as well.
Badgers' running back Melvin Gordon was one of them. He had dashes of 61 and 58 and 31 yards, and he ended the day with 265 on 27 carries. "Number one, he's got patience," Pat Fitzgerald would say of him. "He does a great job setting things up, and he's a tough and physical man. I mean, he ran through some tackles today that nobody else we play -- maybe outside of (Nebraska's) Ameer (Abdullah) -- they're going down. He's just a great player."
But on this afternoon that was also the case with `Cats redshirt freshman safety Godwin Igwebuike, who himself shone while playing in place of injured senior Ibraheim Campbell. Wisconsin, catalyzed by Gordon's 58-yarder, drove to the 'Cats 20 on its opening drive of the game. Then, on third-and-11, it went for it all, but here Igwebuike went up in the end zone with Badger receiver Alex Erickson, corralled the ball with his left hand, and pulled it to his chest as he fell for his first pick of the day. "I pretty much saw it coming," he would say of this play. "Once the ball's in the air, it's just football from there."
Now it was the belly of the fourth quarter and the Badgers, down 13, were set up with a first-and-goal at the three. Here their quarterback Joel Stave dropped and scrambled, broke contain and rolled right, threw toward Erickson in the right corner and was picked by Igwebuike. "I was fortunate to have a linebacker on him as well," he said of this interception. "I knew we didn't need two-on-one, so I broke off a little bit, the quarterback saw me come towards him, thought he had an open release, so I was able to break on the ball and get that one as well."
Finally it was the game's last minute and the Badgers, down six, were looking for that Hail Mary that would steal them a win. Here Stave threw toward the middle of the field and there was Igwebuike one last time, making the pick the sealed the `Cat win. "I stepped back a little bit, saw the quarterback reading his man, he kind of stared him down, so I was able to break on that one as well," he would say of his last bit of heroics. "I thought I was just going to bat it down. But it went right into my hands."
This made him the most obvious 'Cats star of this game, but there were other as well. There was their offensive line, which opened up holes consistently enough that the `Cats rolled up 203 net rushing yards against a defense that had surrendered an average of just 86.2 per-game, and there was the freshman Jackson, who got 162 of them while exhibiting all the instincts and the savvy of a great one. There was quarterback Trevor Siemian, who on an inconsistent day hung tough to find superback Dan Vitale for a five-yard touchdown pass. ("He got his lips knocked off," Fitzgerald would say of the hit Siemian took on this play.)
There was receiver Miles Shuler, who caught a clutch fourth-down pass that set up Vitale's touchdown and then scored a touchdown of his own on an end-around that featured a Siemian block on Badger linebacker Joe Schobert. ("I think I got in his way just enough. I wouldn't even call it a block," the quarterback later said with a smile. There was receiver Kyle Prater, who ended with a team-high five catches for 55 yards, and punter Chris Gradone, whose work saddled the Badgers with bad field position through so much of this game. There was a defensive front seven that bent but never broke, and that quartet of corners and safeties--Igwebuike and Traveon Henry and Nick VanHoose and Matthew Harris--who finished as their team's top four tacklers. ("We'll be pretty sore tomorrow," Harris later said. "But I'd rather be sore with a win.")
They were the reasons the 'Cats entered the last 10 minutes of this game up 13, but then they found themselves pinned on their own four to start a drive and this is where Mr. Mo went over to the Badgers. They forced a three-and-out and drove to the three, where they were denied by the second of Igwebuike's interceptions. Then they forced another three-and-out and unfurled that quick, two-play drive. Now they needed only one more defensive stop to get back on offense and to have the chance to steal this one away.
No one play ever decides a game. But every game contains a handful of plays on which the result turns. One of them is now at hand.
The clock rests at 3:29, and the Badgers are out of time outs, and the `Cats are up six and looking at a third-and-three from their own 41. They come out and set up in the old Power I, Siemian under center with a pair of backs behind him, and he accepts the snap and pivots and proffers a handoff.
This is the conventional call, it will keep the clock running, but here Siemian pulls the ball back and drops. "(Offensive coordinator) Mick (McCall) wanted to call it the series before," Fitzgerald would later say of this play. "I felt if we blocked (the running play they did call) at the point of attack the way we were all day, we get the first down and now we're one first down away from winning the game. So we lose momentum there."
But here they regain it, regain it as Vitale bleeds out to the right and Siemian lofts a pass far in front of him. "I didn't want to leave it so the safety could undercut it, so I made sure I got it out there," he would later say. "He made a good catch. I mean, you throw it within 20 feet of that guy, he's going to make the catch. An easy job for me."
Was he surprised by the unconventional call?
"Not really. We'd been talking about it on the sideline. We were talking about doing it maybe near the goal line. It was the right play at the right time."
It was the play that gave the 'Cats a much-needed first down, the play that allowed them to drain more than two minutes off the clock before they punted and Wisconsin took over with just 33 seconds remaining. The Badgers still had a chance, but it wasn't much of one, and then Igwebuike got his last pick and it wasn't there at all.
"What I'm most proud of today," Fitzgerald was soon saying, "is we lose momentum in the fourth quarter. We lose it and we got to go out there and get a first down to win the game. Mick says to me, `Let's go run it. Let's go get it.' So it was a great call by Mick."
"When we were 0-and-2 it wasn't good. It kind of sucked, to be honest with you," Siemian would finally say, reflecting on the `Cats remarkable metamorphosis over the last month. "But at the same time everybody knew we hadn't played anywhere near our best ball. I wouldn't call that reassuring. Looking back, it's unfortunate it took two weeks to get things figured out and turned around.
"But better late than never, I guess."
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