A view from the stands: NU 17 ND 15

WildcatReport originally published this story in 2005 to mark the 10-year anniversary of the Wildcats' stunning victory over Notre Dame on Sept. 2, 1995.

In his book High Hopes, Northwestern coach Gary Barnett talked about how he used the concept of "priming the pump" to motivate his team before the 1995 season.

It was essentially about faith. When you're pumping for water, you have to have faith that the water will eventually come out. You don't know when the water will come, but you believe it will eventually happen.

Barnett was asking the same of his players -- they had to continue to work hard and have faith that eventually, that work would pay off, even if they hadn't seen any evidence yet.

Well, on September 2, 1995, the water came out of the pump. And it didn't stop until it was a tidal wave that carried Northwestern all the way to the Rose Bowl nearly four months later.

There are a lot of differing opinions on the biggest win in the last 10 years of Northwestern football history, but for this fan, the Wildcats' 17-15 win over Notre Dame was it. It was the game that started it all. The Cats' run has taken on a mythic quality now and it's easy to forget just how monumental and out-of-nowhere that win was.

This wasn't David slaying Goliath. This was David's four-year-old nephew slaying Goliath.

Northwestern was coming off of a 3-7-1 season in 1994, finishing just 2-6 in the Big Ten. They were a 28-point underdog to the ninth-ranked Irish. The Chicago Sun-Times' story on the Sunday after the game was titled The Upset of the Century in a font size normally reserved for world wars.

We all know now about how Barnett told his team in the locker room not to carry him off the field after they won the game. But the fans that were sitting in the thin slice of purple in the end zone weren't aware of that.

We didn't know that Darnell Autry would be invited to the Heisman ceremony at the Downtown Athletic Club in New York three months later. We didn't know that Steve Schnur had ice in his veins, that Pat Fitzgerald would become the best defensive player in the land, that D'Wayne Bates would emerge as a star as a freshman, that the defense would become as stingy as an Evanston retiree complaining about taxes. We didn't know any of that stuff before September 2.

So, what I remember most about that glorious, sunny day in Notre Dame Stadium was the uneasy feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The Cats led from whistle-to-whistle, but for those of us that were accustomed to watching Northwestern, that was nothing new. Two years before at Notre Dame, the Cats had led the Irish in the second half only to eventually get drubbed. There had been countless leads frittered away in the 23 years since Northwestern had last enjoyed a winning season. No, we figured, it was just a matter of time before Notre Dame would restore balance to the football world.

The Cats led 10-9 at the half and 17-9 entering the fourth quarter. The Irish finally scored a touchdown with 6:16 left in the fourth quarter to bring them to within 17-15, but Irish quarterback Ron Powlus inexplicably fell down on the two-point conversion attempt.

The Cats couldn't do anything on their next drive and were forced to punt the ball back to the Irish. Three plays later, Notre Dame faced a fourth-and-two at their 44-yard line. Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz figured he was running out chances and opted to go for it. He sent tailback Randy Kinder into the line where he was promptly stuffed by Matt Rice with 3:57 left. Northwestern ball.

It wasn't until then that the Notre Dame fans near our section really started to panic. At that point, it looked like Touchdown Jesus might have taken the day off.

Now, the Cats had to move the chains and bleed the clock dry. I remember the Cats needing one more first down to ice the game as they were driving toward the Notre Dame end zone on the other side of the field, far away from our visitors' end zone seats. I saw Autry break loose and run for what seemed like a very long time, but from our vantage point, you couldn't really tell how many yards he had gained. I could see Northwestern players jumping up and down on the sideline where he had gone down, but our section was quiet, craning to see what had happened.

Did they get a first down? There was no announcement on the PA system.

A flag flew in the air. Oh no, we thought. Were the refs going to take this away from us?

The announcement came -- first down, Northwestern. Autry had scampered 26 yards to the Notre Dame four-yard line. The flag, it turned out, was for a celebration penalty that would be assessed after the play.

There was a minute left and all the Cats had to do was take a knee. The game was over. Now, it was our turn to jump up-and-down.

I remember driving home and listening to radio stations across the dial talk about the seismic upset. A friend of mine had been in Ann Arbor watching Michigan that day and told me about the roar that went up in Michigan Stadium when they announced the final score from South Bend.

That night, I caught the late College Game Day show on ESPN and heard analyst Lee Corso call Northwestern's win the greatest upset in the history of college football.

As usual, Corso turned out to be dead wrong. We found out over the coming weeks and months that it wasn't an upset at all. It had nothing to do with pumping water or motivational ploys or luck or odds. Yes, Notre Dame had more talent and tradition and Heisman winners and all that stuff. But as it turned out, the Cats beat the Irish for a very simple reason on that day.

They were the better team.