Northwestern will go into Iowa City on Saturday with a chance to put a hammer lock on the first Big Ten West division title in school history.

If the Wildcats win just two of their last three games – against Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois – they will clinch the title and secure a trip to Indianapolis for the Big Ten championship game on Dec. 1. Winning even one of them could even do the trick if both Purdue and Wisconsin drop another game.

Head coach Pat Fitzgerald has won 10 games in three of the last six seasons, yet it’s this team – which currently stands at 5-4, one game above .500, on the season – that could give him his first conference title of any kind.

When you take a closer look at this team and this season, one question comes to mind: How? Because it’s hard to see just how this team reached this point with so many things going against it.

Saturday night’s 31-21 loss to No. 3 Notre Dame meant that the Wildcats lost all of their non-conference games for the first time since 1992. That happened to be Gary Barnett’s first Northwestern team, which finished 3-8 – and, ironically, also lost to a No. 3 Irish team.

Think about it. If you had heard in August, before this season began, that Northwestern went 0-3 outside of the Big Ten, with all of the losses at home – to Notre Dame, Duke and Akron, for crying out loud – you would have figured it was a disastrous year in Evanston.

Yet here the Wildcats are, sitting atop the West with a 5-1 record. This confounding team has managed to win five of six games in the conference for the first time since the 2000 Big Ten championship team. How long ago was that? The star running back of that team, Damien Anderson, has a son, Drake Anderson, on this one.

Northwestern followers often say before each season that the team will likely win one game they shouldn’t win, and lose one game they shouldn’t lose.

This year, there are two candidates for the shouldn’t-win category: the Wildcats beat two then-20th-ranked teams this season – Michigan State on the road and Wisconsin at home. Both were upsets.

There’s no question what the shouldn’t-lose game is, however. That September loss to a 4-4 Akron team that is now 2-3 in the MAC is harder to erase than a tattoo. The Zips scored 36 points in the second half to rally from a 21-3 halftime deficit and beat the Wildcats 39-34. They haven’t scored more than 26 in a full game since.

But since that loss, when the season seemed to be cratering like Bruce Rauner's gubernatorial reelection campaign, the Wildcats are 4-2, with the only losses coming against Michigan and Notre Dame, teams that would both be in the College Football Playoff if the season ended today.

For most teams, a tried-and-true formula for winning a conference championship is defending your home turf. Yet the Wildcats are just 2-4 at Ryan Field this season, having beaten Nebraska and Wisconsin. Their saving grace is that they are road warriors, posting a 3-0 record away from Evanston, with all three wins coming in Big Ten play. Go figure.

While outsiders often laud the consistency of Fitzgerald’s program, this team has played to the level of its competition week-to-week. In the game following that embarrassing loss to Akron, Northwestern went toe-to-toe with Michigan, holding a lead until the fourth quarter and losing 20-17. The Wildcats looked hapless in squeaking out an 18-15 win over a now 1-8 Rutgers team that lost to Kansas by 39 and Buffalo by 29, and then did a 180 the very next week to beat West-division favorite Wisconsin by two touchdowns – the largest margin of victory over the Badgers since the 1995 team steamrolled them 35-0 on its way to the Rose Bowl.

On top of that, Northwestern is doing it all with one hand tied behind its back. The defense has been solid all season, but the offense has sputtered. Looking at the top six statistical categories that measure offensive production, Northwestern ranks in the top 98 (out of 130) in only one.

The passing game has produced some impressive yardage to rank 37th in the nation, but in terms of efficiency, its 111th and has as many interceptions as touchdowns (11). It’s true that the Wildcats’ running game has come around the last few weeks, going over the 100-yard mark in three straight games. But that surge has been matched by a slump in passing, which hasn’t generated more than 167 yards in three straight games.

It makes you wonder how the Wildcats are getting the job done offensively. It’s not big plays, that’s for sure. Anyone who watches this team week-in and week-out won’t be surprised to learn that they rank 120th in plays of 20 or more yards. They aren’t very good in the red zone, either, ranking 96th with an 80.6-percent conversion rate. They have also allowed 2.67 sacks per game, worst in the Big Ten and 97th nationally.

This week, Northwestern takes that struggling offense into Kinnick Stadium, a notoriously tough place to play. Yet it’s been downright homey for the Wildcats over the years and Fitzgerald is 4-3 in Iowa City.

If they win, it will be the Wildcats’ fourth straight road win this year and seventh straight away from home in the Big Ten dating back to last season. The back-to-back Big Ten championship teams of 1995 and 1996 couldn’t even pull off seven straight conference road wins.

The Wildcats have had some memorable victories at Kinnick under Fitzgerald. In 2006, they gave him his first Big Ten win. In 2009, they went in and upset an undefeated, Top-10 Hawkeye team.

This time, they can take a big step toward something much bigger: a division title.