Northwestern's struggles bring back memories of the Dark Ages
One thing fans are saying in the parking lots at Ryan Field and on WildcatReport message boards is how watching the Wildcats these last two years reminds them of the Dark Ages.
And you know what? They're right. In terms of futility, you have to go back more than 30 years to find another stretch as bad as the tailspin the Wildcats currently find themselves in.
After last Saturday's 42-7 loss to Wisconsin, Northwestern has now lost 11 of its last 12 games over the last two seasons. The Wildcats lost the last six games of 2021, beat Nebraska in the season opener in Dublin, Ireland, on Aug. 27, and now have lost five in a row. They've tasted victory one time since beating Rutgers last Oct. 16.
To find the last time the Wildcats lost 11 of 12 games, you have to go all the way back to the 1989 and 1990 seasons, when they dropped 15 of 16. In 1989 they went 0-11, and in 1990 they got beat in four of their first five.
That streak started when the first George Bush was in the White House and The Simpsons first aired. It was just seven years after Northwestern ended its record 34-game losing streak, the longest in NCAA history.
The late Francis Peay coached those 1989-90 teams, and he didn't enjoy the administrative support, coaching salaries and facilities that head coach Pat Fitzgerald has today. The program opened the $270 million Walter Athletic Center in 2018 and just unveiled plans for an $800 million rebuilding of Ryan Field.
Yet the results the last two years are remarkably similar to those forged more than three decades ago, when the school promoted its athletic futility as proof of its emphasis on academics.
No wonder fans are angry. The Cats have lost seven straight games at Ryan Field. They lost four games by one score and five by three scores or more during their current streak.
They’ve lost trailing from wire-to-wire, and they’ve blown leads. They lost heartbreakers and they lost laughers. This year, they’ve lost three games as a home favorite, including to a MAC team and a FCS team.
If there’s a way to lose a game, the Wildcats have likely done it.
Another thing that has drawn fans' ire during this slide back to irrelevance is hearing Fitzgerald's explanations -- or lack thereof -- after each loss. The coach, now in his 17th year in Evanston, has sounded like a broken record in press conferences this season, consistently blaming turnovers, big plays, empty drives and the failure to bring their performance from practice to Saturdays.
We can't verify how well they're playing in practice -- practices have been closed all season -- but as for the other measurables, Fitzgerald is spot-on. The Wildcats have been dreadful in all of those categories all season, ranking in the triple digits nationally.
He knows what the problems are. How to fix them, however, is another story.
Fitzgerald has said over and over that turnovers decide more football games than any other stat. The proof is right under his nose: the Wildcats rank 121st out of 131 teams in the nation with a turnover margin of -1 per game and have the worst overall record in the Big Ten.
It's no coincidence that Northwestern was +2 in turnover margin in the only game they won all season. In their five losses, the Wildcats are a combined -8.
The Wildcats had more turnovers than their opponent in four of their five losses. The lone outlier was the Penn State game, where they got five takeaways and failed to cash in on any of them, while the Nittany Lions got three but used them to score 14 points in a 17-7 win.
In terms of big plays, the Wildcats have allowed a boatload of plays of more than 40 yards. Those are the kind of backbreakers that can swing the momentum of a game, and Northwestern has been on the wrong side of way too many of them.
The Wildcats have given up 10 plays of 40 or more yards to rank 121st in the country, and six plays of 50 or more yards to rank 118th. It's difficult to bounce back from home runs like those, which almost always lead to scores.
You probably remember most of them. Duke hit NU with 81- and 51-yard passes, and a 42-yard run. Southern Illinois connected on a 57-yard pass. Miami (Ohio) had a 66-yard run in the fourth quarter. Wisconsin struck with a 52-yard pass early in the second quarter, when the game was still in question.
Whether it was a missed fit, a missed tackle or a blown coverage, Northwestern's defense has been victimized by explosive plays all season.
Northwestern's offense, meanwhile, has scored just 28 points over the last three games, a dismal average of just 9.3 points per game. Part of the reason is so many empty trips in the red zone, as Fitzgerald has said several times.
For the season, Northwestern has scored on 14 of their 20 possessions inside the opponents' 20-yard line, a 70% conversion rate that ranks 123rd in the nation. Eleven of those drives ended with a touchdown, a 55% rate that ranks 99th.
But the Wildcats' woeful kicking game makes matters even worse. NU kickers have made just three of their six field-goal attempts on the year, a 50% accuracy rate that comes in at No. 115 in FBS.
Committing turnovers. Giving up big plays. Failing in the red zone. As Northwestern is finding out, those are time-tested ways to lose football games, as effective today as they were in the 1980s.