Wildcats clinch first divisional title
After a scrappy 14-10 win at Iowa last Saturday, the 22nd-ranked Northwestern Wildcats are champions of the Big Ten West for the first time in school history.
Following losses by Wisconsin and Purdue last weekend, Northwestern has officially clinched a spot in the conference championship game on Dec. 1 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, and will face the winner of the eastern division, either Michigan or Ohio State.
It wasn’t an easy road for Northwestern, which cracked the Top 25 for the first time this season following last week’s upset of the Hawkeyes. The Wildcats lost three consecutive games and also lost star running back Jeremy Larkin to medical retirement, forcing them to completely retool their backfield while struggling to run the ball.
“First of all, the guys stayed the course in our preparation,” Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald said. “The staff didn’t flinch and just stuck together. We had to identify some new pieces to the puzzle and personnel issues that we had that were unforeseen that you couldn’t prepare for. We obviously would’ve liked to have been more consistent in that stretch than we were, but we weren’t, and so you just stay the course. I think the whole program did a really good job of that and now we’ve put ourselves in position to have a great finish. It’s more important the way you finish than the way you start.”
In the three games following Larkin’s sudden retirement, Northwestern amassed only 71 rushing yards on 77 carries but still managed to win two of the three games.
Now, the Wildcats seem to be firing on all cylinders, having won five of their last six thanks in large part to the emergence of freshman running back Isaiah Bowser, who is averaging more than 120 rushing yards per game since being named the starter in an 18-15 win at Rutgers on Oct. 20.
“He’s taken his game up a notch,” Fitzgerald said. “He’s just gotten more and more confident with each rep and each game. You could see him kind of turn the corner from a confidence standpoint in the Rutgers game. I think that was a big catalyst for his confidence, and he’s played really well since.”
Despite the historic accomplishment of winning a divisional title, the Wildcats are keeping the foot on the pedal and shifting their focus to Saturday’s game at Minnesota, which just throttled the previously red-hot Purdue Boilermakers, 41-10, in Minneapolis last Saturday.
When asked about possibly resting key players in preparation for the conference championship game, Fitzgerald said “absolutely not.”
“All hands on deck,” Fitzgerald said Monday. “We’ll prepare just like we always do. We look at each game with the same process and the mentality of going 1-0 each week ? That’ll be the same mentality this week and next week.”
