wrighters.net

I just got back from witnessing the sorriest display of football I’ve ever seen in my life. And that’s saying something if you are a Northwestern fan. NU just allowed the biggest comeback in NCAA history. That’s a lot of years, a lot of games, and a lot of circumstances, and I got to see the worst ever. The score was 38-3 in the middle of the third quarter, and they somehow managed to lose 41-38. In that span were two interceptions (one in the end zone), a blocked punt returned for a touchdown, and a lot of bad defense.

Arizona Cardinal fans should have nothing to be ashamed of, losing to the Bears last Monday night by giving up two touchdowns late in the game. At least the Bears are a good team, and they gave up the points to the defense which is the strength of the team. MSU should more likely be on the losing side of a game like this after giving up a huge lead to lose to Notre Dame earlier this season.

It seems with Northwestern that when you can’t believe they could lose in a bigger way (see my earlier post for some examples), they always surprise you.

You know the players have the talent to win, but once you are a part of a losing tradition and have seen your team fall apart, it’s really hard to not see it coming as soon as things start to turn. As a fan, I already saw them losing as soon as it was 38-17, and once the punt was returned for a touchdown, I should have just gone home. NU used to be the team making the comebacks (witness the Iowa win last year, which I gave up on early), but I think they are a long way away from that now.

Halfway through the third quarter this felt like a real turning point for the team, they seemed to have found an offense and a real gem of a quarterback in Bacher. The sidelines looked pumped, and the offense was racking up yards. The defense was spirited and had made some big stops. Now, I don’t know where you go from here.

Looks like a 2-10 season to me.

Take a look at the NCAA football schedule for ABC TV this Saturday:

* 11:00 Pitt vs. Syracuse
* 2:30 Oklahoma vs. Texas
* 7:00 Nebraska vs. Iowa State

Now I live in the Chicago area. Notice the games that aren’t being shown:
* NU vs. Wisconsin
* Michigan vs. Michigan State
* Illinois vs. Indiana
* Iowa vs. Purdue

Now I know that some of these were on ESPN, but give me a break, who is in charge of this scheduling?

The NU game was shown on ESPN360, the dumbest idea to come out of the ABC Empire ever. Basically, you can view clips and games using a Flash based player, but only if your ISP has signed up with ESPN. My guess is this means they do some kind of server co-location to keep the load down on their corporate servers, but of course Comcast doesn’t want to play ball with them. So I listened to NU get blown out by Wisconsin on the radio. I would have been willing (before the game) to shell out the $22 extortion fee that ESPN gameplan would offer online, but even that’s not available without the ISP collusion.

I don’t understand how the NCAA can’t just go with a competent third party to offer games online, I wold think there is a lot of money to be made here.