Northwestern football: It's no joke with a Rose Bowl berth on the line

I vividly recall the first time I watched Northwestern’s football team play Ohio State in person. It was a previous century, and my Wildcats were behind, which was not surprising considering the Buckeyes were highly ranked, as usual. We knew we were headed to a lopsided loss, which also was not surprising. That happened a lot when I was in school.

Ohio State had already scored a couple of touchdowns, but the Wildcats were not giving up. We strung a few good plays together and managed to get a first down.

This was cause for celebration in the student section. We pumped our fists and let out a chant that made us laugh.

“Rose Bowl! Rose Bowl!”

Back then, the cheer was nothing more than a self-deprecating acknowledgement that we had come to a wonderful academic institution without a good football team. The Rose Bowl was but a distant dream.

Now, however, this Saturday in the Big Ten Championship game in Indianapolis, if Northwestern were to upset Ohio State, the Rose Bowl is exactly where the Wildcats will go.

As an astute sports fan, you probably have heard the news that small, private and beautiful Northwestern University is playing in the Big Ten Championship game for the first time. If you need to know anything more about this, there are a couple hundred sports journalists working at newspapers and websites and TV and radio stations around the country who would be more than happy to fill you in.

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We’re the ones who went to the Medill School of Journalism, where we learned early on there is no cheering in the press box — which is why most of us won’t be anywhere near the press box Saturday in Indy, because there most definitely has to be cheering.

This is the first column I’ve written about Northwestern in years, with good reason. As a journalist, I cannot write or report on a school that I proudly serve in several capacities, including as a member of our 66-person Board of Trustees and a Medill professor of practice.

But a fun column on what it has been like to live and die with NU sports all these years? When I ran it by my editor, she gave me the green — er, purple — light.

Northwestern has always been known for its academics, a fact that soothed us when we lost all those football games back in the day.

Another fumble?

“That’s all right, that’s okay, you’re going to work for us someday!”

Another three and out?

“Our SATs are higher!”

Annoying, yes, but that — along with strong women’s and Olympic sports — was just about all we had.

Now, though, things are different in Evanston. Academics still reign supreme; the latest U.S. News and World Report ranking has us 10th, ahead of three Ivy League schools, but gorgeous sports facilities dot the campus for our men’s and women’s teams, and winning has become almost commonplace for the football team. (I say almost because Pat Fitzgerald has to be the only Big Ten Coach of the Year to lose to Akron.)

In March 2017, NU men’s basketball made a splash by qualifying for its first-ever berth in the NCAA tournament. On the night the Wildcats beat Michigan on a miraculous buzzer-beater to pave the way for the tournament bid, late-night host Seth Meyers, a fellow alum, tweeted what thousands of us were thinking at that moment:

“That’s the least Northwestern thing ever.”

I find myself saying that more and more these days.