Northwestern looked so lousy in the opening game of the season against Tulane that it seemed that the ‘Cats could struggle against FCS jobber Western Illinois in the home opener on The Lake. It was possible, if not particularly likely, that they could even lose, although you would like to think that even the lowest tier of Big Ten team could easily handle Western Illinois in front of a home crowd of several dozen Northwestern fans and the occasional windsurfer jauntily passing by the stadium. And they did. Northwestern bulldozed their less north and further western neighbors to a 42-7 drubbing and while I am skeptical that this tells us anything other than the difference in the type of athlete that even Northwestern can recruit over their FCS counterparts, I am also making the extremely brave and controversial assertion that it still fun to see them get a buttkicking win before getting fed into the Big Ten woodchipper.
Duck Off
