There is no such thing as a good loss. Every defeat counts the same in a team’s record, and as Pat Fitzgerald and his players said after Saturday’s game, you are only as good as your record. For Northwestern, that meant Saturday’s 24-20 heartbreaking loss to Ohio State was an especially bitter pill to swallow as it returned back to .500.
But there are such things as encouraging losses. And Saturday’s was just that.
Last year, Northwestern played two conference blue bloods — the teams traditionally at or near the top of one of the nation’s finest conferences — and lost by a combined score of 78-10.