2024 Northwestern Closing Arguments: Why the Wildcats Will Go Bowling Again

I. Opening Statement

A. Case History

The Northwestern Wildcats went 8-5 in 2023.

That’s correct, no one understands how it happened—Northwestern fired Pat Fitzgerald just a couple months before the 2023 season kicked off after a shitty hazing scandal revealed top-to-bottom organizational incompetence in the Northwestern Athletics Department. They shouldn’t have won three games.

And then they won eight.

Many people say the fourth season of Community was the “gas leak” season, but then wasn’t “Intro to Felt Surrogacy” great?

...ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Northwestern won eight games in 2023 after dropping its opening tilt to Rutgers and getting shellacked by Duke. The ‘Cats were aggressively bad on offense when QB Ben Bryant wasn’t around, and it showed in a 17-9 loss at Nebraska and the abortion at Wrigley.

But with Bryant at the helm, Northwestern gave wisconsin one of the best shellackings I’ve seen in my years of ‘Cats fandom, held off Purdue, and then won the stupidest game possible with Illinois to finish 7-5. A Fitzgeraldian 14-7 win over the Utah Utes in the Las Vegas Bowl, and there you have it.

B. Opening Statement

Ben Bryant is gone. Cam Johnson is gone. Half the defense graduated or transferred to Notre Dame. An offensive lineman transferred to Michigan, somehow.

But under new head coach David Braun, Northwestern has shed some of the dead weight.

Out is OC Mike Bajakian, he of the ill-advised shirts and generally-shitty playcalling. In is South Dakota State wunderkind Zach Lujan. Out is Braun as defensive signal-caller. In is serial chainsaw-holder Tim McGarigle.

Out are the OL coach and special teams coordinator, in are guys who I hope I don’t have to be mad at for a long time. If you want to dwell more on those changes, here you go.

But ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Northwestern emerges from 2023...in decent shape?

Lujan has weapons to work with: WR AJ Henning, who’s back for one last hurrah, and his counterpart Bryce Kirtz, who I’m referring to as a poor man’s Austin Carr just so I can force Iowa fans to remember that game at Kinnick. RB Cam Porter is a workhorse. The QB will be Mike Wright of Mississippi State, probably, unless he loses what’s definitely a “quarterback competition” to Jack Lausch. He’s good at running for his life, which bodes well.

David Braun began building a defense in 2023 that, while not quite competent, emerged highly-ranked enough from the wreckage of Jim fucking O’Neill to show that there was a good reason Fitzgerald plucked him from Fargo to lead the defense in Evanston.

And now, your honor, it’s time for a new era of quiet competence at Northwestern.

II. Discovery

A. What We’ve Written

B. In Layman’s Terms

Grab some, take a swig, and let’s get to gettin.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship’s bell rang
Could it be the north wind they’d been feelin’?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
‘Twas the witch of November come stealin’
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin’
When afternoon came it was freezin’ rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind

When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin’
“Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya”
At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in, he said
“Fellas, it’s been good to know ya”
The captain wired in he had water comin’ in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral
The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early

III. Schedule of Events

IV. Emotional Plea

Northwestern doesn’t deserve your sentiment and, frankly, I doubt you’re lining up to provide it.

Instead: you know you want the absurdity of it all.

You want to see Northwestern drag Indiana and wisconsin into Martin Field, goad someone into shanking a punt so badly it sinks a barge on Lake Michigan, and then climb the Big Ten standings, only to be pimp-slapped down by Ohio State and Michigan in grandiose fashion on back-to-back weekends in which I will assuredly be washing my hair rather than witnessing that war crime.

Running the losing streak at Wrigley Field to something like 30 games? GREAT! WHO CARES! Play every game at Martin Field until the day that I die. The only mistake Northwestern made—once they put Derrick Gragg out to pasture for the dumbass idea of doing Cleveland v2.0 with the wisconsin home game—was not scheduling every game at Martin Field until kingdom come.

So we’re left praying the gales of November come early again.

Support that insanity. Back Northwestern going 5-0 there in back-to-back seasons until the evidence that it works becomes so incontrovertible that Northwestern scraps plans for New Ryan Field and announces it is annexing even more of Lake Michigan.

V. Verdict

Y’know what? I’ll take these.

Myself, I have Northwestern dropping its two opening games. I don’t trust this offense to just find its stride—and that’s a commentary on the personnel, not Zach Lujan. I’m very excited to see what the former Jackrabbits signal-caller brings to Evanston.

But—and this is me being an emotional sap—I just get that feeling about David Braun. I don’t know if this is what Northwestern fans felt like in the early years of Pat Fitzgerald, but there’s a fun vibe around the program again.

It’s probably too early. The Big Ten is probably too tough. But why not, in a dumb stadium that feels quintessentially Northwestern, find a way to bowl again?

5-7 (3-6), as my colleagues have concluded, feels spot-on.

Lest the gales of November come early.