ChicagoSportsBlogs : Non Compete

No, it's not an April Fool's joke. The battle of the Wildcats ended on Saturday afternoon with the visitors from that football power-house New Hampshire, handing the Northwestern football team their asses. It was a cloudy day in Evanston and you wonder if that was the cause of the Wildcat's inability to stop New Hampshire from scoring. Maybe the team is solar-powered, and with all those clouds they just couldn't get going. What a shame.

It was Randy Walker day and the stadium was covered with people wearing "WALK" jerseys. The field was painted with the same moniker to commemorate the life of the former NU-coach. It was sad.

The game itself was worse. The NCAA Division I-AA New Hampshire Wildcats came to Evanston with a lot of confidence. I don't blame them for that. The Evanston version of the Wildcats is known to have one of the worst defenses in the entire country, but that wasn't the problem on Saturday. Fumbling the ball inside your own 20 yard-line, twice would be the obvious reason for the loss. You can't expect to win a ball game against a D-III team, let alone a top-ranked D-IAA team.

This was the worst I have seen Northwestern play in a long great while. There was no fire on defense. The effort was poor from the start and it seemed like team concentration was completely lacking. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come, because I just picked up my season tickets. Northwestern football is going through a difficult and emotionally wracking time. I hope that Coach Fitz starts to crack down on the lackluster effort and gets the Wildcats back on track.