Widcats Upset #9 Nebraska | HailToPurple.com

by GoUPurple

If there ever was a game that exemplified Wildcat football-- and what it means to play as a Wildcat-- Northwestern's landmark win in Lincoln against the ninth-ranked Cornhuskers was it.

NU, just two weeks removed from a disappointing 2-5 record and a five-game losing skid that began at West Point, took momentum from its much-needed win at Indiana and upended the Legend leading 'Huskers, 28-25. NU did so as 17.5-point underdogs, with no one (except the Lowes Line) picking the team to win on the road. Northwestern came into the game riddled with injuries, and the game resembled the football scene from the movie "M*A*S*H," with 'Cats leaving the game in pieces.

Dan Persa, already hobbled and playing some of the toughest Wildcat football in the team's history, passed for 74 yards and averaged seven yards per scramble before he was brought down hard on his left shoulder, suffering a soft tissue injury. Persa soldiered on before finally being forced to call it a day.

No matter-- NU has worked through such matters with its (oft-criticized) double-headed quarterback attack. Only against Nebraska, a different kind of signal-calling monster needed to be fashioned, and Fitzgerald and McCall had one ready: behold the quarterback hydra, a three-headed Wildcat phantasm that sent the children of the corn into paroxysms of panic. With Persa down, Kain Colter had the game of his career, showing off some of the finest athleticism ever exhibited by a Wildcat. Colter's superhuman leap to tip the football into the goal line pylon deserves to be on every highlight reel across college football this month. Colter had taken some pretty harsh criticism this season; that he clawed back to hand in this performance demonstrated the heart and the will of a Wildcat.

Colter, however, was not done contributing to the NU highlight reel. Early in the fourth quarter, with Northwestern nursing its four-point lead-- the Wildcats would end up leading the entire game-- Colter fired a perfect downfield strike to Ebert, who tore ass through Nebraska's secondary, making the 'Husker safeties appear trapped in syrup as he streaked to the end zone for the play of the year. The 81-yard touchdown was the second-longest passing score in Wildcat history.

Just when the 'Huskers thought they had the quarterback problem worked out, the Wildcat QB hydra had revealed its third head, Trevor Siemian, who completed three of his four passes (with one pick) for 67 yards.

The Wildcat hydra had some incredible help. NU's offensive line, troubled for much of October, roared back to life against Nebraska. The famous 'Husker defense, which had just been rewarded their famous blackshirts days before the game, watched helplessly as the Wildcats O-line tore those shirts to shreds, allowing just one sack all day.

The Northwestern offense had a Wildcat-worthy performance, but it was unexpectedly NU's defense that really hearkened back to the team's Wildcat origins, and showed what Wildcat football has always meant.

One of Northwestern's earliest football heroes, Walter Scott (who would eventually become the school's president), broke his hand in a game early in the 1892 season. As described by NU historian Walter Paulison, "instead of quitting, [Scott] obtained a boxing glove and played out the season with the hand encased in this protective device." Against Nebraska last Saturday, safety Brian Peters broke his hand early on. Rather than quit, Peters had his hand bandaged and wrapped up and played through, reminiscent of Coach Walker's warning before the legendary 2000 Michigan game: "they'll have to kill us to beat us." Another player from NU's early era, captain Harry Allen would later recall, "To leave a game was a disgrace unless the player had to be carried off the field." Peters, and the rest of Northwestern's defense, chose to make a stand against Nebraska, and they didn't leave the field until the 'Huskers had been dismantled.

Congratulations to Coach Fitzgerald on the biggest win by the team since 2009, and congratulations to the players for not giving up on this season. To have done so would have been completely understandable, but it would not have been the act of a true Wildcat.