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Washington Preview and Prediction
By The Lowes Line Staff
Matchup: Northwestern Wildcats (2-1, 0-0) at Washington Huskies (2-1, 0-0)
Date: Saturday, September 21, 2024, 6:00 p.m. CDT
Place: Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium, Seattle Washington
TV: FS1
Line: Washington (-10.5)
Outlook: Fear and Loathing in Seattle (plus
two naked Burt Reynolds references in a single sentence), with
apologies to Raoul Duke.
We were somewhere around Missoula on the edge of the Bitterroot Range
when the drugs began to take hold. My client Raoul was saying something
about being lightheaded and maybe I should drive. And suddenly there
was a terrible roar all around and the sky was full of what looked like
huge purple cats all swooping and yowling catlike and scratching the
pale vinyl of the car, which my client was driving 100 miles an hour to
Seattle. And I heard my own voice screaming “Holy Otto Graham! What are
those damned animals!”
Then it was quiet. I had taken my shirt off and was pouring beer on my
wounded belly to hasten the healing process. Raoul muttered to me “what
are you yelling about?” I just stared upward at the alpenglow sun from
behind my plastic wraparound shaded glasses newly purchased from Wall
Drug 9 hours earlier. My client hit the brakes and told me it was my
turn to drive. I replied that as his attorney, I respectfully
disagreed, and added some quite disrespectful adverbs. He didn’t
mention the swooping purple cats. But I knew the poor bastard would see
them soon enough, and purple Huskies too.
It was noon, and we had hundreds of miles to go, tough miles. All too
soon we would be completely twisted in an enemy stadium, watching cats
and dogs engaged in the latest iteration of their eternal battle, but
this time for the first time as conference rivals. We needed rest, but
would have to ride it out. Pregame for this B1G contest was already
underway. A niche sporting blog had charged us with this game
preview, and had provided us with this huge Purple Willie Wagon we’d
just driven across most of I-90. I am, after all, an attorney, not a
professional journalist, but I had an obligation to cover this game,
for good or ill, whether this email list wants to read it or not.
This being the Lowes Line, the editorial board had given me $300 in
cash, most of which was spent on extremely dangerous substances picked
up at various truck stops across the upper midwest. The trunk of the
Willie Wagon looked like a mobile Buc-ee’s in miniature. We had two
bags of old-fashioned licorice, 75 loose Corn Nuts, five sheets of
unfinished Mad Libs, half a can of Body Armour peach energy drink, and
a galaxy of candies, aspirins, antacids, gummies, Zyn packs … oh, and a
pint of ether. Because Northwestern football.
Just wait until I tell you about the hitchhiker we picked up outside
Coeur-d'Alene, who thought we were ready to cut off his head for being
a Nebraska fan. Didn’t believe us when we said we were his
friends. We were on our way to find the American Dream at a football
game in Seattle.
This week’s Line is true. I’m certain of that. It is extremely
important for the meaning of this story to be made absolutely clear. I
had been sitting for many hours earlier this week in a post-operative
haze, drinking apple juice laced with oxy, so when the inspiration
inevitably hit for this preview I would be ready. I had finally gone
under the knife to make my temporary outtie back into an innie, but the
recovery had me on my back feeling like a Ticonderoga #2 was slowly
being driven into my bellybutton over and over again without being
withdrawn. So I sprawled in my recliner with a throw pillow from two
sofas ago wedged under me to blunt the hinges and levers that protruded
from the worn fabric of the chair. I felt like April 1972 Burt
Reynolds, but I looked like 1996 Burt Reynolds huffing lint before
meeting with the Young Christians. As I sank into the dull relief of
Percocet I could hear my daughter passing the time between field hockey
practice and dinner practicing the bridge and solo of an Avenged
Sevenfold classic banger. As the repeated refrain of Bat Country echoed
and my belly button throbbed, I knew that this assignment called for
something only Doctor Gonzo can deliver. I stared out of the living
room window and watched the squirrels slowly transform into
snaggle-toothed lizards splashing through the mud and blood of my back
yard. I had to work, had to take an assignment before the lizard
squirrels could get me. And so my client Raoul and I lit out in the
Purple Willie Wagon for the dirty commie hippie haze of the New Babylon
that is the Pacific Northwest.
[Ed. Note: this is where I really apologize for ripping off the good Dr., but one cannot ignore the wave section.]
Strange memories on this nervous night in Washington. Thirty-two years
later? Thirty-three? It seems like a lifetime from the fraternity
house—the kind of peak that never comes again. Evanston in the late 80s
and early 90s was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe
it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run . . . but no
explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense
of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the
world. Whatever it meant. . . . History is hard to know, because of all
the bullshit between graduation and getting older and fatter, but even
without being sure of “history” it seems entirely reasonable to think
that every now and then the energy of a whole generation of Wildcats
fans comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody
really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect,
what actually happened to Fitz… My central memory of my time on
campus seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early
mornings—when I left the house half-crazy and, instead of going to
sleep, aimed the old Bronco II at seventy miles an hour wearing blue
jeans and a Kick In The Grass t-shirt . . . booming down LSD buzzed on
Busch Lights, not quite sure which turn-off to take when we got to the
other end to find Burritoville . . . but being absolutely certain that
no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were
just as high and wildly hungry for burritos as I was: No doubt at all
about that. . . . There was madness in old Dyche Stadium, at any hour.
If not across Noyes, then up the Purple Line or down to the Green Mill
or . . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic
universal sense that whatever Northwestern football was doing wasn’t
right, that we were never winning, except in the parking lots
handstanding on kegs. And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of
inevitable victory by the forces of Old (Ohio State) and Evil
(Illinois). Not in any mean or sporting sense; we didn’t need that. Our
energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side
or theirs. We had all the momentum of the losing Streak; but we were
riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . . So now,
thirty-some years later, you can go down to the lakefill in Evanston
and look East, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the
high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back
on posts tossed in victory years before.
My oxycodone-fueled visions fade. This isn’t the 1980s or even
the 1990s any more. Even the paranoia-fueled Drug Decade that my client
Raoul documented in his warped youth has given way to a background
stank of burnt Bigfoot hair and Millenial body odor. There is no law
and order, there is no stigma, and the hallucinations of mobster-era
Vegas don’t compare to the nightmare reality that the lost culture wars
have left in their wake. I drove to Seattle, my client and I, to watch
cats and huskies fight tooth and claw and slash violet and lavender
fur, better to see them tear each other on the verdant kelly green of
Husky Stadium then hide huddled together in Springfield praying for the
release of a no-kill shelter buffet. We came to Seattle at our own
risk, seeking the Dream of a bowl-eligible season, but ultimately
apathetic to the new B1G Ten After Dark.
As Raoul and I hurtled across the Evergreen State line in our Purple
Wagon, I knew that the roughly two dozen loyal readers of this Line
might wonder about the NU quarterback change, how the newest school
from the West Coast fared in the latest Apple Cup, maybe a few poetic
lines about the stunning city views from a temporary field on the Lake
that sells 12,000 seats but only fills 6,000 of them. Some of the two
dozen are on their own sweaty jones waiting for some glimmer of insight
to beat the new Vegas books built on the skeletal remains of Circus
Circus and the Desert Inn – do they take the points, parlay the under?
I recognize that swirling need to make your body drunk on sports and
scores and gambling while your brain stays lucid enough to recognize
the bankrupt hypocrisy of an Elite Institution still desperately
sportwashing its incompetence and its hamfisted dalliances with just
the tip of political populism whilst trying to simultaneously avoid and
coddle the unlubed political extremism from the frothing maniacs on the
meadow. I advised my client that, as his attorney, the dogs we were
going to witness in this heart of Saturday night darkness would bite,
and bite hard. Welcome to the B1G, you pups.
We pulled into the stadium parking lot and drove aimlessly among the
tailgates, looking for an inconspicuous spot to ditch the Purple Willie
Wagon. Finding half of a parking space near a group of undergrad
zombies slowly trying to balance melted gummies atop their plant
burgers, we headed toward the gate. I turned to Raoul, saying “As your
attorney, I advise you to find a seat in the press box and commandeer
as many fart-sniffing artisanal IPAs as your poor ulcerous stomach can
handle, while I look for something that contains at least 15% meat. Our
readers will want to know details of the game – first downs, rushing,
tackling, points and such. We don’t know the players or the teams, but
on this night we have a job to do, dammit.”
Raoul looked back at me, his teeth like footballs and his eyes jellied
fire, and wagged his head. “I’m sorry, Doctor Gonzo, we have missed it.”
Prediction: Seriously, if you’ve read this far
you deserve an honest gambling assessment. Last season will fade
further and further into the past, as the machine of Big Time Revenue
Football chews up the Wildcats. Congratulations Washington on your
first conference win. Huskies 24, Wildcats 10. Take the Huskies and lay
the points.
Season To Date:
Straight Up: 2-1, Against The Spread: 2-1
The Lowes Line is an
e-mailed description of NU's
next
football game, with an invariably fearless prediction of the outcome
and
how NU will fare against what the other "experts" predict. Our
good
friend and Brother Marcus Lowes began the broadcast mailing in 1996.
The crack Lowes Line Staff (alumni Lone Star Cat,
GallopingGrapes, P.S. O'Briant, Eric Cockerill, Joel Kanvik, Charlie Simon, and
MO'Cats) have continued the Line in memory of Marcus.
For
the 2024 season it has returned to HailToPurple.com,
for anyone to enjoy. Thanks to the gridiron brain trust at the Lowes
Line!
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