2009 Northwestern Wildcats football team

The 2009 Northwestern Wildcats football team represented Northwestern University in the Big Ten during the 2009 NCAA Division I FBS football season. Pat Fitzgerald, in his fourth season at Northwestern, was the team's head coach. The Wildcats home games were played at Ryan Field in Evanston, Illinois. The Wildcats finished the season 8–5, 5–3 in Big Ten play and lost in the Outback Bowl 35–38 in overtime against Auburn. == Schedule == == Game summaries == === Towson === It was apparent that Towson didn't stand a chance from the get-go. Northwestern raced out to a 30–0 lead before putting in the reserves out of mercy. To Towson's credit, they did go toe-to-toe with Northwestern's second and third stringers, which is no small feat, given that Northwestern is a somewhat prestigious FBS school and Towson is a mostly unheralded FCS school. The game allowed both teams to get some experience for the future and the final 35 minutes gave Northwestern's younger players some good game experience. This would prove to be one of Northwestern's few blowout wins of the 2009 season. === Eastern Michigan === Northwestern seemed poised to cruise to another dominating blowout victory when they raced out to a 21–3 halftime lead and still held a fairly comfortable 21–10 lead after three quarters and widened the lead to 24–10 early in the 4th. Northwestern eventually found themselves only ahead 24–17 and soon the game was tied at 24–24. To avoid the game going into overtime, the Wildcats finished off the stubborn Eagles with a field goal. === Syracuse === After their win against Eastern Michigan, Northwestern faced Syracuse at the Carrier Dome. Syracuse had played Minnesota in a close game in week one before losing against Penn State, who didn't allow a single Orange point until the reserves were all subbed in. Syracuse won the game by converting a field goal as time expired to break the tie. This put Syracuse at 1–2 and Northwestern at 2–1. === Minnesota === Going toe-to-toe with a Gophers team that had beaten the same Syracuse team that the Wildcats had lost to, Northwestern played a close game with Minnesota, even leading 24–21 going into the final quarter before Minnesota took back momentum to win the game 35–24, putting the Wildcats at 2–2. === Purdue === The Boilermakers raced out to a 14–3 first quarter lead and held 21–16 halftime lead, but the Wildcats steal one from the Boilermakers (who would later on upset the Buckeyes) with a second half rally. Still trailing 21–19 after three, the final Northwestern touchdown put them ahead 27–21 for the win. === Miami (OH) === Unlike the game with Eastern Michigan, this one wouldn't come down to theatrics, Northwestern led 10–0 after one and scored six more in the third quarter to take a commanding 16–0 lead. Poised for the shutout, Miami got on the board late in the fourth quarter, but Northwestern denied them the two-point conversion to make it a game. === Michigan State === Facing another better than their record Big Ten team, this time Northwestern wouldn't get so lucky. Leading 7–0 at halftime, they soon trailed 17–7 after three, and despite giving Michigan State all they could handle, the game was destined to go Sparty's way. === Indiana === In addition to losses to Iowa (42–24) and Ohio State (33–14), Indiana also faced a 47–7 loss to Virginia and a 31–20 loss to Penn State. Against Northwestern, Indiana took a 21–0 first quarter lead, but would eventually lose after Northwestern scored 10 fourth quarter points. === Penn State === Handing Northwestern their only blowout loss of 2009, Penn State was shut down by Northwestern's offense for the first 40 minutes of the game until they finally got some momentum late in the third quarter, scoring three rapid fourth-quarter touchdowns to give the game an appearance of being a much easier win for Penn State than it really was. Northwestern quarterback Mike Kafka was injured late in the game, which led to backup Dan Persa being thrust under the lights. After the injury, NU's offense could do little against the vaunted Penn State defense. Regardless, this was Northwestern's only humiliating loss of what was a mostly positive 2009 season. === Iowa === Licking their wounds from the massacre at the hands of Penn State, the Wildcats traveled to Kinnick Stadium to take on the undefeated Hawkeyes, ranked #4 in the BCS, fresh off of a 42–24 blowout win over Indiana, who actually led 21–7 early on over Iowa and still led 24–14 deep in the game before Iowa took command in the second half. It looked early on like Iowa was poised to make mincemeat out of Northwestern as Penn State had done a week before. This game wouldn't go Iowa's way, however; the Hawkeyes would lose their star quarterback Ricky Stanzi in the second quarter and would never recover. Northwestern nabs their best win of 2009 by upsetting then #6 Iowa (who would finish #7 in the nation) 17–10 on the road. === Illinois === Illinois was bowl ineligible and had little to play for except pride, which they played with in this game and had shown increasing amounts of since their 38–13 upset of Michigan. Northwestern controlled the game for three quarters before Illinois suddenly sprang to life, but the Wildcats hung on to beat the pesky Illini 21–16, and win the inaugural Land of Lincoln Trophy, which replaced the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk. === Wisconsin === Northwestern managed to grab their second major upset of 2009 against the Badgers under the lights at Ryan Field. It looked like Wisconsin was going to get blown out as the Wildcats raced out to a 27–14 halftime lead, but Wisconsin fought back to make it 30–24 after three, but Northwestern recovered a fumble on Wisky's final drive to hang on to their second big upset of 2009, winning 33–31. === Auburn—Outback Bowl === In what is remembered as one of the most entertaining bowl games of all time, Mike Kafka set bowl game records with 78 passing attempts and 47 completions. After a back and forth affair with numerous turnovers and missed field goals, overtime seemed only fitting. With kicker Stefan Demos hurt, Northwestern tried a fake field goal which failed, giving Auburn, the next year's national champions, the victory. == Roster == == References ==