From the Outback Bowl website:
by Rodger Sherman on Dec 6, 2009 4:39 PM CST
in Northwestern Wildcats Football
43 comments
This is what the Outback Bowl's website looks like. So, yeah, it's official.
Surprising, but, well, awesome. More reaction later, for now, comment away here.
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Congrats
I guess that’s vindication for what happened to you all last year.
They took the bar, the whole fucking bar!
by recoveringfratguy on Dec 6, 2009 4:48 PM CST reply actions
yeah, for real
now we know how it feels to not feel guilty about going to a bowl we probably don’t belong in
by Rodger Sherman on Dec 6, 2009 5:05 PM CST up reply actions
from the press release:
“Outback Bowl officials today extended invitations to Auburn University and the University of Northwestern to play in the 2010 Outback Bowl on New Year’s Day in Tampa, Florida”
GO U!
U OF NW!
GO U!
you get the point. they have a quote from pat fitzgerald and jim phillips in that press release, even though his press conference isn’t for a few hours
"University of Northwestern"
…was quickly corrected in the press release. That means it was pretty obvious that this was a last-second fill-in and the decision between University of Wisconsin and Northwestern University came down to the last day/hour/minute.
I must say that I was surprised at the decision, and apparently their PR people were as well.
--
JHodges
HailToPurple
don't worry
i took a screengrab of it. that pr gaffe is saved for eternity.
also caught off guard: the company that bought advertising with sbnation that keeps putting ads for clemson gear on my site and ads for auburn gear on the wisconsin site. enjoy that while it lasts.
by Rodger Sherman on Dec 6, 2009 8:35 PM CST up reply actions
last night
while reading your post hoping for hawaii to flatten wisconsin, there was an add for hawaii gear. it’s kind of funny, watching contextual advertising backfire like that.
Can't tell if this is
a big win for y’all or a huge slap in the face to Wisky. Probably a bit of both, with slight edge to Northwestern movin’ on up to a deluxe apartment, in the sky.
I ate the blue ones ... they taste like burning.
Should be...
a good time… I don’t think the two teams have ever faced each other; ergo, neither fanbase knows much about the other.. I just hope both teams have good fan support! If nothing else it sure beats spending New Year’s in colder climates!
DWWD -- WDE!
Okay --
I’m sure it’s worse in Chicagoland — but it’s still in the lower 40’s here and, to me at least, that is cold!! :)
DWWD -- WDE!
well you're right either way
florida is decidedly nicer than low 40’s or mid 20’s. i really hope i can swing the trip, but having to be back at school 2 days later might throw a wrench in that.
your qb might want to play in some colder weather though. he’s going to need tons of extra padding to save himself the bruisings of corey wootton.
However...
I was watching some of the ACC championship game lst night – which was in Tampa – and I saw many, many, fans wearing sweatshirts, jackets, etc. so maybe it won’t be as “ideal” as we’d like… And I guess, at this point, the only “colder” weather our QB will face is whatever happens to be in Auburn between now and year’s end… And I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen NU play a single game all year so I have no idea of whom/what AU should be wary. I love going to see Auburn play – only missed one game all year – but the down side to that is not being able to see other teams/games.. So, other than Corey Wootton – to whom should AU pay “extra special” attention?
DWWD -- WDE!
i like your attitude
i haven’t seen much from auburn either except for the ‘bama game, in which you played well. so i’ll give you that.
when you’re on offense, watch out for DEs wootton and vince browne, S brad phillips, who has a knack for injuring people in open space, and CB sherrick mcmanis, who is in the middle of every pass play longer than 8 yards
when you’re defending, you’ll need a strong secondary to contain mike kafka’s growing accuracy on deep balls and near-never-miss aptitude on “dink and dunk” short plays. we’ve got very little running game, but keep an eye on scott concannon and arby fields on running back, who have shown potential. Our wide receivers almost never drop passes, so you’d be wise to throw up zone coverage, as we play man to man very well.
now that i’ve totally ruined our bowl chances by giving away our game, what can we see from you?
if you're going
you should fly back to ohare from tampa. if you’ve already booked your flight, apparently it’s not that hard to switch that out.
by Rodger Sherman on Dec 6, 2009 8:36 PM CST up reply actions
i really want to
but i need to find people to go with, and a lot of people are in the same boat.
… do you want to go with me? does anyone here want to go with me?
I . . . told . . . you . . .
I told you this last week! And you folks doubted me. Tsk, tsk.
by Disinterested Par-tay on Dec 6, 2009 7:32 PM CST reply actions
Sure.
No raisins in there, right?
by Disinterested Par-tay on Dec 6, 2009 7:59 PM CST up reply actions
At last,
my self-imposed boycott of Outback Steakhouse can end.
(At least, until I actually put one of their steaks in my mouth. Then I might change my mind again.)
Back to back Tiger teams
While I’m a bit more optimistic about the Auburn ones, than the Mizzou ones, the outcome is impossible to predict. NU will likely be a ten-point underdog, which will help. Auburn’s running game is great, but then, so was Wisky’s until they came to Evanston. Auburn played Bama better than Florida did, but lost other games that it shouldn’t have. Sort of like NU. NU played tough at the end of the season, but let’s face it, we play down to our competition in almost every game. And this is not meant to diss Auburn. I’m just saying that if Auburn plays its worst game, it still could win. On the other hand, if Auburn plays its best game, NU could still win. This could be a shoot out or a game like Iowa. At least I don’t believe we’ll be intimidated by Auburn (like we consistently are against OSU and to a lesser extent, PSU), That makes me somewhat optimistic.
It is disappointing that TCU doesn’t get a better opponent than Boise. There is a good case for TCU to be in Pasadena on 1/8.
this game
will be all over the map in terms of predictions. for what it’s worth, looking at records, matchups, and streaks, i like NU in this game. everything i’ve heard points to a weak auburn secondary (much like wisconsin) and a slightly run heavy offense (also much like wisconsin). seeing as how we matched well against the badgers, i’m going to proffer NU by a score of 27-24 after holding auburn on their final drive. sounds awfully familiar, but it’s the mold for a lot of NU games.
In other words
another coin flip. It would be nice to look like a real winner for once.
really?
you’re going to complain about NU beating an SEC team if its a close game?
No,
and if I seemed to sour, my apologies. A one-point win will make my year (football-wise). Overall, I am happy with this team and this year. But we lost to one miserable team, and to two other very mediocre teams, while beating two teams above us in the standings. You can easily fill in the blanks. I just think we need to take another small step upward. Even if we don’t, I’m very proud of this teams.
I actually think that most bowl games become coin flips. the goal of the bowls is to put up even matches (while making money), and while that’s not always the case, the extra month to prepare makes the games a lot closer. for example, while i wouldn’t pick cincinnati over florida during the year, i could see an upset in the making given the extra prep time. ohio st. v. oregon would have always been a very close game. oklahoma v. stamford is basically a push at this point. all in all most every game is difficult to predict, and that just makes it more fun, i think.
yes, it’d be nice to be heavily favored in the bowl game, but i’d probably say more to be heavily favored in every regular season game (see illinois and wisconsin)
Well said
in the first paragraph. As to the second paragraph, I don’t want to be heavily favored, which would make the bowl a joke, I want to be confident as an NU fan, which I’m not. But the main point of my responding here is to acknowledge the three grammatical mistakes in my prior comment. My bad.
If we’re on our game, Auburn is toast!
My previous comments on NU's bowl desintation were mostly wrong
I must admit, I was in the group that thought NU had little to no chance to make it to the Outback (particularly with Wisconsin’s win over Hawaii). I know I shrugged off anyone who was saying that NU had a legitimate shot at the Outback.
I was wrong.
I tried to put caveats in all of my statements that we wouldn’t know for sure until this Sunday and that anything can (and obviously did) happen for bowl selections, but still shot down many who said NU has a chance at the Outback.
In any case, I’m glad all of the uniformed fodder is over (I too was uninformed, just like 99% of the bowl projectors out there) and we can scramble to make reservations to see the ‘Cats play on New Year’s Day.
--
JHodges
HailToPurple
War Eagle everyone...we're looking forward to playing NU
Everyone was pulling for NU over Wisconsin. We’ve played UW a couple of times in the past decade (1-1) so we’re all ready for another Big 10 team. Can’t wait!
some motivation for our boys. no respect
i just saw these comments on the espn sec blog ( http://espn.go.com/blog/sec/post/_/id/6972/outback-bowl-first-take#comments ), which had a short preview of the game. here are three of the first four:
“Northwestern? Auburn is going to put the smackdown on this game.”
“OMG, please Auburn, take it easy on em…hahahaha "
“I like Auburn, 39-20. WDE! "
we’ll be overmatched talent-wise (solely based on recent recruiting classes), but i like kafka against their secondary. they’re also run heavy, and we did well against wisconsin and john clay. Should be fun
no one in the world
is stupider than random commenters on espn/youtube and mainstream sites like that
my personal favorite was a guy trying to argue that john mayer is a better guitar player than stevie ray vaughan
that guy's wrong
but it should be noted that john mayer is a really good guitarist. unfortunately, every song he writes falls into that icky jason mraz effeminate singer/songwriter category, and he gets a deservedly bad rap for that.
by Rodger Sherman on Dec 7, 2009 12:24 PM CST up reply actions
I posted this on Track 'Em Tigers -
But here it is again — I haven’t seen NU play a game all season so – with nothing to do last night except tuck in a sick wife – I decided to go back and research the NU games as best I could. Actually, quite impressed with what I have seen and I think the two teams will match up well. I’ll be in Tampa an hope to see the stadium packed with colors from both teams. I’d love for Auburn and Northwestern to show the Outback Bowl that they made the correct choices with teams and fanbases! WDE!!
DWWD -- WDE!
And, for what it's worth,
I have spoken, texted, emailed, a number of people and no one from the Auburn side believes NU is a pushover — I don’t care what the so-called “expert” analysts say, this could/should be a good ballgame.
DWWD -- WDE!
you were right
"If you sit there and watch a person take about an hour to tie his shoestrings, then you realize that whatever problems you got ain't that significant"
---Vernon Forrest 2006
by The Midnight Rambler on Jan 1, 2010 2:18 PM CST up reply actions
Go Cats!
"If you sit there and watch a person take about an hour to tie his shoestrings, then you realize that whatever problems you got ain't that significant"
---Vernon Forrest 2006
by The Midnight Rambler on Dec 7, 2009 11:54 AM CST reply actions
Northwestern 35
Auburn 38
arrgh
"If you sit there and watch a person take about an hour to tie his shoestrings, then you realize that whatever problems you got ain't that significant"
---Vernon Forrest 2006
by The Midnight Rambler on Jan 1, 2010 2:18 PM CST reply actions
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