By Ben
BolchBy Ben
Bolch
May the top-25 farce be with NU
If a top-25 team (Northwestern) falls in the woods (near Central Street), and no one is around (Dyche Stadium), does it make any noise (in the world of college football)?
Sure it does. But the sound is not a thunderous crashing and rumbling. It's actually more of a shuffling of sports writers returning to work after all this Northwestern-in-the-top-25 silliness.
These writers, who presumably go about ranking the best teams in the land, have gone back to doing just that this week. And maybe because of the Wildcats' 30-28 loss to Miami of Ohio, they learned how to do their job a bit better (to never arrive in Evanston on the rankings bandwagon).
NU, which sneaked into the Associated Press Top 25 like a 15-year-old sneaks into an R-rated movie, has also returned to its more natural unranked setting. It's a setting in which there is no "Good Morning America" cameo, there is no mention of the Cats in Sports Illustrated and there is no picture of quarterback Steve Schnur plastered on the front page of The Chicago Tribune.
Only ESPN hasn't gotten the picture. The network, which last week sent second-string ESPN2 to cover the foibles of second-string Larry Curry and the Cats, is now sending in the first-string commentators when ESPN televises Saturday's 11:30 a.m. NU-Air Farce affair. Our only regret should be that Paul Janus isn't there as well.
Air Farce went the way of the Cats last weekend when the then-No. 19 Falcons lost to Colorado State. And that's actually a good thing both teams lost, because it would have been too weird to have two ranked teams playing in Dyche.
It's surely going to take a lot for either team to get back into the top 25.
If I'm a sports writer with a vote in the AP poll, I'm thinking there are three reasons I won't put NU back in the top 25 until the Cats win five games:
1. Miami of Ohio
2. Miami of Ohio
3. Miami of Ohio
Colorado State, meanwhile, is a fairly respectable team to lose to. The Rams probably got sick of Air Farce coach Fisher DeBerry's wishbore offense and decided to go ahead and win the game since they weren't getting any entertainment value out of it. NU decided much the same in its 14-10 sleeper win over the Falcons in 1994.
A win this weekend would do little to place NU (1-1) back on the college football map. Yes, the Cats were 2-1 in 1993 and were ranked 31st in the country, but the early loss that season came to Notre Dame, not Miami.
Now that I think of it, a win this weekend and next weekend against Indiana won't catapult NU back into the rankings either. The Hoosiers recently lost to Division I impostor Kentucky. That, my friends, is far worse than losing to Miami of Ohio.
So let's get this straight: The Cats could be 3-1 with a win over Notre Dame and still be unranked?
Yep. And that's the way it should be. NU must beat someone besides these next two teams to prove that the win against the Fighting Irish wasn't a fluke. We're talking a Michigan, a Wisconsin or a Penn State.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves. The whole reason NU is stuck in this unforgiving quagmire is because they lost to a mid-level MAC team.
Now the WAC comes calling - or in this case, landing - and is looking to chop further into NU's fallen season.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This document may be distributed electronically, provided it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice. It cannot, however, be reprinted without express written permission of Students Publishing Company. All material published herein, except advertising or where indicated otherwise, is copyright© 1995 Students Publishing Company.