Sunday Fun Day: Fat Cats

 

The unpredictability that is 2020 keeps on giving (or taking depending on who your school is). The Big Ten almost erupted into full blown anarchy on Saturday with Indiana blowing a chance at glory against Ohio. St and Rutgers falling just short against Michigan in triple overtime. Penn. St fell into full blown irrelevance with a loss to Iowa making them 0-5 for the first time in the history of the program while Nebraska got curb stomped by a one win Illinois squad and all Scott Frost could say afterwards was "I didn't see that coming." I will talk more about that and all the teams Wednesday in the first power rankings release but for now lets talk about what's happening in Chicago.

Memo to everybody : "Never bet against Pat Fitzgerald as an underdog!" Patty Fitz and the Northwestern Wildcats have the college football world seeing purple after a very Northwestern like win against Wisconsin securing them first place in the Big Ten West. Raise your hand if you had Northwestern in the drivers seat of the Big Ten West after week 5, or week 12, hell I dont know anymore (its the end of November and Utah just played their first game so call it what ever week you want). Anyways, put your hand down because you're a liar. The Wildcats have all but locked up the West and have done so with a stout defense and just good enough offense. I don't even know if "good" can actually describe what the purple haze trots out their every week when they have the ball. To put into perspective how "Northwestern" this Patty Fitz team is, take a look at this stat from ESPN's David Hale,

"Entering Saturday, teams with fewer than 300 yards of offense were 24-116. Northwestern moved to 3-0 in such games with the win against Wisconsin."  

Lets take a quick look at every Iowa fan in America upon reading this stat and realizing they have still only made it to one Big Ten title game. 

Seriously, this stat is as Northwestern as it gets. The Cats have not topped 317 yards of offense since the opener against Maryland and they have won every game... How does that happen?! Northwestern ran the ball 24 times for 24 yards against the Badgers and 60 times for 143 yards against the Hawkeyes and won both games. As hard as it is to admit for this blogger, Pat Fitzgerald is just plain good. I'm still waiting for his Tom Riddle moment when he air scripts his name and reshuffles the letters revealing that he is the dark wizard I think he is but until then he deserves credit. His teams always have an identity and they stick to it regardless of the flow of the game. That is difficult for certain people to understand (eyes facing the direction of Lincoln, Nebraska). The game Saturday honestly could have had a greater margin of victory had the Cats not fumbled at the goal line in the second quarter. All of this will lead to the grandest moment 2020 has to offer when on Sunday Northwestern is in the top 10 of the playoff rankings (Pat Fitzgerald with the mic drop).

As mentioned before I will get to the other games Wednesday. For now lets take a look at how the league faired this week...

The performance in week 5 for the WRBL(NA) league was damn near as bad as Nebraska was this week. To put it into perspective, Tyler had the best week going 6-4 and only grabbing 33 of 55 available points! The rest of us did our best to imitate the stock market crash of 1929 and performed much like Joe Milton performed for Michigan on Saturday (not well). The absolutely astonishing level of futility shown this week has prompted me to add another segment to the blog which will be dubbed as "The Tuesday Ticker". Here is Daltons performance graph as a teaser for Tuesday and warning, pretty much everybody's looks like this.

This is what we are dealing with here people. Let me give you the standings and points tables before diving into things further.

As you can see, things have really tightened up league wide. Tyler's 33 points brought him into a tie with myself in first as I continue my free fall from the the top. The difference now from first to last is only 50 points. There is plenty of time for anybody to make a charge for the Golden Bucsh Light NA can. Nobody did this week however. Behind Tyler, Teddy finished second in points this week with 26 behind a 4-6 record. Buddy, Brent, and Ben all went 5-5 with point totals of 25, 24, and 22. Bens performance by the way has been as bland as the Chum Bucket. Luke's garbage performance of 17 points and a 4-6 record landed him 6th this week while Dalton proved that his tally last week was simply a mirage by going 4-6 for 14 points. Still, that netted him seventh place this week! Here is where it gets bad. Three of the previously dubbed "Graberkamps" decided to completely jump ship this week. Two weeks ago all three were in the top 4. Here is a replay of each of our weeks.

First we go to Poods. he finished 8th this week with a 3-7 record for a total of 12 points. Last week he was in the middle of a meteoric rise to the top and all of its glory. This past week he tried to get cute and it bit him in the butt. Here's actual footage of Ethan's game plan this week and its execution.

Moving onto myself, I finished the week 3-7 for a paltry 10 points! After rumors of an early season cheating scandal ran rmpant through the league, the outside noise has become to much and I am in free fall. After the first two weeks it looked as though I may well run away with the title. Even after week 3 I posted a winning record. I basically had the ball inside the ten with an open lane to the end zone and then this happened...

I still cant feel my back boys.

Now before I talk about Blake, lets remember I made a statement about Dalton’s 8 point performance in week 2 saying that it surely would end up as the worst result all year (insert Blake's week 5). From his dear Wolverines going to overtime against Rutgers, to his Cowboys being an after thought, Blake has had a rough season. Nothing however tops his 2-8, 5 point performance in week 5! Blake scored 5 points!!! Once a contender, he has fallen out of grace with the other Graberkamps and joined the dynamic duo of Dalton and Ben at the bottom. Blake going into the weekend had told me that he needed to make a move this week and wanted to hit big on his picks. I respect that. This league is only for people who are as daring and unique as the cold filtered beer for which this league is named after. However Blake, when you try to hit the hailmary, just remember that it may go like this instead...

And that wraps up week 5! We have 4 weeks left in this shortened season and its nice to see things tightening up as we cross the halfway mark. Remember to be on the lookout for two more posts this week chronicling Big Ten and league shenanigans. Until then just remember that Nebraska lost to this guy by 20 this week.