[NU Sports] AWESOME article

[Jonathan Hodges]

The thing is that Fitz has and never will admit such a fact: his goal
(something that he's quoted on in the article) is to recruit guys who meet
NU academic standards while being a consistent winner.  That is as it should
be.

The fact for us fans, though, is that we can't reasonably expect
Northwestern, with its strict academic standards and resource constraints
(size of school and athletic department funding), to compete for a
conference title and/or BCS bowl berth EVERY year.  This is the "ceiling"
that Mandel is talking about.  It's just not reasonable right now for NU to
expect to be on par with the likes of Ohio State, Florida, etc.

Yes, PSU has high graduation rates, BUT, they have far lower admission
standards (academically) and also have broader courses of study available
when compared to Northwestern (I'll refrain from saying easier).

As an NU alum and fan I would love nothing more than to have NU turn into a
perennial power nationally, but I realize that this likely won't be the
case.  Instead, I am happy with Fitz's promotion of the program and the fact
that NU is now turning in almost annual bowl berths and is legitimately
contending for a conference title about once per recruiting cycle (5 years).

Yes, root for NU to win every game - I sure do.  But if you are honestly
expecting NU to turn into a football powerhouse forever, you are kidding
yourself.

Finally, as we've seen this decade, being a competitive team alone doesn't
bring in the fans (NU won 9 games last year and is facing its worst per game
season attendance in years - even post-dark ages).  But, hopefully, winning
over time will help build up a fan base.

Jonathan

On Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 10:03 AM, Dennis W. Brandt <tbng at comcast.net> wrote:

> <"Saturday's Iowa win likely assured its fifth bowl trip this decade; it
> had played in three its entire previous history."
>
> Mandel's statement is factual but essentially meaningless given that only
> in recent years have bowl games assumed lagomorphic reproductive frequency.
> Certainly the 1962 and 1970 teams would have played in the post-season had
> there been a bowl available.  Remember when the only bowls were played on
> New Year's Day, and the Big Ten champion couldn't play in the Rose Bowl in
> consecutive years?
>
> I despise Mandel's comment that Northwestern has a "ceiling" on
> expectations.  That essentially is a belief that we can never aspire to
> excellence on the football field, a mantra we hear all the time here.  The
> attitude doesn't exist in the classroom.  Northwestern has a fine academic
> reputation not because its teachers are inherently superior to all other
> schools but because it only selects the best academic material for those
> instructors to teach.  Why should we not do fill our major sports teams with
> the best talent  available?  To suggest this turns us into a football
> factory is inane.  Penn State, for example, has a 50-50 chance of beating
> Ohio State every year (OSU leads the all-time series 13 - 11), yet their
> players have a graduation rate on par with ours.  If you're going to take
> the big bucks from the Big Ten, then you have a responsibility to pull your
> own weight.  Until we can field a consistently good-to-great team virtually
> every season, the stands will remain substantially empty at home and be
> less-than-packed on the road.  The newness of winning something - anything -
> has worn off.  Time to take the next step.
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-- 
Jonathan W. Hodges
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