Thanks Willie, it’s a terrific article.
Happy New Year folks!!!
Shawn
And another great memory for Cat fans
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PURPLE HAZE IN AN IMPROBABLY SENSATIONAL SEASON, NORTHWESTERN EMERGED FROM A FOG OF FUTILITY TO EARN A TRIP TO SUNNY PASADENA
By Rick Telander
Why us? Why now? Fairly simple, says Rick Taylor, athletic director atNorthwestern. Then he begins to explain it all: how a team likethe Wildcats, formerly
I got to talk to several of the 1949 players at the pre-game tailgate party in Pasadena. It was inspiring, and a close second to something I experienced a few years ago when I was at a hotel in Florida for a chess tournament and the hotel was hosting the annual gathering of the Tuskeegee Airmen. They had a lot of stories to tell, too.
Love the story… and wasn’t that back when the players played both ways?
(or was that only the Pros)
Go B1GCats
rsl
Many players played both offense and defense well into the 1950’s, when rule changes on substitutions made separate offensive and defensive squads easier to manage.
ESPN puts it fingers on the scale and then regrets the decision
Roy
I was thinking that many must of played both ways , though if you do the math from Willie’s article, NU had to have at least 36 players on the squad ( and likely more) thus Im wondering if some players only played on one side of the ball
Harry
Marc
There was some chatter earlier in December that FSU would go all out to beat Georgia and then hope that both Michigan and Washington lost to enable them to be the only undefeated team from a Power 5 conference and thus may have still been voted #1 even if they didn’t win the CFP Obviously nothing of the sort happened; though it would have been an incredibly interesting controversy had it occurred
Harry
Thanks to all for the interest and kind words…and wishing everybody the best for the new year!
FYI – the second paragraph of the article (second sentence) states that there were 45 players on the NU roster.
Big loss.!
We will have a tough schedule next year playing Washington and Michigan on the road and OSU at home
Harry
Conference schedules will be tougher with the addition of 4 teams that are generally pretty good. A nine-game conference schedule (unlike the SEC’s eight-game schedule) will improve the Big Ten’s strength-of-schedule numbers, but so far that hasn’t seemed to be much of a factor in determining who gets in the playoffs. Maybe it’ll shuffle the standings a bit with 12 teams headed to the playoffs, though.