Beng's Guide to Northwestern vs. Iowa

College football is an evil enterprise.

At its most simple level, college football is about taking (often disadvantaged) kids, giving them brain damage by having them get into countless car wrecks over their four or five-year career, not paying them for the privilege, then taking the money those kids earned and giving it to Bowl Executives named Bartholomew Chesterfield Esq. who take the payment in the form burlap sacks with dollar signs on them and use a pushcart to escape the scene via the Intercontinental Railroad.

There are window dressings to disguise that fact, of course. But the NCAA remains a cartel and the ringleaders of its organization surely must be vaguely aware that they run a Larry, Curly, and Moe-ass organization and are on borrowed time.

Every once in a while there are people who hold the reins of power within that broken system who work towards making it better. I’d submit Randy Edsall, now on his Schiano-esque second tour of duty at UConn, as such an example: a coach who speaks loudly and wisely on the inequities present in the system he collects his paycheck from.

But 99 times out of 100, anything good that comes out of college football is player-led. Like Kain Colter attempting to unionize with his Northwestern teammates. Or the PAC-12 attempting to unionize this summer. Or Mizzou football players striking. Or Texas players refusing to stand for The Eyes of Texas. The kids, as they say, are alright. And now that players feel more comfortable being vocal about their lived experiences than they did, say, a decade ago, there will be more of those undeniably good moments cutting through the background noise. And with that, more of a spotlight shone on programs and people who are failing their student-athletes.

This year, it’s all been brought to bear. Between the explosive pleas and protests for racial justice in the spring and the ongoing pandemic, there is a lot for universities to answer for and not a lot of answers are coming. College football is long on mostly symbol-heavy, action items-light displays like unity kneels and helmet patches. 

Meanwhile, at Nebraska…

The money, above all else, must be kept flowing. The situation in Madison is an especially transparent example. After having several players and a head coach test positive, the decision was eventually made to cancel their upcoming game against Nebraska. As of now (and things are changing by the minute), there is no plan to reschedule the game.

With the Big Ten’s moronic decision not to bake in bye weeks to its nine-game schedule, two teams, including an odds-on division favorite, will just not play the same number of games as the rest. All of this renders whatever competitive bona fides this season has completely meaningless. You can’t call one team a champion if they played fewer games than the rest of the conference. It just won’t work.

It is at this point that you have to wonder what the real reason for this season being played is. How can the NCAA claim to be having a competitive season with titles and bowl money and all the jazz on the table if a team’s season can be completely upended? And if a truly competitive season is an impossibility (and early results say that it is), what other point can there be other than to get some more money while the getting is good? 

College football is always light on morality. This year is even lighter on pretense. All this is a lead in to talk about Iowa and the news that came out of their program this summer, of course, but before we get there, there is one more step that needs to be clarified.

Using a scandal like this as a piece of Rival Beef is gross. There’s no need to make a terrible situation as another notch in their belt to explain why one’s school is superior to another, Using victims as some kind of “own” does no one any favors. It demeans their lived experience in a very self-serving and shallow way.

Iowa sucks.

We have known this for a long time, but the recent reports are especially damning if not especially surprising. After all, didn’t we know on some level that Kirk Ferentz’s program had an expectation that his players act a “certain way?” Perhaps it's seeing it on paper in a long report that led to a strength coach being shown the door (along with a $1.1 million golden parachute) that bangs the point home. 

I do not need any more juice to wish for Northwestern to rain death and destruction upon Iowa. But it’s difficult not to, as a fan, see this game take on a bit of a good vs. evil overtone.

And I’m not quite sure how fair that is. I think Northwestern, both as an institution and as a football program, has dropped the ball more than its fair share of times when it comes to issues like these. Lia Assimakopoulos wrote an incredible feature on Inside NU about one such historical example.

Northwestern is not above the evil system in which it participates. And while they may not be as gross as Ferentz’s Hawkeyes appear to be, I’d caution anyone who would ascribe a higher morality to the Wildcats. The blood money is on everyone’s hands.

Iowa, though, must be stamped out. It must be crushed by the marauding bands of Yards brought forth by the new Bajakian Imperial Age (may it last 10,000 years). Kirk Ferentz must be sent under the yoke. His collection of Guys who all infuriate and disgust me must be laid siege by Mike Hankwitz’s battering rams. Charlie Kuhbander can kick some field goals too I guess.

Iowa’s whole deal is McCall Era Northwestern-esque in its commitment to outdated offensive principles and an aesthetic that makes me sick. The collection of Iowa-Northwestern games in which Northwestern won in increasingly Goldbergian fashion in the early days of Pat Fitzgerald’s tenure was remarkable and delicious. But this game must be comprehensive. No doubts must be left.

Iowa is a pox. Northwestern has the opportunity to effectively end their season by making them fall to 0-2. 

It must, can, and will do so. Northwestern 31, Iowa 17.