Purdue Preview

I'm taking a time-out from thinking about the firing properties of medium spiny neurons. I know it's hard to believe that I can tear myself away, but I didn't want to miss out on making a pick.

Conventional wisdom suggests that current trends (the two most prolific Big Ten offenses this year) and past performance (we tend to lose at Purdue, except in 2005) point toward a big loss for the Cats tomorrow. Personally, I think this is one of the two hidden-but-important games of the year for NU. The first was the MSU game that started us on this current winning streak.

I think the ApostroCats and the ApostroCoaches know this, and they'll be ready with a couple of guys back from injury (Sutton and Simpson) and some big plays to change the game for us.

My Pick: Northwestern 35, Purdue 31.

Let's go Cats!

EMU Preview

After two thrilling OT wins in the last two weeks, let's all hope and pray that the ApostroCats don't have a let-down at Ford Field on Friday. Detroit is as close to a home game as they will get in this series. NU is not going to Ypsilanti. But I really wanted to type "Ypsilanti."

The Eagles have a pretty balanced offense, and they have been able to score some points lately. Also, they played us pretty close at Dyche last year. I think we'll pull it out, but it's not going to be the kind of blow-out that could get us a little national dap.

Northwestern 31, EMU 13.
NU gets a little ground game going, which means a slightly lower score than the last two weeks.

Minnesota Preview

Hey! I guess my prediction of a shutout didn't quite come true last week? Perhaps I overestimated John Gill's ability to stop all 11 Spartans at once. Ah well, everyone makes mistakes, and obviously I'm quite pleased with the final result.

Looking ahead to Minnesota tomorrow, I think the ApostroCats will have reasonable success on offense (not 48 pts worth), but don't expect that Minnesota has no scoring potential. I'm going with....

Northwestern 30, Minnesota 14.

Let's go Cats!

Michigan State Preview

Is it bad that I get less and less excited about writing these as we keep losing? I guess that's why I'm not a professional sports columnist; I can't write 12 columns per day like Jay Mariotti.

For tomorrow's NU game at Michigan State, I think the Cats will have to look to their most consistent performers to keep on doing what they've been doing. Everyone on all sides will have to pitch in to get the win, and last week they showed that they can do just that for a while.

So, I'm picking two Cats to make major impacts tomorrow: John Gill and Amado Villarreal. Gill is in charge of stopping both of MSU's running backs (Ringer and Caulcrick). Amado is in charge of offense.

My pick: Northwestern 21, MSU 0.

Let's go Cats!