Recaps
Posted by Matt on November 13, 2010 at 8:34 PM
IT'S TIME. IT'S TIME. IT'S WATKINS TIME (TIME TIMe TIme Time time)!
The coronation of the heir apparent began with a whimper - hushed whispers about Dan Persa's status and a game-ending kneeldown. Unfortunately, fans didn't seem happy to see Watkins enter the game as QB1 like we thought they would, but that's fair. We always assumed Evan would just hop Persa on the depth chart one day; it's not the same when he goes down to a freak injury.
Persa's tendon rupture after the...
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Posted by Matt on November 06, 2010 at 7:30 PM
The exciting part of watching a team trying to overcome a losing tradition is that when they DO lose, they try to do it in new and interesting ways. So far this year, the 'Cats let a team full of replacements hang in there and pull ahead late for ths upset, then saw a bid for an upset of their own fall short in the fourth quarter. This time, they saw no need to wait for the fourth, getting outscored 28-0 in the second half to watch the game slip away in a slow, painful twist of the k...
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Posted by Matt on October 30, 2010 at 4:25 PM
Northwestern continued their charitable efforts against the Big Ten's worst teams on Saturday by letting Indiana stick around until the very end of a 20-17 victory. Luckily for all of humanity, the Wildcats' forfeiture of any and all garbage time opportunities did not keep Evan Watkins on the sideline.
Late in the game, Dan Persa was momentarily shaken up when he got kicked in the head on a scramble. It was an honest mistake, we're sure, since DP7's head is roughly at kneec...
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Posted by Matt on October 23, 2010 at 6:16 PM
NU rebounded nicely from a soul-crushing home loss after the bye week with another soul-crushing home loss.
Wildcat QB Frodo Baggins returned to form after an off week, throwing his third pick of the season against the Spartans. Unfortunately, you were unable to hear the calls for Evan Watkins to take over under center because pretty much everybody in the stadium was busy yelling "FAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE" when Michigan State lined up to punt.
Northwestern has two trademarks pe...
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Posted by Matt on October 09, 2010 at 7:09 PM
Northwestern overcame all the odds stacked in their favor to continue being a Northwestern football team, losing to Purdue's backup quarterback at home in a night game.
A quick perusal of the Internets shows no hits for "FuckYeahRobHenry.com", so we can only assume that the former Boilermaker benchwarmer is no demigod on par with our own WATKINS, so the only viable explanation has to be that Northwestern is, in fact, Northwestern, and that starting 6-0 may actually be prohibited by uns...
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Posted by Matt on October 02, 2010 at 8:01 PM
Evan Watkins and a bunch of other guys improved their overall record to 5-0 and stand undefeated in the Big Ten after a big win in South Dakota's stadium on Saturday. Oh wait, sorry, it's technically Minnesota's stadium but South Dakota just owns the place.
An auspicious performance by a certain overachieving munchkin (one interception is a mistake, two is the start of a trend) kept the game close until The Kicker took a break from trying to perfect the world's first lateral-movi...
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Posted by Matt on September 25, 2010 at 7:52 PM
The mighty Northwestern Watkinseseseses finished their nonconference schedule 4-0 by oppressing Central Michigan in a 30-25 victory at the future Evan Watkins Memorial Except Not Really Memorial Because As We Will All Find Out In The Future Northwestern Legend And NFL Hall of Famer Evan Watkins Cannot Actually Die Stadium. NU held up their end of the bargain in the prestiguous Big Ten vs. MAC Regular Season Football Challenge (not to be confused with the slightly less prestigious Big Ten v...
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Posted by Dan on September 21, 2010 at 8:06 PM
Apparently, Northwestern played Rice University this weekend. You probably didn't know this because a) it wasn't on TV b) only 6 game tickets were actually sold or c) Evan Watkins isn't the "official" starter yet. But there was, in fact, a game this past Saturday...a game Rice didn't want you to know about. No television broadcast, no instant replay, no fans - it was evident Rice was scared of something. Was it Fitz's extensive preparation complete with simulated weather conditions at practice? Was it that they were unaware that Northwestern's QB1 was not, in fact, a small child? Or were they scared of playing David to the Goliath known as gunslinger Evan Watkins?
Sadly, Rice cut off all forms of outbound electronic communication from Houston, leaving the answer a bitter mystery. However, I was able to obtain some game notes from my father who still resides in Houston and was able to send me the above telegram. It is the closest thing we have to an actual account of the game, a game which we can only imagine was another victory lap in the great Evan Watkins career.
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Posted by Dan on September 12, 2010 at 10:00 AM 
With the Wildcats up 30-3 at halftime, mustache-free Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald had a decision to make. Leave starting quarterback and honorary member of the lollipop guild Dan Persa in the game and he risks a classless drubbing of the already reeling Illinois State Redbirds. After all, the Wildcats had already picked off ISU QB Matt Brown twice. Meanwhile, Persa was peering over the line like a grandmother driving a Cadillac, connecting on 19 of 23 passes for 241 yards and two TD's. A modestly succesful outing for a boy with safety pins holding up his football pants, conventional wisdom says avoid running up the score and bring in the backup.
For most, conventional wisdom means an inexperienced underclassmen with his mom in the stands. For NU, it's Evan Watkins, a 6'6” tall, 240 pound hunk of steel sporting a jersey specially made to fit his massive biceps. He's as poised as a 5th year senior. He has a cannon for an arm. He told his mom not to bother showing up.
Minutes into the second half, Fitz made the call. As Journey's “Jukebox Hero” blared over the loudspeaker, Watkins switched from headset to helmet and strolled to the line. 30,000 at Ryan Field suddenly sounded like 60,000. Concession vendors stopped and turned to witness history. Flashbulbs popped. Tears were shed. Watkins was here.
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Posted by Matt on September 05, 2010 at 10:44 AM
Nashville has eaten lesser men alive. The city of Roy Acuff and Lefty Frizzell has put tough men - cowboys and truck drivers, mechanics and bricklayers - underneath bright lights and reduced them to little more than soggy, trembling pules of studded denim. The manliest among them wouldn't be caught dead listening to Tim McGraw, much less step out in front of a crowd wearing purple.
So consider it no small feat that young men flying Northwestern purple marched across Nashville several times over on Saturday night en route to a 23-21 victory over the hometown Vanderbilt Commodores. The amaranthine warriors served notice to the Music City and to the world that they ought not be lightly considered. Opening a season on the road is tough for any program, much less one struggling with the added pressure of settling the ageless playground debate, "which dork would win in a fight?" With the nation gazing upon Nashville due to ill-founded morbid curiousity, the Wildcats rose to the occasion, thanks in no small part to the looming presence of their 12th man. Allowing, of course, that redshirt freshman Evan Watkins is but a man.
In the age of sabremetrics and quantitative analysis, there are many reasons to cite for Northwestern's victory, such as Vanderbilt proclivity for penalties and unsuccessful two-point conversion attempts, or perhaps the 19-of-21 passing performance from quarterback Dan Persa, whose 90.5 completion percentage placed him head and shoulders above every other passer in the country - which, adjusting for height, still puts him roughly 8-10 inches below most of his peers.
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