Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football

by Bacon, John U.

  When Sandefer tried to do the same thing at the University of Texas, however, the alumni association stood up to protest in support of the faculty, and the two sides seem headed for a historic battle.

  At Virginia, the students and faculty rebelled in force, too, defending President Sullivan from Dragas and company, and forcing them to reinstate her within days.

  Would a similar takeover of the nation’s biggest athletic departments prompt a similar rebellion by players and fans? And if the battle between economic and academic interests is not fought there, where will the front line be drawn?

  • • •

  Penn State’s players had simpler things to worry about: winning their first game in almost a year. They started out with a determined seventeen-play drive, converting three third downs and two fourth downs—the last a quick, confident read by Matt McGloin to a wide-open Kyle Carter, right over the middle, for an early 7–0 lead.

  But they lost their early momentum when Anthony Fera’s replacement, Sam Ficken, missed three straight field goal attempts—from 40 to 20 yards, the latter snapped from the 3-yard line—and an extra point, too.

  Penn State’s defense was as good as Ficken’s kicking was bad. Mauti forced a fumble, Jordan Hill grabbed an interception, then Mauti forced another fumble. Late in the game, Mauti recovered a third fumble, after which he ran off the field with the ball held high, jumping and hollering, as if the ball had everything he’d ever wanted inside it.

  The Lions held a shaky 16–10 lead with eight minutes left in the game when they had to punt again. On the Cavaliers’ final possession, they converted a third-and-16 on their way to the end zone to take a 17–16 lead with just 1:27 left.

  The camera focused on a Penn State fan, mouth open, hands on face, head tilted back—a perfect symbol of the accrued agony of ten months of bad news, big and small, without relief. ABC then flashed a graphic: the last time Penn State had started the season 0-2 was 2001, when they finished 5-6.

  The 2012 Lions remained poised, calmly moving the ball from their own 27 to Virginia’s 25-yard line in just eight plays. This set up Sam Ficken for another chance, a 42-yard field goal attempt with one second left on the clock.

  As Ficken set up, they flashed his career stat line: 2 for 6, 43 long, 2 for 3 PATs. Today: missed left, missed right, missed right, and made the last one, from 31 yards out. The stage was set perfectly for the shaky sophomore to be the hero, for the team to run off with a thrilling victory, and for everyone to fly home to a grateful campus.

  The Virginia coach kept his head down, unable to watch.

  The ground was dry, the wind was light, the angle was dead straight, and the snap was good. So was the hold.

  Ficken stepped into it, but as he approached, his form was clearly off. His left shoulder opened, driving his leg and twisting his body to the left, which is exactly where the ball went: far left.

  The Lions had to fly home heavy with the knowledge that they had not won a game since November 19, 2011.

  • • •

  ABC cut immediately to the Big House, which was a sea of maize for Michigan’s home opener against Air Force.

  The Falcons might have been undersized, but they were tough, they ran the tricky triple option, and just like every other team visiting the Big House since the Appalachian State Horror of 2007, they played without fear.

  With the Wolverines hanging on to a 31–25 lead with just 2:45 left, Air Force got the ball back on their own 20-yard line, giving Michigan fans reason to dread another 0-2 start themselves. Greg Mattison’s defense held, however, and one more Big Ten team escaped a nonconference disaster.

  Ohio State broke free from Central Florida in the second half to win 31–16. But Nebraska, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Iowa were not so lucky, falling to UCLA, Notre Dame, Oregon State, and Iowa State, respectively.

  A couple hours before Northwestern’s kickoff, the Big Ten was already a disheartening 5-5 on the day. Illinois would get crushed later that night by Arizona State, 45–14. So the league was looking to the former “Mildcats” for some redemption against the only other SEC school the conference would play in the regular season.

  It wasn’t just Northwestern fans or Big Ten backers who should have been pulling for the Wildcats, however, but every person who cares about college football. Because if Northwestern could not compete with this squad, this coach, this athletic director, this president, and this approach, then the entire enterprise of college football would be taking another big step toward becoming a glorified minor league.

  • • •

  By 5:00 p.m., the Bluestone had finally filled up, with the bar about evenly divided between Northwestern purple and white, and Vanderbilt black and gold, often at the same table. As one Northwestern fan said, “This is the Friendly Bowl.”

  While not as dramatic as Northwestern’s unforgettable 1995 season, in 2008 the Commodores had executed a similar rags-to-almost-riches story. They have not won a conference title since 1923, and between 1986 and 2001 they averaged just over one league win a year. But in 2008 they went to their first bowl game in fifty-three years—and actually won it, earning the envy of everyone in Evanston. Then they went to another bowl game in 2011, setting expectations higher in 2012.

  A Vanderbilt fan proudly quoted their coach, James Franklin, saying Vanderbilt should lose players only to Cal, Stanford, Notre Dame, and Northwestern. It was a point of pride for both schools—right up to President Schapiro.

  The Association of American Universities (AAU) has only sixty-two members, Schapiro explained, and only twenty-six are private schools. When you take out the seven Ivy League schools in that group, and such universities as Emory, Brandeis, and Washington University in St. Louis—all of which play in a Division III league with Chicago—you’re left with exactly seven private members of the AAU that play Division I football: Duke, Tulane, Rice, USC, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Northwestern.

  “When people ask me why don’t we play our peer institutions in football,” Schapiro told me, “it’s because there are only six! There just aren’t a lot out there.

  “But I believe you are who you play, so it’s nice to play other schools that are different from the mainstream.

  “We like playing Vanderbilt.”

  • • •

  An hour before kickoff, the crowd started walking a few blocks down Central Street, which could double as a movie set for small-town, 1950s America. If you didn’t know better, you might think the throng was headed to Mustard’s Last Stand, an inspired hot-dog joint with a line going out the door. Their actual destination was Ryan Field, which only presents itself when you reach Mustard’s Last Stand. Ryan Field is just another building on the block, the antithesis of a Jerry World plopped down in an ocean-sized parking lot. Ryan Field might be the smallest stadium in the Big Ten, with a capacity of 47,130, but it’s also the only one that reminds you of a neighborhood ballpark.

  A parking lot can speak volumes about a stadium. The one framing Ryan Field wraps around the stadium in a U and holds only about 1,500 cars, not tens of thousands. The asphalt is faded, rolling, and cracked, the kind you might find in front of abandoned shopping malls.

  But the tailgaters didn’t seem to care. Roger Williams, the former Northwestern wrestler, set up shop with his classmates, all former Wildcat athletes themselves, who had become successful professionals. Back in the day, they said, the students dominated the parking lot, but when they barred the fraternities from tailgating, that changed everything.

  From the local law enforcement’s point of view, however, that wasn’t all bad. “Oh, yeah, I remember the frat-party days,” the oldest officer in a circle of three told me. “I remember when they managed to set the asphalt on fire, and that pretty much marked the end of that.”

  “Now you have to pay to get in the game!” one of Williams’s friends exclaimed, a complaint which would not get much sympathy from Michigan, Ohio State, or Penn State fans, who fork over a few hundred bucks for the same honor each
football weekend.

  Another difference from their college days: they were actually talking about the game beforehand and had clearly given it some thought during the week.

  “We’re three-and-a-half-point underdogs tonight,” one reported without surprise. “We’re rarely favored—even at home.”

  None of which dampened their optimism. When they made their predictions, every one of them picked the ’Cats.

  Of all the elements of Northwestern and its football team that had changed since they were students in the early nineties, the fans’ newfound confidence might have been the most striking.

  “Go ’Cats!” they said, put down their beers, and walked to the stadium—before the game had even started.

  • • •

  Game time fell right at dusk, on a cloudless, sixty-one-degree evening, with the setting sun glowing off the prettier campus buildings. Beyond the shoreline, Lake Michigan spread the entire width and breadth of the horizon, flat as glass. You can see nothing else from the press box. The scene rivals the view at Penn State, looking out on Mount Nittany.

  From just beyond the north end zone, where the Northwestern players got dressed in the football building, they ran out under an awning, charging down the sloped, perfectly manicured grass, through two columns of the marching band. The official attendance was just 31,644 that night, but the cozy confines made it feel like twice that.

  Because the students weren’t due back for another three weeks, Northwestern officials were pleasantly surprised to host their largest season opener since the game following 9/11, when the need to be together was unusually high, and a solid Michigan State team was in town.

  The crowd cheered a little louder when they saw the team’s new uniforms, which brought back the classic “Northwestern stripe,” a thick horizontal band, sandwiched between two thin ones, first popularized in the 1920s. The crowd cheered again when the players ran over the end zone, newly painted with the same Northwestern stripe.

  But new uniforms and fresh paint cannot protect you from a good opponent, and Vanderbilt’s first drive clearly showed they were a serious, well-coached team. Led by Aaron Rodgers’s little brother, Jordan, they ground out 77 yards in 13 plays to take the early 7–0 lead. The teams traded field goals to end the half at 10–3, but the scoreboard hardly did the first two quarters justice.

  Neither school could boast the kind of “big uglies” you see playing for their conference opponents, but both teams played smart, sharp, and fast football. Not three yards and a cloud of dust, but rollouts and end arounds and reverses, with the occasional Statue of Liberty thrown in for fun—the kind of clever football fans like to watch.

  • • •

  During halftime, I left the press box to take a tour of the eighty-seven-year-old building. Entering the stadium under its Romanesque columns, you first notice an actual grill, bigger than a Chevy Volt, blazing away under the stands, filling the concourse with the sweet smell of a dozen backyard barbecues.

  Just past the south end zone, opposite the locker room and the football building, the grounds crew has built an arced ramp of grass that runs up right to the stands, which form a parallel arc. The first row of seats sits about five feet above the field, close enough to feel the speed of the game, but high enough to see what’s going on—with nothing in between but a three-foot-high chain rope. The space between player and fan shrinks after a touchdown, when the lucky Wildcat often runs up the grass incline toward the crowd.

  In those seats, I came across a young couple enjoying a night out. Justin Mangin, a 2006 Michigan State graduate, brought his girlfriend, Courtney Chambrell, a University of Georgia alumna—both of whom work in Chicago—for what can only be called a cheap date. “We got our tickets on StubHub for four bucks each,” Mangin told me. “Four bucks! Hell, the face value is eighteen. We paid about that for tickets to the Michigan game here last year, and that was the most expensive one so far.

  “I love college football,” he added, explaining why they weren’t out painting Chicago red. “After living in Florida for five years, it feels nice to be back in Big Ten country.”

  “It’s a nice family atmosphere,” Chambrell said, an interesting comment from two single people with no kids. She even preferred the experience to the celebrated Georgia football weekends, when women wear fancy, black-sequined outfits and high heels. “Oh, I’m enjoying this a lot more. High heels are not fun walking up the bleachers. I want to wear a sweatshirt!” She wore a purple scarf and a Northwestern-style N decal on her cheek, to match Mangin’s “eye-black” sticker.

  “We like to root for the home team,” he said.

  “Hey, we want to fit in and make friends,” she added.

  It wasn’t hard to do at Ryan Field. If the Big House is impressive, the Horseshoe intimidating, and Penn State’s Erector Set just plain loud, Ryan Field might be the Big Ten’s most lovable home. At times, it felt less like a Big Ten Saturday than a high school Friday night, the kind that takes place in small towns all across America, where everyone comes out to support the team and see old friends.

  Midway around the arc, a dozen kids from the Evanston Township High School football team sat together, with a few parents behind them. They wore their team jerseys because they were proud to be 3-0. They went to four or five Northwestern games a year, they said, because they liked the town, the team, and the university.

  “At first, they were a doormat,” their junior quarterback, Ryan James, told me. “But now they’ve turned it around. The stadium gets louder every year. Now everyone knows them around town.”

  I had to test this theory. Did he have a favorite player?

  “Yeah!” he said. “The quarterback. What’s his name?”

  Kain Colter?

  “Yeah, him!”

  When I asked them where they wanted to go to school, I heard Auburn, Chapel Hill, Illinois, and Michigan—but not Northwestern, perhaps due to the high admissions standards, or the cost, or because they knew only one person who had gone there, their line coach, Keegan Grant, who had risen from walk-on to Wildcat starter by 2010.

  But none of that mattered when Northwestern tailback Venric Mark dashed up the right sideline, past the Vanderbilt bench, right toward the Evanston high schoolers, then made a quick cut, straight to the end zone. The refs called him out of bounds along the way, but the end-zone crowd was on full alert.

  Just a little bit farther down the arc, at the far end, I found a gang of eight-year-olds standing at the chain rope, whipping their jackets over their heads.

  “Our uncle has season tickets,” said Nicholas Alvey, who was “almost nine. I like it here because I can run around with people.”

  “I like seeing really cool plays and stuff, and getting signatures from the players,” Leo Dlatt told me.

  His favorite?

  “The quarterback!”

  His name?

  “I’m not sure.”

  The people I’d met, from the twentysomething couple to the high school players to these eight-year-old kids, were fans not so much of individual players, but of the team—and really, the experience.

  Just a few plays later, Mark broke through again, cut to the middle, and ran right to the end zone—touchdown!—then continued running up the grass ramp to the fans, where he stopped to point at them. They were standing on their feet across the arc, at eye level—the Big Ten’s version of the Lambeau Leap.

  The kids went crazy.

  I’ve been to every conference stadium, and I’ve liked them all except the Minneapolis Metrodome, which the Gophers leased from 1982 to 2008—marking the only time a Big Ten school had to rent its “home field” or play indoors. All but two of the Big Ten stadiums were built before the Great Depression, and at the risk of sounding older than I am, they don’t build ’em like they used to. Even today’s technology can’t give a building character—or memories.

  But of all the league’s great stadiums, the south end zone at Ryan Field might just be the best place in the Bi
g Ten to watch a game.

  • • •

  Mark’s touchdown gave the Wildcats a 13–10 lead, their first of the game, with 9:28 left. For two teams with flashy offensive systems, led by two capable, exciting quarterbacks, the game was surprisingly low scoring.

  The Commodores tied the game with a field goal, but the ’Cats came right back with a field goal of their own to regain the lead, 16–13, with 2:01 left. On Vanderbilt’s next play, the ’Cats sacked Rodgers, forced a fumble, and smothered it.

  When Colter was simply trying to run out the clock, he found a seam and took off for the south end zone, electrifying Ryan Field and the end-zone-arc inhabitants once again to seal the 23–13 victory.

  The temperature had dropped to the fifties, clouds covered the moon, and rain had started coming down softly, then hard—but no one seemed to care.

  On the other side of the stadium, the students—thousands of whom had showed up three weeks before classes began, though most lived far from Evanston—weren’t going anywhere. A few wore gigantic purple sombreros, more than a few wore purple leggings—men and women—and at least two groups had painted their chests purple and white.

  President Schapiro ran from the team’s bench to the corner of the end zone, right past the student section. Recognizing their president, whom many of them had met along the way, they started chanting, “Mor-ty! Mor-ty!”

  President Schapiro acknowledged the students with some fist pumps, then ran up to the ever-anxious athletic director, Jim Phillips, who had been pacing in the rain around the north goalpost, arms folded, wearing his shirt and tie, with no coat or umbrella.

  “When it’s close, Jim won’t talk to anyone,” one staffer said. “He has to worry by himself.”

  President Schapiro gave Phillips a big hug, then threw his arm around him, and pivoted him to the student section while raising Phillips’s arm like a ref introducing the winner of a championship bout. The students went crazy again and Phillips’s worried face finally broke into a great grin.