Pat Fitzgerald Intense-o-meter: Mississippi State

IT'S WRITING ABOUT BOWL STUFF WEEK. With Northwestern basketball off, we ain't got nothing else to talk about, so let's do it. Expect all your typical game week posts, except with no game at the end. And what better way to kick it off than a peek at the intense-o-meter?

HIT IT:

Pat Fitzgerald INTENSE-O-METER reading: 9.2

Symptoms include: "Du Hast" by Rammstein always playing at 120 decibels

Last week:8.6

UNNNNNNNNNGH SO PUMPED.

It was fun to get angsty about how Northwestern got jumped in the bowl process, everybody, but after a few weeks, I think we can all realize that said angstiness can go shove it. Sure, Northwestern is in the fourth-place bowl when it could've been in the second, but zero is the amount of craps I give about that.

This game is huge. This game is huge, and let me list the reasons:

• It's a bowl game. Northwestern hasn't won one of those since, well, you know.
• Northwestern could win its tenth game for only the third time in program history.
• Pat Fitzgerald could become the winningest coach in school history, as he's currently tied with Pappy Waldorf with 49.
• It's a friggin bowl game.
• Mississippi State is a beatable team. They have less wins than us and virtually no wins against quality competition. None of the seven teams they beat will play in a bowl game this year.
• Northwestern can go 2-0 against the SEC in a year the Big Ten has been funny as all get out. The Biggest of Tens might go something like 1-6 in bowl games, and we're fixing to be that one.
• It's a bowl game, dammit!
• A win will allow Northwestern to laugh at Nebraska, who will assuredly be blown out by Georgia in the Outback Bowl.
• IT'S A BOWL GAME. NORTHWESTERN HASN'T WON A BOWL GAME SINCE 1949. IF YOU KNOW ANYBODY WHO WATCHED THAT GAME CALL THEM RIGHT NOW AND TELL THEM YOU LOVE THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE RELATIVELY OLD AND YOU MIGHT NOT GET ANOTHER CHANCE. WE HAVE THE LONGEST ACTIVE BOWL DROUGHT AND THE LONGEST ACTIVE BOWL LOSSES STREAK BECAUSE IT'S NOT LIKE WE AIN'T BEEN GOIN WE JUST BEEN LOSIN EVERY DAMN TIME. WE DONE LOST IN OVERTIME AND THEN OVERTIME AGAIN AND THERE'S NO REASON I SHOULD BE THIS MAD AT SEASON-ENDING EXHIBITION GAMES AGAINST SCHOOLS WE HAVE NO HISTORICAL RIVALRIES WITH BUT LOOK AT ME YALL I'M MAD AS HELL.

Do I make my case? The smoke, it's coming from my ears and mouth and bellybutton and I didn't even know that last one was an option. This wouldn't be getting a monkey off our back, as Pat Fitzgerald and the coaching staff has so astutely said: this would be running into the primates house at the Lincoln Park Zoo with an Uzi and yelling "I CAME HERE TO CHEW BUBBLE GUM AND DO SOME MONKEY EXTERMINATING AND I'M ALL OUT OF BUBBLE GUM AND NO I DON'T BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION SO EAT THESE BULLETS MONKEYS"

Winning this game ends a lot of things. It wouldn't cause a sea change in Northwestern football, but it would definitely change stuff. And we wouldn't have to hear any more jokes about losing so many bowl games.

So, yo, Northwestern: let's do this!

Go Cats and stuff.