One More Day Til Gator Bowl, and the exorcism

Counting down the days in the home stretch to Northwestern's New Years' Day Gator Bowl experience against the Mississippi State Bulldogs.

DAYS TIL BOWL: One.

GET OVERWHELMINGLY PUMPED UP VIDEO AND/OR THING: A highlight video of Northwestern's 2010 Outback Bowl.

Watch it.

Watch it again. It's only two minutes long. We've got time.

That video doesn't contain all the weird twists and turns and extremes that afternoon three years ago tomorrow took. Nor does it include all the 63, going on 64, years of bowl failure Northwestern has experienced. It doesn't include the disappointment of dudes who played entire careers and come up short time after time after time. It doesn't have the cast from Pat Fitzgerald's broken leg. It doesn't even come close to capturing Northwestern's excruciating futility, but for the purposes of this exercise, we'll have to use it as a stand-in.

Watch that video until you feel the hurt. If you're a Northwestern fan, you've felt it before, and you'll know exactly when you're feeling it again.

Now, close your eyes. Imagine Northwestern winning tomorrow in the Gator Bowl against Mississippi State. It can be by any margin you feel like. Imagine it happening how you feel would be best.

And if and when that happens, this video won't matter.

Have a good one, guys. Tonight's New Year's Eve, and tomorrow's bowl day. Go Cats n stuff.