2011 Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas: Northwestern Still Can't Solve Bowl Riddle

Fifty-four years is a long time.

For comparison, the current President of the United States wasn't even born yet. It was also the last time Northwestern won a bowl game, the 1948 Rose Bowl.

That streak continued today, when Northwestern dropped a 33-22 decision to Texas A&M in the 2011 Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas.

Aggies quarterback Ryan Tannehill threw for 329 yards and a touchdown in the victory, which ended A&M's own bowl losing streak, stretching back to 2001.

So what needs to change for Northwestern? How can this embarrassingly long streak finally be put to bed?

When Pat Fitzgerald took over as head coach at his alma mater, Northwestern had been invited to a bowl in just four of the previous ten seasons. After his sixth season in Evanston, Fitzgerald has guided the Wildcats to four-straight bowl games.

Clearly, Northwestern is moving in the right direction.

It's also important to recognized that Northwestern's loss of 11 points today is the largest margin of defeat during Fitzgerald's tenure—which has included two overtime bowl losses.

“If we had gotten our [butts] blown out or didn't show up or were unfocused, I would think about tweaking [how we prepare],”Fitzgerald told the Chicago Tribune earlier in the week.

Today's game did have all the makings of a blowout. Northwestern trailed 30-7, Northwestern scored 15 unanswered to cut Texas A&M's lead to eight with 5:22 remaining. But scoring points hasn't been the problem for Northwestern this season. The Wildcats have averaged 29.5 points per game in 2011—not great, but certainly not terrible.

But Northwestern surrenders better than 27 points per game, ranking the Wildcats 65th in the FBS. Getting the offense back on the field has been the problem, and in the final five minutes today, it was the problem once again.

Texas A&M engineered a methodical drive that ate nearly five minutes of time off the clock, and capped it off with a win-securing 31-yard field goal.

The loss drops Northwestern to 6-7—the first losing season for Northwestern since 2006 (4-8).

Does that mean something needs to change in Evanston? What's the solution to the puzzle?

Believe it or not, Pat Fitzgerald is part of the solution.

As head coach at Northwestern, Fitzgerald is 40-36. That's better than the previous seven head coaches for the Wildcats, all of whom posted losing records, as did ten of the last eleven (Ara Parseghian was the lone holdout, with a 36-35-1 record).

Fitzgerald has also been instrumental in reinvigorating a sense of pride in Northwestern when it comes to the football program. While Northwestern's fifth-place finish in the Big Ten's Legends Division isn't what we consider close to competing for a conference title, Northwestern is still taking important steps under Fitzgerald to return to a position of competing on a weekly basis in the Big Ten.

On November 5, Northwestern topped then-No. 9 Nebraska, 28-25 in Lincoln. Parlaying those big victories into sustained success against the rank-and-file of the Big Ten will be the next challenge for the Wildcats.

If Northwestern can begin to see success there, the bowl losing streak will soon take care of itself.