Northwestern Vs. Indiana In 2009 Is All About Revenge

You can feel it in the air at NU football practice. It's time for revenge.

The 2008 season was cruising along, until Northwestern traveled to Bloomington to face a bad Indiana team. NU was ranked 22nd in the country and coming off an absolute whitewashing of Purdue for homecoming. IU meanwhile was 0-4 in the Big Ten and looking like an absolute disaster of a squad.

60 minutes of football later NU found themselves on the wrong end of a 21-19 score, and without their starting QB and RB thanks to injuries suffered during the game.

The loss prevented NU from going to a New Years Day bowl game for the first time since the 1997 Citrus Bowl.

Oh, you better believe it's time for revenge.

The players won't say it, but what goes unsaid is often more important. Defensive Tackle Corbin Bryant told me simply "No comment, I'll end up saying something I shouldn't say."

Sophomore Offensive Guard Doug Bartels would not say it was a make or break game, but called it an "extremely, extremely, extremely important game" and that the players definitely felt they owed Indiana for what happened last year.

Oh yes, revenge is in the air. If there's a game for NU to get their confidence back up, this is it.

Then again, we thought the same thing about Miami Ohio.

But this time, it's personal, both for the players, and the fans.

I was at that game in 2008, watching from the press box. I'm a fan first, member of the student media second, so needless to say it was a very painful game to watch, especially since I wasn't allowed to react to anything happening on the field.

I kept thinking to myself, "there's NO WAY Northwestern loses this game...Indiana is terrible!" You would think after the 2006 MSU game and the 2007 Duke loss, I'd be smarter than that, but I'm not.

The drive back was the most miserable drive of all-time. We were all convinced at that point NU would end up at 7-5 and stuck in Detroit.

Instead they rebounded nicely, but that doesn't mean the loss is forgotten.

Oh yes, it's time for revenge.