The over is 4-0 in Broncos last 4 games on grass and the Broncos are 6-1 ATS in their last 7 games in September while the over is 5-1-1 in Broncos last 7 non-conference games. What he was referring to was one of the more weird sequences in a football game that you will ever see. (It might not be weird, because Western Michigan is a great MAC team and Northwestern was a very bad 10-win team a year ago.) But it nearly didn’t happen thanks to one of the strangest plays I’ve ever seen. Bogan’s touchdown with 5:38 remaining gave the Broncos the lead. They were given excellent field position by way of an out of bounds kickoff, and started the drive at their own 35 yard line. His fumble at the goal line in the final minutes thwarted Northwestern’s comeback attempt. Instead, they lost 22-21 when Western Michigan caught a huge break on a mind-blowing play in the final minutes. Except he never got there. The linebacker, junior Robert Spillane, connected and the ball popped out, tumbling into the end zone while Thorson helplessly watched the Broncos recover the fumble.
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Broncos defensive back Davontae Ginwright picked up the bouncing football as it headed out of bounds … and for some reason, threw it back into the end zone. That left the ball bouncing towards the sideline, nearly surely giving Western Michigan the ball on a turnover. The officials ruled that the defender possessed the ball before going out of bounds, which made it a dead ball once he did. Northwestern pounced on it, think it had a touchdown …
So after all of that, WMU got the ball back with 2:54 on the clock, and the one point lead intact. Time ran out, and Western Michigan left Evanston with an upset road victory.
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The Ugly: It’s hard to win football games when your defense is on the field for over half the game and that was the case for Northwestern on Saturday. The Cats surrendered 416 yards of offense to Western Michigan, and the Broncos were able to control possession thanks to seven third-down conversions and four fourth-down conversions.
