What makes Northwestern football a Big Ten contender for 2022?

Northwestern football was not exactly a beautiful team in 2021. However, 2022 could paint the Wildcats in an entirely different light.

The Big Ten Conference was one of the tougher Power Five leagues in college football last year, but Northwestern football played a small role in it being given such praise.

Last season, Pat Fitzgerald’s squad saw an upsetting record of 3-9, with only one of their victories being over a Power Five opponent (21-7 over Rutgers). Such an ungodly performance would obviously do them very little favors in regards to 2022’s preseason projections, right? Wrong.

If the Northwestern Wildcats were to go directly from a whopping three wins to a Big Ten West title, it would not be their first time doing so. In fact, that exact thing happened just a couple of years ago.

To truly appreciate just how consistently inconsistent Northwestern is, we need to go back to at least 2017. That year, the Cats went 9-3 in the regular season and capped off their run with a thrilling Music City Bowl victory over Kentucky.

The success continued to overflow after that, as 2018 saw Northwestern enter the postseason at 8-4, which was good enough to earn it a divisional title. After a beat down dealt by Ohio State and a comeback win against Utah in the Holiday Bowl, the team’s final record sat pretty at 9-5.

At this rate, how could the winning possibly stop? Well, Northwestern found a way to make it stop, as a single offseason stretch somehow made the Wildcats stumble all the way down to 3-9, one of the nastiest falls that a program could possibly take.

But don’t worry, the suffering didn’t last too long, either. During the 2020 season, Northwestern once again put on a stunning performance that landed it right back in the Big Ten Championship Game that, once again, resulted in an OSU victory.

That brings us to last season where, as previously established, the topsy-turvy school saw yet another 3-9 record.

Basically, any realistic chances of the Northwestern Wildcats snatching the Big Ten title this season fall almost solely on luck. However, that is seemingly enough to at least give them the opportunity. Following just one upset in Indianapolis, the conference’s crown could find itself in Evanston for the first time since 2000.