2009 Northwestern Wildcats football team The 2009 Northwestern Wildcats football team represented Northwestern University in the Big Ten during the 2009 – 2010 college football season . Pat Fitzgerald , in his fourth season at Northwestern , was the team ' s head coach . The Wildcats home games were played at Ryan Field in Evanston , Illinois . The Wildcats finished the season 8 – 5 , 5 – 3 in Big Ten play and lost in the Outback Bowl 35 – 38 in overtime against Auburn . Regular season . Towson . It was apparent that Towson didn ' t stand a chance from the get - go . Northwestern raced out to a 30 – 0 lead before putting in the reserves out of mercy . To Towson ' s credit , they did go toe - to - toe with Northwestern ' s second and third stringers , which is no small feat , given that Northwestern is a somewhat prestigious FBS school and Towson is a mostly unheralded FCS school . The game allowed both teams to get some experience for the future and the final 35 minutes gave Northwestern ' s younger players some good game experience . This would prove to be one of Northwestern ' s few blowout wins of the 2009 season . Eastern Michigan . Northwestern seemed poised to cruise to another dominating blowout victory when they raced out to a 21 – 3 halftime lead and still held a fairly comfortable 21 – 10 lead after three quarters and widened the lead to 24 – 10 early in the 4th . Northwestern eventually found themselves only ahead 24 – 17 and soon the game was tied at 24 – 24 . To avoid the game going into overtime , the Wildcats finished off the stubborn Eagles with a field goal . Syracuse . Fresh off of a closeer than expected win over Eastern Michigan , Northwestern went to the Carrier Dome to face a Syracuse team that had played Minnesota down to the wire in week one before being obliterated by a Penn State team that didn ' t allow a single Orange point until the reserves were all subbed in . This game would go Syracuse ' s way , however as the up and down Orange , who would later secure a win over a talented Rutgers team ( but in blowout fashion 31 – 13 ) , engaged in a shootout with Northwestern , finally kicking the all important field goal to win the game as time expired . This put Syracuse at 1 – 2 and Northwestern at 2 – 1 . Minnesota . Going toe - to - toe with a Gophers team that had beaten the same Syracuse team that the Wildcats had lost to , Northwestern plays a close game with Minnesota , even leading 24 – 21 going into the final quarter before Minnesota takes momentum back to win the game 35 – 24 , putting the Wildcats at 2 – 2 . But still , no blowout losses . Purdue . The Boilermakers race out to a 14 – 3 first quarter lead and still hold a 21 – 16 halftime lead , but the Wildcats steal one from the stubborn and better than their record Boilermakers ( who would later on upset the Buckeyes ) with a second half rally . Still trailing 21 – 19 after three , the final Northwestern touchdown puts them ahead 27 – 21 for the win . Miami ( OH ) . Unlike the game with Eastern Michigan , this one wouldn ' t come down to theatrics , Northwestern led 10 – 0 after one and scored six more in the third quarter to take a commanding 16 – 0 lead . Poised for the shutout , Miami got on the board late in the fourth quarter , but Northwestern denied them the two - point conversion to make it a game . Michigan State . Facing another better than their record Big Ten team , this time Northwestern wouldn ' t get so lucky . Leading 7 – 0 at halftime , they soon trailed 17 – 7 after three , and despite giving Michigan State all they could handle , the game was destined to go Sparty ' s way . Indiana . If there is any team better than their record in 2009 , it ' s Indiana . Despite blowout losses to Iowa ( 42 – 24 ) and Ohio State ( 33 – 14 ) which are understandable , the Hoosiers had one ugly blemish on their schedule , a 47 – 7 loss to a Virginia team that had no business keeping it competitive with Indiana , let alone winning like that . Indiana also suffered a 31 – 20 loss to Penn State that wasn ' t as close as the score . However , Indiana played like they were the heavy favorite going into this game taking a commanding 21 – 0 first quarter lead and still rolled it up to 28 – 7 early in the second before Northwestern cut it close to 28 – 17 . Trailing 28 – 19 after a quiet third quarter that saw only a safety , the Wildcats would not be denied . Northwestern turned the game into a win by scoring ten fourth quarter points . Penn State . Handing Northwestern their only blowout loss of 2009 , Penn State was shut down by Northwestern ' s offense for the first 40 minutes of the game until they finally got some momentum late in the third quarter , scoring three rapid fourth - quarter touchdowns to give the game an appearance of being a much easier win for Penn State than it really was . Northwestern quarterback Mike Kafka was injured late in the game , which led to backup Dan Persa being thrust under the lights . After the injury , NU ' s offense could do little against the vaunted Penn State defense . Regardless , this was Northwestern ' s only humiliating loss of what was a mostly positive 2009 season . Iowa . Licking their wounds from the massacre at the hands of Penn State , the Wildcats traveled to Kinnick Stadium to take on the undefeated Hawkeyes , ranked # 4 in the BCS , fresh off of a 42 – 24 blowout win over Indiana , who actually led 21 – 7 early on over Iowa and still led 24 – 14 deep in the game before Iowa took command in the second half . It looked early on like Iowa was poised to make mincemeat out of Northwestern as Penn State had done a week before . This game wouldn ' t go Iowa ' s way , however ; the Hawkeyes would lose their star quarterback Ricki Stanzi in the second quarter and would never recover . Northwestern nabs their best win of 2009 by upsetting then # 6 Iowa ( who would finish # 7 in the nation ) 17 – 10 on the road . Illinois . Illinois was bowl ineligible and had little to play for except pride , which they played with in this game and had shown increasing amounts of since their 38 – 13 upset of Michigan . Northwestern controlled the game for three quarters before Illinois suddenly sprang to life , but the Wildcats hung on to beat the pesky Illini 21 – 16 , and win the inaugural Land of Lincoln Trophy , which replaced the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk . Wisconsin . Northwestern managed to grab their second major upset of 2009 against the Badgers under the lights at Ryan Field . It looked like Wisconsin was going to get blown out as the Wildcats raced out to a 27 – 14 halftime lead , but Wisconsin fought back to make it 30 – 24 after three , but Northwestern recovered a fumble on Wisky ' s final drive to hang on to their second big upset of 2009 , winning 33 – 31 . Outback Bowl . Auburn . In what is remembered as one of the most entertaining bowl games of all time , Mike Kafka set bowl game records with 78 passing attempts and 47 completions . After a back and forth affair with numerous turnovers and missed field goals , overtime seemed only fitting . With kicker Stefan Demos hurt , Northwestern tried a fake field goal which failed , giving Auburn , the next year ' s national champions , the victory .