There is no way to fully capture the Saturday festivities at Ryan Field, where Northwestern escaped with an improbable 36-31 victory over Nevada. To do that would take the space Tolstoy had to write “War and Peace.”
So let us begin by saying this looked like a game the Wildcats seemed intent on giving away during a forgettable first half that ended with them failing to contain Wolf Pack quarterback Nick Graziano or to cover wide receiver Kyle Sammons as the pair connected on a 48-yard touchdown pass.
That sent the Wolf Pack to its locker room with a 24-10 lead, but then the Wildcats roared out of theirs. An Adam Villarreal field goal ended their first possession of the second half and, on their second, they got a star turn from running back Brandon Roberson.
He was operating in place of Tyrell Sutton, who earlier had turned his right ankle. Roberson broke off a 76-yard run that set up his own 1-yard touchdown carry two plays later. That pulled the Wildcats within three and then, early in the fourth quarter, they went up four when running back Omar Conteh collected a screen pass from C.J. Bacher and took it in from 16 yards out.
“My hat goes off to Brandon Roberson and Omar Conteh,” Wildcats coach Pat Fitzgerald said. “They have been chomping at the bit to take advantage of their opportunities. … To step up when we faced the adversity of losing Tyrell, I’m very proud of them.”
At this point, with 11 minutes 14 seconds remaining, the Wildcats had reason to be proud. They had failed to take advantage of countless opportunities in the first half. They had absorbed the loss of their star and a game plan heavily weighted to the pass. They had begun getting pressure on Graziano and had shut down a Wolf Pack offense that earlier had bedeviled them.
But once again, NU seemed intent on giving this game away.
After the Wildcats stopped Nevada, they ran once for 5 yards, unsuccessfully threw twice and punted after taking only 68 seconds off the clock. Once more their defense held, but again their offense floundered, running for 2 yards, then 5 , throwing unsuccessfully and punting after running off only 84 seconds.
This time the defense could not hold and surrendered a touchdown that put Nevada up four with 3:38 left, and when the Wildcats failed to make a fourth-and-inches 94 seconds later, the ball went back to Nevada.
“A couple of the guys [on defense], as they were coming out on the field, told me they were going to get me back the ball,” said Bacher, who struggled (20 of 45, 227 yards, three touchdowns) through much of this day.
They did get it back to him, but only 72 seconds remained and the Wildcats were out of timeouts, 80 yards from the Nevada end zone and offering no reason to believe in miracles. Their offense had netted just 21 yards on their three previous possessions, but Bacher coolly found Rasheed Ward on a 9-yard out that stopped the clock.
Next came a 23-yard completion to Kim Thompson, then a 20-yard scramble by Bacher that put the Wildcats on the 28 and prompted Nevada to call time. Another Bacher scramble got them to the 13. Finally, after an incompletion, Bacher threw toward Ross Lane under the goal post.
Lane, with Wolf Pack cornerback Devon Walker riding his back, dived for the ball, cradled it and then held it high as the officials signaled a touchdown.
“I was positive I caught the ball, but who knows?” Lane said when asked what he was feeling during the inevitable review that followed the catch. “We were ready to go out there and score again if we had to.”
There was no need. The review upheld the catch and the Wildcats soon had a triumph so implausible that even a thesaurus doesn’t have an adjective fit to describe it.
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smyslenski@tribune.com
