Northwestern has been ticketed to the Big Ten title game for several weeks now and there’s been quite a bit of interest in the school making their first trip to Indianapolis for the game.
How much interest? Well longtime Chicago Sun Times columnist (and NU alum) Rick Telander spoke to athletic director Jim Phillips and let’s just say that nearly a majority of the school is donning purple and heading to the game next Saturday.
“I thought maybe we’d get a thousand students,” Phillips said. “But over 3,500 are going. We have 58 buses from a dozen companies. I don’t think there’s a bus left in Chicago.
“That’s 45 percent of the student body going.”
Yes Northwestern is a small private school but it’s still pretty impressive to see what kind of support the team is going to get at Lucas Oil Stadium -- especially considering they’ll play either of the Big Ten’s two mega-fan bases in Michigan or Ohio State.
The Wildcats wound up turning Salt Lake City purple when they made their first NCAA basketball appearance there a few years ago and it sounds like the school is doing the same in football next Saturday in Indy as well.