Stats can be deceptive. Stats can be cruelly misleading. But they can also be extremely useful, and stats — and very good ones at that — say that Northwestern is not one of the 50 best college football teams in the country.
After an ugly 21-14 win over a bad Purdue team — and with teams like Duke and Stanford not looking as strong as originally thought — the Wildcats fell 11 spots in Bill Connelly's S&P+ rankings, all the way to No. 58. They come in behind teams such as Washington (4-6, No. 25), Louisiana Tech (7-3, No.