MEDINAH, Ill. — So I was reading the Thursday Chicago Sun-Times in the Ryder Cup media center before heading onto the Medinah Country Club grounds to see what this golf thing is all about, and I saw a rather jarring headline in the paper’s sports section.

“First in Legends not a lark”

Then came the subhead, as we call them in the newspaper game. “Division title looks attainable for a team firing on all cylinders.”

It took all these Boston College players to tackle Northwestern's Mike Trumpy (AP photo)

That team is Northwestern.

Neil Hayes’ column, which can be found here at the Sun-Times’ site, says “To their credit, the Wildcats have displayed many of the traits of contender during their nonconference schedule. There’s the undeniable fact that the Big Ten appears to be sinking to a new low. All of a sudden, upcoming games against Nebraska, Michigan State and Michigan appear less daunting with those teams losing a combined four games.”

Hayes goes on to say Northwestern has controlled the line of scrimmage in its four games, all wins, against Syracuse, Vanderbilt, Boston College and South Dakota.

Iowa was never mentioned in the piece.