Postseason ·
Northwestern beat Utah
Records are after this game. Rankings are the AP poll before it.
Northwestern trailed Utah by 17 points in the 2nd quarter and won 31-20, December 31, 2018.
How the game turned
Q3 6:40 Northwestern 17, Utah 20
Northwestern 24% to win
McGee fumble return TD, cuts it to 20-17
Big moments
- 1Q1 5:48 · Northwestern 0, Utah 7Northwestern's win chance fell from 28% to 22%.Shelley 27-yd TD pass to Dixon, Utah goes ahead 7-0
- 2Q3 6:40 · Northwestern 17, Utah 20Northwestern's win chance rose from 8% to 24%.McGee fumble return TD, cuts it to 20-17
- 3Q3 4:39 · Northwestern 24, Utah 20Northwestern's win chance rose from 41% to 56%.Thorson 20-yd TD pass to Klock, Northwestern goes ahead 24-20
- 4Q3 1:40 · Northwestern 31, Utah 20Northwestern's win chance rose from 72% to 86%.Lees 8-yd TD run, Northwestern leads 31-20
Northwestern's lowest chance to win was 3 percent. Win chance is our own calculation from the play-by-play, with each game's start set from the pregame expectation.
The biggest swing
With 6:40 left in the 3rd quarter, Northwestern's chance to win went from 8 percent to 24 percent when Northwestern scored a touchdown.
The score went from Northwestern 10, Utah 20 to Northwestern 17, Utah 20.
The play: McGee fumble return TD, cuts it to 20-17.
What happened next
Northwestern finished the 2018 season 9-5.
Utah finished the 2018 season 9-5, No. 20 in the last AP poll before the bowls.
Utah's first game of the 2019 season: W 30-12 at BYU, Aug 29, 2019
about 8 months laterNorthwestern's first game of the 2019 season: L 7-17 at Stanford, Aug 31, 2019
about 8 months laterThe teams' next meeting after Dec 31, 2018: Northwestern 14, Utah 7, Dec 23, 2023
about 5 years later
Related pages
Scores, dates and the stage: ESPN. Win chance: our curve from play-by-play; the turn is its largest one-play change that moved with the score.