After bringing back a win from Western Michigan a week ago, NIU football boss Jerry Pettibone received a victory apple from wily soccer coach Willy Roy at the weekly Huskie Club luncheon.

Monday found Pettibone expressing mock disappointment when Roy did not award him half an apple for Saturday’s 16-16 tie with the Northwestern Wildcats, although Roy promised “truckloads of apples” for future wins.

In the meantime, Pettibone and his players are living with the Evanston standoff.

“Certainly we wanted to win the game,” Pettibone said. “To kick the field goal was very unpopular with our players. But I was glad that they were upset. I was glad that they were mad. I was proud that they got themselves in the position to win the game.”

Pettibone, who had thought of attempting a field goal even earlier in the final drive, said the decision to kick on fourth-and-10 was “an obvious decision. You try to throw the ball in the end zone in that situation and the odds are vastly against you.”

There was even more family squabbling at the start of the game when the Wildcat offense ran through the Huskie defense on a 71-yard scoring drive. Pettibone said he was “screaming and hollering at Tim (McGuire), and he was screaming and hollering at me.”

“He was questioning my intelligence after the TD,” said McGuire, the Huskies’ defensive coordinator. “What he did was he turned to me and said, ‘You’ve got to stop them.’ All I said was, ‘Don’t you think I’m trying?'”

The Huskies, while dropping a few notches in a number of statistical rankings after slowing down at Northwestern, still managed to stay in the top 10. According to Pettibone, NIU ranks eighth in rushing average and sixth in total offense.

uskie kicker John Ivanic, who Pettibone said is “getting more and more on my good side,” is ranked among the nation’s top 25 kickers, and punter Darren Monnett made the top 20 in his field. Pettibone, who said he is the Huskies’ kicking coach “because no one else wants to do it,” put tongue firmly in cheek as he took credit.

“All I’ve learned is if a guy kicks it too far to the right, kick it more toward the middle,” Pettibone said. “If he kicks it short, I say ‘Kick it further.'”

But Roy had the last laugh. After Pettibone had engaged in a meticulous, five-minute explanation of why NIU had attempted a failed two-point conversion in the fourth quarter, Roy raised his hand. Pettibone should have known better than to call on him.

Excuse me, coach,” Roy said. “Could you explain that again?”