EVANSTON — Reports surfaced on Sunday that Willie the Wildcat had been arrested by the Evanston Police Department around 11:10 pm Saturday evening. The feline is said to have been in possession of 9 oz. of super high potency catnip, three times the national legal limit and eighty-three times the limit established by Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl.

“I’m disappointed,” Tisdahl told press at a conference on Sunday. “I’m disappointed in Willie, and I’m disappointed in Northwestern. It’s a slippery slope from catnip to cocaine, and I’m stepping in while the situation is still manageable. Let the records show that on November 3 at 11:36 am, I banned all cats from Evanston, both feral and domestic as well as the stage production by Andrew Lloyd Weber.”

While extreme, Tisdahl was far from alone in her reaction to Willie’s arrest. NU Football Coach Pat Fitzgerald told press that Willie had been partying hard all season and that his antics had been a source of stress and anxiety for the football team.

“We were riding so high after those first games,” offensive lineman Troy Wolverton said. “The parties, the cheerleaders, the good-looking sousaphone players… Willie loved that lifestyle, and the Ohio State loss just broke him. I saw him sniff like four little packets of catnip after the game.”

Members of the football team said that in past years, Willie had had a better attitude in dealing with disappointments. “I mean, it’s not like us totally breaking down in the fourth quarter is a new thing,” said senior cornerback Richie Davis. “But we used to have this scratching post in the corner of the locker room for him to kind of tear at and take out his frustrations on. We even had a little portable one to bring on the bus or store in the overhead compartments on airplanes for away games.”

Players said that they’d had an intervention for Willie on Friday, but that he’d been too defensive to think things through. “He just kind of arched his back, hissed, and tried to hide under the locker room bench,” Davis continued. “There was no reaching him, and he didn’t even show up to Ryan Field in the morning.”

Authorities found the feline in a trailer near Fitzerland late Saturday evening, practically comatose after the Nebraska loss. “Or he might have just been napping,” said Evanston Police Chief Dan Roberts. “It’s always so hard to tell with cat felons.”