EVANSTON — Head Football Coach Pat Fitzgerald proposed that God is dead and hope is purposeless in a press conference shortly after Northwestern’s fourth consecutive defeat on Saturday, this time falling to the Iowa Hawkeyes.

“There is no meaning or hope in this universe devoid of stability, sacredness, and our best two players,” said Fitzgerald. “There is only the inevitability of misplaced anticipation and false prospect colliding headfirst with the reality of despair and inevitable defeat.”

Fitzgerald’s two-hour oration was supplemented by the weeping and wails of various members of the Northwestern faculty and student body. “Do not lament. Accept the world as it is now, and abandon your foolish notions of optimism, enthusiasm, and adequate attendance at home games. Make no mistake: God once lived and offered hope to His children,” said Fitzgerald. “However, our arrogance and hubris killed Him. We are Icarus falling to his death, and Frankenstein impotently dying in the cabin of an old ship. We need only await the mercy of an end to this all,” stated Fitzgerald, who graduated from Northwestern University in 1996.

“If you arrive at Ryan Field and find the stands empty,” said Fitzgerald, “do not be alarmed. The field is also empty even if there are players. We are still losing even if we are winning. We have still lost even if we have won. Such are our lives now.”

“At least we’ll always have our academics,” finished Fitzgerald.

Phillip Amerson, President of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, responded with a brief statement, saying, “Looking at the empirical evidence, Fitzgerald may be correct.”