If you think that NU's reputation isn't effecting the officiating you are wrong. I discussed this with a friend of mine who, back then, was a Mountain West official and had been for many years. It came up in the context of discussing our "friendly" farewell from the Big 12 officials in the A&M game (which, BTW, he laughed and said of course the officials were screwing you on the way out the door. You said FU to their employer, what did you expect them to do?). In any event, as the discussion expanded he said that a team with a reputation as being penalized will continue to get penalized. Why? Because since the officials are expecting penalties they will see them, whether they are there or not. That also leads to the officials missing calls on the other team, because they are so focused on the one team's players they miss blatant calls on the other team. For example, they are so focused on NU's DL for late hits/hits to the helmet they don't see holding calls by the OT's that you would think a middle school ref would see. They also expect to call more penalties on the heavily penalized team, so they do so, whether warranted or not. Subconsciously and even sometimes consciously they decide 'well NU should probably end up with around 10 penalties and so NW shouldn't have more than a couple.' If a team like NW starts to catch up in the number of penalties, you can expect the officials to call a bunch on the team like NU to get them back out ahead. It's just human nature.