Parking pass available at Northwestern Place, 2100 Campus Drive…tailgating allowed and less than 5 minute walk to stadium and lake front tailgate area. Please email 920 lab at Gmail
Go Cats!

@lou v talked to fast-rising 2028 QB prospect JJ Chapman on his first visit for a Northwestern game and his already active recruitment as a freshman.

@lou v talked to fast-rising 2028 QB prospect JJ Chapman on his first visit for a Northwestern game and his already active recruitment as a freshman.

I was up in the North stands for the game. Talking with a number of NU fans around me, we had consensus on the following regrading the new stadium.

1 ) We all agree it was a great idea to build the temp stadium. Kudos for getting it done so fast.

2) Need much better signage on the stands. At the base of the North stands there was nothing indicating where sections N1, N2, etc were.


3) better marking of the rows as well. Everyone was looking for the row numbers at the end of each bench. It was on the front of the steps-which you couldn’t see if you were coming from top to bottom.

4) Video replays were terrible.

5) we couldn’t hear the PA announcer hardly at all where we were ( N2, row 39)

6) BIGGEST ISSUE- NOTHING SHOWING DOWN, DISTANCE, AND YARD LINE ON ANY OF THE VIDEO BOARDS WE COULD SEE.

Overall, beautiful day and a Cats win. All the rest can/should be fixed for the next game 🙏

I'd like to know where people parked, what worked well, and what could be better next time. It looks like I'm going to the Eastern Illinois game and would like some parking advice. Thanks in advance.

Apologies for any redundancies.

Positives
The campus and surrounding area are beautiful.
The view of the lake and downtown is amazing.
The planning for pedestrian flow is well thought out.
The air conditioned Johns were clean and plentiful.
Food trucks were outstanding from what I could tell. Couldn’t try all.
Concession area behind the South Stands was well manned and there was plenty of available seating.
Getting a cocktail was easy. Concessions definitely had their together compared to Ryan Field.
Tailgating was easy from our location in the Lakeshore garage.
The whole campus layout for a game was well done.

Negatives
There wasn’t much signage directing you to the correct parking lots. Resulting in people turning around a slowing up entry.
Once again, we walked into both the tailgate and game without getting our tickets scanned.
The lines for food and drink in the tailgate area were long.
Personally, I see no reason to pay an admission fee for entry to the tailgate section for the right to purchase food and beverage. The food is more diverse, slightly cheaper and fewer lines in the large concession area.
The number of steps for the North End Seats is going to cause some of the Blue hairs problems. I drain a vein before heading up, steps are steep and plentiful.
Down and distance was the major missing component missing from the scoreboard.
The acoustics suck, our PA friend tried to keep us informed about the down and distance but was muffled half the time.

As Lou might say…kudos to ol’ number 65 on his broadcasting debut.

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Here's @mshelton33's story on one of NU's top 2025 targets, who raved about his experience at Martin Stadium.

Braden Wilmes, Free State HS. A large human being.

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Looking forward to this.

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Here's @mshelton33's story on one of NU's top 2026 targets, who raved about his experience at Martin Stadium.

Lujan should get the game film from BC. BC OL and DL dominated FSU. QB Tommy Costellanos played great. Mike Wright has similar skills and could be as effective at NU if BC's scheme and NU OL are compatible

Ladies and fellow freeloaders, it has been nearly 8 years to the day since we last beat Duke on the gridiron.

Where were you on that fateful day when Thorson, Carr, Dickerson, Solomon Vault, and JJTBC beat up on little Daniel Jones?

Did you even watch that game (I honestly think I miss that night game but I won’t get into why I might have been distracted at that time by certain events at the time…).

.

Overall, a very solid performance, especially from the defense. When you consider that we fumbled away a TD on the 1 yard line and almost handed them a FG with botched snaps, and that they were MAC champs last year returning a QB and 8/11 starters on defense, I’d say it was an impressive showing.

Offense-
QB Mike Wright is very quick when he scrambles. I like that we didn’t overuse that though, he’s trying to be a passer first. The throwing didn’t look very pretty but the results weren’t bad yday. Doesn’t seem to be much zip on the ball at all and some of the mid range ones came out wobbly. The accuracy was overall pretty good yday, he was reliable in completing the hooks and outs to the outside that the Miami DBs were giving us with their coverage. When he throws over the middle it makes me nervous haha. Worth keeping in mind though that this Miami D gave up only 255 ypg and 15 ppg last year so they are pretty good. I saw some hints of trickery and creative play calling from Lujan, although the wrinkles didn’t work that well in week 1, eg with the botched end around / throwback pass (I think that’s what we were trying to do to Wright). Will be curious to see how we do against B1G competition.

Elsewhere, I like our collection of skill position players. Kirtz looks like a complete WR and Henning is talented too, gotta find better ways to get him in space because it seems like their D was ready for the scrimmage passes and jet sweep to him. Cam Porter is a very good back and Komolafe a nice change of pace. Aside from the QB development, the thing that will probably hold us back on O is once again the OL. Pass protection was decent, but we struggled to open up holes in the run game. I didn’t watch the OL closely enough to identify which guys were stronger or weaker. A bit more success later as the game went on, but B1G teams will probably have more depth. An OL that struggles to create yards on the ground + a QB without a ton of zip on his passes may make it hard to score more than 20 ppg. Countering that though, we did seem to develop rhythm in H2 by mixing up the play calling (ie don’t run on 1st and 10, throw outside routes against the soft coverage and then run on 2nd down / when they aren’t expecting it). Also we stopped shooting ourselves in the foot with botched snaps and penalties.

In conclusion, there is potential and promising signs on offense, but plenty to work on.

Defense- that was an A effort. Only 267 yards on 61 plays and just 1.7 ypc rushing (granted that’s skewed by the 4 sacks but that’s a good thing to see too!). The DL held up very stoutly against the run and our pass rush package on 3rd down got more pressure than we usually see. I’m sure we will find tougher competition in the B1G but it was nice to see 4 and 5 Saka and Soares speeding around the edge and running stunts on 3rd downs. Najee Story a nice sack too.

Our LB pair of Mueller and Mac Uihlein looked really strong. Solid tackling is always nice to see in game 1 (let’s not bring back Duke nightmares from the past) but good anticipation too - Uihlein darting forward for a sack when Gabbert attempted to scramble, Mueller with a couple nice plays in pass coverage. They didn’t rack up the huge tackle numbers that you sometimes see from NU LBs but IMO that is because Miami couldn’t sustain drives so their play count was lower, and the DL was doing a better job of mucking things up at the line. That may change against B1G OL but our front 6 was dominant yesterday.

Onto the secondary. Sad to lose Garnett Hollis to NIL $$ at WV along with Jaheem Joseph and then Rod Heard to ND, but this group held up fairly well. 10 Theran Johnson stepped into the #1 CB role nicely - we mostly left him on his own over there and they didn’t complete anything aside from short passes against him (and not even much of that?). They mostly seemed to target 12 Evan Smith. He was playing soft and tentative and had safety help over the top. I would say he struggled through the first 3 quarters. But then he made the great play for a pick and after that seemed to play with more assertiveness. He’s young and so it’s a pretty good start overall, plenty of time to grow and develop. Braden Turner showed some quickness and burst at the nickel corner / star LB spot (not sure what NU calls that). Solid in run support. Okay in coverage. And then I love our safeties - Coco and Devin Turner are great. I think we should start calling it the law firm of Turner, Smith, Johnson, Azema and Turner. Lots of youth aside from Coco but I think lots of potential. Plus Rob Fitz jumps in with the game sealing Int!!

Overall takeaway- this is a solid and well coached team that came out prepared for game 1. Plenty of room for development, especially on offense and with some of the youth in the secondary, but a promising start and most importantly we got the W to go 1-0. Our conference schedule is tough with Mich OSU Wash Wiscy Iowa, but I think we have a decent chance to get 6-7 wins and make a bowl game.

Go Cats!!

PS the stadium setting on the lake looks beautiful on TV, hopefully they get the down and distance thing settled before I make the trip to Chicago for Indiana on Oct 5!

I can’t use the tickets this week for Duke (4 tickets). They are around the 30 yard line and 10 rows up. They got too pricey to eat this year or donate, and I want to sell for face to an NU fan but that mechanism doesn’t exist on seat geek.

Please direct message me.

Kudos to our much maligned Athletic Director for getting the short term stadium done on short term notice!

It looked incredible from my comfy couch.

The third offer of the evening goes to Jude Hall of Greenville, SC.

Good news: Hall looks to be a friend of Dashun Reeder (same high school)

Bad news: Hall already owns a Duke offer. LOL.

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Duke on Friday night 9/6/24 and the following week late Sat night 9/14/24. Should be interesting. Did not any comments on it

Nice to see they're looking out for the bloody mary crowd....

1-0.

Miami is a solid opponent.

D looks elite.

Offense needs work (sloppy penalties and turnovers), and will hopefully improve.

Stadium looked *stunning* on television. The lake looked gorgeous. What a setting. The overhead shots on BTN were spectacular.

Again: 1-0!

And said that the basis for firing Fitz basically never happened. Pretty much as many here have thought