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Elite Junior Day experience earns NU a commitment from TE Zach Giuliano


Tight end Zach Giuliano committed to Northwestern over 16 other offers, including Washington, Auburn and Texas A&M. I got in contact with Zach to learn about his visit to Northwestern and the background that shaped his decision.

Two Allegiant Stadium Bowl Game Coin Tosses - Ours (with photos) and the upcoming Super Bowl

How cool is it that the Wildcats were in the last bowl game to be played in Allegiant Stadium where the next bowl game to be held there will be the Super Bowl? As the sports world ramps up for the Super Bowl bets are already being taken on every thing from how many TV appearance Taylor Swift will be caught on camera (assuming she makes it back from her tour performance in Tokyo the day prior) to whether the coin toss will be heads or tails. On that later point here is some added trivia:

If it weren't for the ancient Greeks deciding to place the head of Athena on one side, and an Owl - with its visible tail - on the other, of their "Athenian Owl Coin" the coin toss as we know it may never have become a thing. This design choice popularized coins having "heads" and "tails." Prior to that a turtle on what is claimed to have been the world's first coin, which was minted in Ionia, was headless on its opposite side.

Here are my photos from the coin toss for our game played at Allegiant Stadium on December 23rd. Note the participation of Purple and Red clad Las Vegas showgirls to add a local touch.

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FB RECRUITING 2024 LS Jack Florentine

No PWO offer for the visitor from Lincoln-Way East yet, but an anecdote and background from the interview that I wanted to share:

His older brother, Mike Florentine, was recruited to North Dakota State in 2021 by David Braun, who was then the defensive coordinator and helping with special teams. Mike Florentine snapped every game of their national championship season before transferring to NIU.

Back to Jack, he said he had a great time on the visit talking with Paul Creighton, the new special teams coordinator and tight ends coach. A few of the other schools talking to him are UConn and Bucknell, with past conversations with Illinois and NIU.

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Ryan Field demolition to begin next week

It's happening.

EDIT: The Evanston History Center posted a multi-part series on the history of football playing fields at NU that was pretty interesting. I didn't know there had been so much controversy about building Dyche Stadium/Ryan Field in the first place. A lot of the debate discussed in the series could have easily come from the 2020s instead of the 1920s.

Wildcats prepare for rematch with No. 2 Purdue



No. 2 Purdue is on the horizon and Northwestern basketball hosted media availability. Here are our takeaways from remarks from Chris Collins, Ryan Langborg and Boo Buie.

BASKETBALL Wildcats prepare for rematch with No. 2 Purdue



No. 2 Purdue is on the horizon and Northwestern basketball hosted media availability. Here are our takeaways from remarks from Chris Collins, Ryan Langborg and Boo Buie.
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New Director of Scouting

Looks like Coach Braun has dipped back into North Dakota to hire Ean Deno as his Director of Scouting. Deno had been at North Dakota since 2019. He was most recently the Director of Football Recruiting and Player Personnel under Matt Entz.


Nice to see Braun building a strong personnel/recruiting department.

FB RECRUITING PWO target visited Monday, will choose between NU and ILL

I traded texts with 2024 PWO target Landon Lauter tonight. He visited NU today.

He’s choosing between PWO offers from NU and Illinois and said that he will make his decision in the next few days.

The interesting thing is that NU is recruiting him as a defensive lineman, while Illinois wants him as an OL. He said he doesn’t have a preference.

“Wherever I can help the team the quickest,” is how he put it.

Lauter is a teammate of 2024 signee TE Patrick Schaller at Glenbrook North. He has scholarship offers from Army, Butler, Bucknell and Dayton, and a bunch of PWO offers, ranging from the MAC to the Big Ten.

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Purdue 2: Electric Boogaloo

Looking ahead to Wednesday night's game against those aggrieved Boilers. Some items of interest:

Home vs Road splits - a few things jump out immediately:
Purdue is shooting 47.2% from 3 at home vs 35.3% on the road in conference play:
Braden Smith - 4/9 44.4% at home, 8/26 30.8% on the road
Lance Jones - 13/28 46.4% at home, 13/47 27.6% on the road
Fletcher Loyer - 6/11 54.5% at home, 14/29 48.3% on the road
Mason Gillis - 7/12 58.3% at home, 9/19 47.4% on the road

Rebounding - They rebound 43.3% of their missed shots at home against 35.6% on the road.

Shooting defense - Teams shoot 34% from 3 and 43% from 2 against them at home, vs 37.7% and 44.8% respectively on the road.

Turnovers - they commit about 2.5 fewer turnovers per game at home

Edey - Averages only 8 FTAs per game at home, against 12 FTAs on the road. 20.2 points/game, 14.2 boards/game, 2.2 blocks/game, 2 turnovers/game at home vs 27 ppg, 12.8 boards/game, 2.5 blocks/game, 2.8 turnovers/game on the road.

Our Home/Road splits:
We shoot 45.5% from 3 and 54.5% from 2 at home vs 38.8% and 47.9% respectively on the road.
Our shooting defense has been woeful on the road, allowing teams to shoot 43.5% from 3 and 58.3% from 2 compared to 36% and 48% respectively at home. Interestingly teams only shoot 3s 30.8% of the time against us when we're on the road vs 36.1% when we're at home, so we're due for a bit of positive regression there? 🤷‍♂️
We turn the ball over twice as much on the road as at home, though that's a bit skewed by the PSU game - 11.2 to 5.4.

In Game 1, Purdue was not able to use Trey Kaufmann-Renn as much as they would like due to foul trouble, and so their starters only played 8 minutes together getting outscored 17-16, compared to 10.5mpg in their last 5 games. The remaining starters ended up playing better with Gillis in his place anyway, outscoring us 17-12 in 7:17, however when Smith/Loyer/Gillis/Edey played with someone other than Jones, they were outscored 30-22 in 9:52.
Jones fouled out late in the second half, forcing them to play freshman Camden Heide the remainder of the game and Smith/Loyer subsequently committed 5 turnovers on their 13 possessions (38%!) during the rest of the game compared to 12 in the previous 67 (18%).
We were 20-32 on free throws (Hunger/Preston were 3-10), though 12 of them were in OT and 8 were when Purdue was desperation fouling. I will almost certainly guarantee that we won't see 20 FTAs in regulation, though opponents have averaged 17 FTAs/game at Purdue. We also made 50% of our 3s in Game 1, which I doubt will happen again.
Purdue managed to get two more possessions than us in the game, which fortunately wasn't an issue.

So yeah, not expecting a victory here, but if we want to stay in this game, we need to avoid getting down big early. In each of their 4 conference home games, Purdue has opened up double-digit leads in the first 10 minutes - up 18 on Iowa, 16 on Illinois, 23 on PSU and 14 on Michigan. None of them took the lead at any point in the game after, though Illinois did cut it to 3 at one point. Hopefully we can keep it close, as the pressure will build on Purdue if that happens.

OT: BBall v FBall?

I like the BBall program and I follow the games. But...it's all about Cats football to me. I have yet to go to WRA, but I went to every game at RF this year, and 4 games during the putrid 2022 season. I plan to go to all "home" games but OSU in 2024.

On TV, I rarely miss a FB game if not attending, whereas BBall I usually just follow on my phone and watch part of the 2nd half.

What say all of you? Asking on Bball board during Bball season just to see what your thoughts are.

FB RECRUITING Connection to OC Zach Lujan brought Dennis Rahouski to Northwestern


Northwestern's latest Class of 2024 commitment comes from Dennis Rahouski from Eden Prairie, Minn. New NU OC Zach Lujan recruited Rahouski hard to South Dakota State, but Yale's academics won out. Once Lujan added academics, and Big Ten football, to his recruiting arsenal, he came back and offered Rahouski again, this time with success.
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