While the win took place in State College, Cats women also are holding their own in Madison. Trail only by a point now, midway in 4th quarter.

UPDATE: Final is NU 74, Badgers 69!

I tuned in late and don't know if Coach Joe was there tonight. So good to get the conference win.

And it was beautiful.

Because good teams find ways to win.

Even if it’s winning ugly.

Northwestern (11-3, 2-1 Big Ten) is on the road this evening at Penn State (8-7, 2-2 Big Ten). The game tips off at 5:30 and will be broadcast on BTN.

Opinion: Welcome to the end of college football as we know it.

The Bear Bryant COTY Press Conference just wrapped up. I got really fortunate that their PR sent out the notice just to Louie and I got to ask Braun about four or five questions. He was rocking what I'm going to call a North Dakota tuxedo: a dark green hoodie with a suit jacket.

Here's what I got from my live tweet, going to comb over my recording and add more underneath:

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After years of watching good teams do these things to us.

1) Good teams bounce back from bad losses.
2) Good teams defend their home court against the best.
3) Good teams find a way to win even when the things they usually do well, like protecting the ball, go poorly.
4) Good teams go on runs in the second half to take leads and then hold that lead for the rest of the game.
5) Good teams stave off late game runs from their opponent.
6) Good teams have a superstar who makes the right play down the stretch and keeps the rest of the team settled.

We are a good team.

Good coach. Will land on his feet. I’ll miss him.

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A+

Damn- that was ugly. D wasn’t terrible but the turnovers. And they pull it out. And I was never screaming at the tv, seemed like they always were in it.

I think this tough road win speaks volumes. This team can win any night. Tonight, unrelenting defense and late discipline overcame bad ball handling and some home court ref action.

I got an early start so no more from me. Can’t wait to read everything tomorrow and hope the snow doesn’t block me from WI.

I’m on my phone, so I won’t get into as much detail as I would like, but tonight was a very uncharacteristic win for us. And I find that super fun,

We typically take care of the ball and rely on increased opportunities and good enough defense to win. Tonight, the PSU defense sped us up and made us sloppy (credit to them), but it was our shooting of all things that won it.

Good teams win games in different ways and we did that tonight. We’ve had better wins this year, but this one brought a different type of joy cause of how we got it done. Love it.

At halftime I looked down and realized though I thought I put on a Northwestern shirt this morning, it turns out it was NOT a Northwestern shirt. I immediately addressed the situation right around the time Collins was probably reaming out his team and coming up with a plan for a comeback. I figure we're both equally responsible for the result tonight.

NU will likely need 9 more regular season wins to make the dance. Looking at the schedule, NU's road to get there is not easy. They get Purdue, Illinois, and MSU twice, only get a slumping Michigan once, and face a surging Minnesota and Nebraska twice. The home games against OSU and Iowa are going to be massive.

The Wildcats moved to 12-3 (3-1 Big Ten) with a tough win at Penn State. Here are our takeaways from their first Big Ten win on the road.

nfm

given that Football season being over, finally, with a B1G team as national champ (even though it is Michigan), and the FCS championship determined in favor of SDSU, that we would hear what is transpiring at NU. I thought it would be last week, or Monday, but now with all determined, what are they wating for?

Will need to make the 36 hole cut after two rounds at nearby Champions Retreat to compete in Sunday's final round (fairly sure this is a schedule change, used to be final on Saturday) at Augusta, but I'm confident in Lauryn. The athletic department's brief article says 1 NU golfer competed each in the '19, 21 and 22 editions, but no mention of how they did.
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Not watching, but I kind of want Purdue to keep winning so that their only loss(es) are to Northwestern. Is Nebraska going to ruin that, or is Purdue going to come back?

Wow, the Giants offense is really sputtering. They haven’t scored a TD for awhile. The Giants qb called an audible at the end of the first half and handed off to Barkley who was stopped short of the goal line as the clock ran out. I wonder if Kafka’s OC job is on the line now. You won’t win NFL games with only 3 fg’s. The Bills didn’t have that much punch either on offense but they managed 2 td’s which was enough to win. The Giants are now 1-5.

With all the kvetching about who posted what where, I figured I’d consolidate what we know vs. think vs. don’t know before an absolutely huge monstrous week for the future of NU football. If @CoralSpringsCat @mshelton33 @lou v @stpaulcat or whoever want to add on, please feel free

What We Know

1) We have a General Manager — Luke Walerius is “X/Twitter”-official as GM of Roster Development and Retention, a newly-created position. Hopefully more recruiting staff additions/changes to come.

2) Zach Lujan is our future OC — not officially-official just yet, but it’s coming from well-placed/sourced guys like Thamel and confirmed by local reporting.

3) Tim McGarigle is our future DC — again not officially-official, but was discussed on-air during our bowl game and now reported by the same well-placed/sourced guys like Thamel. I suspect Braun will still play a big role in the defense, though it looked to me like McGarigle had the defensive call sheet against both Illinois and Utah.

EDITED TO UPDATE: https://www.espn.com/college-footba...dinator-hire-zach-lujan-offensive-coordinator

What We Think

1) We will have a new OL coach — Anderson seems on his way out based on what I’ve heard. Have also heard a name with high certainty, though I’m not really at liberty to share. Not a guy I had on my radar, don’t even really know enough about him to render a full opinion besides he is a veteran coach and Braun could have decided that was necessary with his young staff.

What We Don’t Know

1) TE coach — I haven’t heard a thing about Genyk’s replacement. Tyler Roehl as TE/Run Game Coordinator would be a dream scenario.

2) If that’s the extent of the on-field football staff changes — we don’t know for certain if other coaches will be let go; MacPherson and Vokolek would be the two most likely in my mind, MacPherson given his longtime Fitz ties and hazing allegations, Vokolek because his tenure could have always been a one-year bridge situation. Had heard previously that Braun preferred to keep Binns and Foster, but situations like this are always fluid.

3) Strength Coach — this is a big one, both in setting overall team culture and because the offseason program starts pretty much now. Hopefully we get clarity on that position ASAP.

Either way it sounds and feels like we should get a public announcement soon. Scheduling Harvard OL Rizy for an official visit this coming weekend makes me think Braun is highly confident that at least most of the full-time staff will be in place pretty quickly. Fingers crossed.

4) Future QB — I’ve been stumping for Gronowski from SDSU for a while now, Lujan as OC seems to make that even more plausible. The broadcast crew at the end of the FCS title game was mentioning a newly-formed SDSU collective trying to put together a NIL package to get him to stay, so a potential departure is at least on their minds. The kid also seemed to slough off a question from the sideline reporter about one more year chants (uh… GO JACKS!), so we shall see. There’s a 5-day post-title game window for transfers, so we will at least know by the end of this week if he intends to look around. If he enters the portal with a no-contact tag, I think we could be pretty confident that he’s headed to NU after finishing up his Mechanical Engineering degree at SDSU in May.

This is a big week for NU football, let’s all hang on for the ride!

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Now get Gronowski!

With the hiring cycle in full swing, we broke down Northwestern's existing staff and recent hiring trends.

Cole Freeman to Columbia (if anyone interested )

But I am searching for something official on it and all I see is speculation. This is on both Rock and Florida alum boards. Am I missing something? Would have thought there would be something definitive.

Effing Schmuckeyes. Can’t say I was rooting for them, but what an embarrassment to the conference, losing to an SEC team.

Actually I’m glad they lost, but still B1G pride and all. Any reason to crap on them is one I’ll take.

Dude left Elon head coaching gig for a ‘Special Assistant to the Head Coach’ gig at Duke. Martinelli was released from his Letter of Intent and fell into our lap.

And a dude who had originally committed to a 7-11 CAA Program is suddenly playing big minutes for a B1G Title Contender.

Martinelli is such a good player. Those ‘right place right time’ offensive boards don’t happen by accident.

I assume most other fan bases are really starting to hate him.