Purdue QB Ryan Browne to enter portal. He is better than what we have and might be a good fit.

Notable QBs in the transfer portal:

Jackson Arnold, Oklahoma ➡️ Auburn
Braylon Braxton, Marshall ➡️ Southern Miss
Devin Brown, Ohio State
Ryan Browne, Purdue ➡️ North Carolina
Hank Brown, Auburn ➡️ Iowa
Zach Calzada, Incarnate Word ➡️ Kentucky
Thomas Castellanos, BC ➡️ FSU
Anthony Colandrea, Virginia
Devon Dampier, New Mexico ➡️ Utah
Ashton Daniels, Stanford ➡️ Auburn
Billy Edwards, Maryland ➡️ Wisconsin
TJ Finley, Western Kentucky ➡️ Tulane
Aiden Glover, Missouri
Ethan Hampton, NIU ➡️ Illinois
Conner Harrell, North Carolina
Keyone Jenkins, FIU ➡️ FIU
Grant Jordan, Yale
Daniel Kaelin, Nebraska ➡️ Virginia
Mikey Keene, Fresno St
Luke Kromenhoek, FSU ➡️ Mississippi St
Braedyn Locke, Wisconsin
Dylan Lonergan, Alabama ➡️ Boston College
John Mateer, Washington St ➡️ Oklahoma
Gevani McCoy, Oregon State
Cade McNamara, Iowa
Fernando Mendoza, Cal
Darian Mensah, Tulane ➡️ Duke
Chandler Morris, North Texas ➡️ Virginia
Miller Moss, USC ➡️ Louisville
Maalik Murphy, Duke ➡️ Kentucky
Malachi Nelson, Boise State
Air Noland, Ohio State
Danny O’Neil, San Diego St ➡️ Wisconsin
Alex Orji, Michigan
Reese Poffenbarger, Miami ➡️ North Texas
Beau Pribula, Penn State
Zach Pyron, Georgia Tech ➡️ Minnesota
Kaidon Salter, Liberty ➡️ Colorado
Malachi Singleton, Arkansas ➡️ Purdue
Matt Sluka, UNLV
Preston Stone, SMU ➡️ NORTHWESTERN
EJ Warner, Rice
Isaac Wilson, Utah ➡️ Utah
Michael Van Buren, Miss State ➡️ LSU
Tyler Van Dyke, Wisconsin
Ethan Vasco, Coastal Carolina
Conner Weigman, Texas A&M ➡️ Houston
Jacob Zeno, UAB ➡️ Texas A&M

In his first week as a commit and signee, RB Daniel Anderson turned around and won the Arkansas state title. Read about Anderson and more in this week’s roundup.

Elijah Culp from Charlotte.
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I took my buddy to the Pepperdine game and he’s hooked … if anyone has 2 in the Wilson Club they want to sell he’s your guy.

I talked to Northwestern's last signee and soon-to-be early enrollee running back Daniel Anderson about the timing of his recruitment and his future as a Wildcat.

Great hire by Coach Fitzgerald.

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Texas Tech is doing very well in the early days of the portal window. Here’s their proposed breakdown. Seems a little off as I believe they paid a softball pitcher over a million.

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Hicks still on the hunt. Latest offer goes to UCLA CB Jaylin Davies.

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Another OL offer - Marcellus Marshall. Picked up FSU and Stanford today as well.

From West Virginia; played at Kent State previously (O’Boyle connection?!?)

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Washington State QB John Mateer is on the market. He has 2 years of eligability remaining. Very good player and massive upgrade from whats currently on the roster. Let's see if cats live up to the new NU portal approach of "early and aggressive". You can bet they'll be a lot of action on him and he'll be gone fast.

A little love for WBB, who move to 6-4 with today's OT win. Playing much better now that everyone is healthy and the newcomers are getting adjusted.

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It's ba-ack.....

Julian Neal picks up an NU offer. Cats are getting active in their hunt for a transfer DB!

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QB Beau Pribula of Penn State. Dan Persa 2.0. NU offered out of high school. Pretty sure we finished second to PSU. With Jaxon Smolik coming in and Drew Allar firmly entrenched as the starter for the next two years, Pribula could be on the move. He’d be the perfect fit for Bajakian and an RPO offense.

Having resided in Shorewood, WI for the past 13 years, when I saw that NU was in the words of Big & Rich, "...comin to my cit-a-y-yy," I had to splurge. Sure, it would've been the economically responsible play to pick off some cheap seats on gameday off one of the SeatStubGeekHubApps, but there is nothing rational about being a NU hoops fan. So, once I got the email from the NU Athletic Dept, I went over and gave Ticketmaster my money. Since I don't expect the 'Cats to 1)play 4 miles away from my house, and 2)play in such an intimate setting in front of me and 500 other fans that reside among the North North Shore, I went for the first row courtside seats.

Cousin Carl (my #1 go-to wingman on hoops game attendance not just because of blood, but also because he's coached high school/junior high hoops, so he's a great analyst to have in-person) and I were able to park on the street about two blocks away for free (Free Parking on Sunday!), and grabbed a bite at the one station that was open (only mainstream stadium fare) before taking our seats during the second half of the UWM-Akron game.

In my mindseye, courtside seats would mean I'd eagerly perform the role of Spike Lee superfan, dapping up Nicky Meatballs after every flipper and getting in the defensive stance alongside Matty Nix on crucial possessions. Unfortunately, my lack of fiserv forum layout knowledge (or, let's be real, my unwillingness to use google and actually research these things) revealed that courtside seats meant front row behind the scorer's table. To be specific, right smack dab behind where the official's review microphone is stationed. This meant I also had eyes on the monitor that had six cameras running simultaneously (which meant I knew if/when to mug it up when in-arena bits like "Beach Ball Cam" were running during timeouts.)

However, I was 10 feet away from the UWM bench - and from these seats I could witness the interplay between the assistant coaches, spy what they're writing on the greaseboards, and generally experience the vibes of a squad. For UWM it was going pretty good, and the UWM partisans behind me were doing their level best to energize the team. They were rewarded as after the final buzzer, the victorious Panthers did a lap through. our section to high five their faithful. I crouched in my seat as the fans behind me engaged the players. (Akin to those rare times I go to Catholic mass, and don't participate in Communion.). Anyway, I was hopeful that since UWM was the 'home' bench, that the 'Cats would also be that close.

Alas, as the 'Cats came out to warm-up and did it on our side of the court, a pang hit my stomach as I knew that teams usually played the first half at the basket away from their bench. Oh well.

The upper bowl, as well as the ends of the lower bowl were empty. Scorer table side had the majority of the fans, while the opposite side was probably half as much as us. The crowd was small, but reliably purple. Overall, while the 'Cats led wire to wire, from where I was sitting, it didn't feel that easy. Lance Terry is a guard with electric hops, and he'd hit these bailout stepback 3s after the 'Cats would play hard defense for most of the possession. Barnhizer's offensive inefficiency in the first half left alot of points on the table (and of course, we'd learn later a big reason for why he looked rusty). We seemed to rim out really good looks - we hit half of those in the first half, we could've been up 16-20 and that's likely when we woulda seen the frosh get run. Do the kids need minutes? Sure. However, the 'Cats need to lock down Ws - especially Semi-Home games against weaker P5 teams. Hopefully the starters can extend early leads in the next two non-cons so that our kids can get that precious in-game run. Other random takes:

• Being that close to the action, I'm struck by power and speed these guys play with in such close quarters. That really was apparent to me in how our guys defended - Ty Berry really worked hard on several sequences and he did some real good things that aren't readily seen in the stat-sheet.
• Damon Stoudamire is a really patient presence. Sure, he'd grimace back at his bench when he'd see his players not execute specific items, but for the most part he was positive. While the post-game dap up between he and Collins was brief, it looked to me genuine.
• Ryan Mutombo is a large dude. Plus, this was the first time all season he got run, and looking at his kenpom history, the longest run since the '22 season when he was a frosh at Georgetown - 22 minutes MP, 10 on 8 shots, 7 reb, 1 blk. I don't know what took him so long to get such run, because he looked the part to me.
• The one play review (the hard screen on Ty Berry) was really brief, and based on what I could see from the ref's review it was hard to discern anything higher than a common foul as well.

I saw there are comments like, "Why are they playing this there?" The way I look at it: it's a made for television type event, and a way to set up some competitive games with some area interest. (Both San Francisco and Loyola are in the kp 50s-100s, so that's actually a precious Quad 2 opp for them.) The 'Cats haven't been booking home and aways (we just wrapped up Dayton earlier), and with the demise of the ACC-B1G Showdown and Gavitt Games (Big East v B1G), this was a way to get another power conference foe on the schedule. Not just getting an actual win, but I saw this as a pretty good scheduling coup for the 'Cats. Finally, as a Milwaukee area resident, and college basketball sicko, this was just a treat. Let's run it back in '25!

Haven’t seen one of these for quite a while!

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Wow. Some teams are nearing turning over a third of their roster.

Arizona 28
Arkansas 26
Purdue 26
Miss. St. 25
Oklahoma 23
Nebby 21.

Other leaders:
Kentucky 20
Utah 20
Va Tech 18
FSU 17
UCLA 17
aTm 17
Stanford 17

Stanford WR Chase Farrell commits to NU

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Had an NU offer out of high school, redshirted at Stanford last year and now headed to Evanston. Smaller, speedy guy. Should fit a Henning-type role:

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With the transfer portal keeping things uncertain until probably April/May 2025, it's difficult to get a picture of what our team will look like for the 2025 season. Here is a snapshot as of today, Dec 13.

Transfers out: T. Johnson, D. Turner, Thompson, Halkyard, Fleurima.
Transfers in: None so far.

Roster (red means gone for 2025, either eligibility or transfer)

OFFENSE (-6 starters)
QB Lausch
RB Porter, Himon, Komo
WR Kirtz
WR Henning
WR Covey, Eligon, CJ
TE Gordon, Lang
T Tiernan
G Lovelace, Oratakhai
C Carsello
G Thompson
T Wrather

DEFENSE (-5 starters):
S Azema, Walters
S D.Turner, Fitzgerald, B.Turner
CB Johnson
CB Fussell, E.Smith (Adeyi)
LB Mueller, Metz
LB Uihlein
LB Soares
DE McLaughlin, Saka
DT Story, Flakes, Gant
DT Bastone, Kilbane, Roberts
DE Hubbard, Pate

We need to hit that portal hard. Prioritize QB, WR, OL. Another quality CB would be good.

It's the final recruit roundup of 2024! DT Tanner Jumpp wrapped things up for the Class of 2025 in Florida's state title game, albeit with a 52-19 loss to Venice. There was just one capsule to write for Jumpp so I've also set this up as your one-stop shop on the Class of 2025 (and O'Brien in the Class of 2026). Each player should have fully updated capsules with their post season accolades, public highlights and their most recent interview with WildcatReport, if applicable.

It's the final recruit roundup of 2024! DT Tanner Jumpp wrapped things up for the Class of 2025 in Florida's state title game, albeit with a 52-19 loss to Venice. There was just one capsule to write for Jumpp so I've also set this up as your one-stop shop on the Class of 2025 (and O'Brien in the Class of 2026). Each player should have fully updated capsules with their post season accolades, highlights and their most recent interview with WildcatReport, if applicable.

2025 Northwestern Football Schedule
Saturday, August 30 – at Tulane (New Orleans, LA)
Saturday, September 6 – vs. Western Illinois (Evanston, IL)
Saturday, September 13 – vs. Oregon (Evanston, IL)
Saturday, September 27 – vs. UCLA (Evanston, IL)
Saturday, October 4 – vs. ULM (Evanston, IL)
Saturday, October 11 – at Penn State (University Park, PA)
Saturday, October 18 – vs. Purdue (Evanston, IL)
Saturday, October 25 – at Nebraska (Lincoln, NE)
Saturday, November 8 – at USC (Los Angeles, CA)
Saturday, November 15 – vs. Michigan (Wrigley Field, Chicago, IL)
Saturday, November 22 – vs. Minnesota (Wrigley Field, Chicago, IL)
Saturday, November 29 – at Illinois (Champaign, IL)

Per university release