I also managed to get a hold of three-star 2022 OLB Ernest Hausmann last night. Fascinating kid. Normally, you'd think NU's chances would be pretty slim for a kid from Nebraska. But Hausmann was born in Uganda and moved to Columbus, Neb., at age 5, so he doesn't have that genetic love for the Huskers that all Nebraskans seem to be born with. He's also a high academic kid -- 3.71 GPA and wants to major in computer science -- and says that he'll go anywhere to college for the right fit.

He's been talking to Coach McGarigle for a couple months before they offered and was impressed that he got his offer from Fitz. They've done a good job educating them about their careers as linebackers -- "I was shocked and amazed," he said.

I love this kid's tape. He's fast, athletic and explosive. I'd love to see him in purple.

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With the latest loss of a recruit due to academics, it has made me ponder the academic restrictions of NU. I would rather lose with good character people than win with bad apples. However losing a recruit who has good SAT scores and grades, but their class rank is not high enough does not make any sense. NU and all elite level academic institutions are extremely difficult to get into these days. While there are some brilliant people that can excel on the field and in the classroom, it is extremely rare. I would be happy with having athletes that value an education and are going take school seriously even if their qualifications are borderline. Coach K made a career of taking guys that probably could not get into Duke if they were not basketball players. Heck one of his former players thinks the earth is flat. Duke has not suffered because they relaxed their academic standards for their basketball program. I am sure Duke's endowment went up exponentially during Coach K's time. I would be in favor of giving our coaches more latitude to get players in. What someone's SAT score is and high school grades is not the sole predictor of how a person is going to turn out. Maybe the trend of eliminating standardized test will help us in the future.

A haiku I composed which was inspired by the early morning views as captured by my camera while at Japan's Lake Kawaguchi (which is located at the base of Mount Fuji ) this past week:

The morning mist lifts
Mirrored reflections emerge
My soul too awakens

I don’t get it. Very civil thread.

Lots being taken down. Even on the paid premium experience. Best take the right path or get put in the penalty box. Instead of allowing this site become a peaceful protest - is more draconian Chinese style beat down with no Elon on the horizon. Despite waiting til later hours, this thread will be killed quickly and I’ll probably get yet another undisclosed discipline.

As a positive, yahoo is probably very much more aware of this crazy and unregulated place than they have ever been and maybe changes are on the horizon for more than just the program.

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Consensus/unanimous AA.

WTG Pete. You will be missed

I had convinced myself that he had to go after this season regardless of results on the court.

Now I’m not convinced he has to go. I’m not saying I’m convinced he should stay, but I am wondering if he’s a better coach than I thought.

Izzo made some comments about Boo and Chase, and a few other statements about our play, that gives me pause (about firing CCC). Granted, Izzo always praises Collins but this time it was a bit more coachiness and less politeness after our second straight win in East Lansing.

Would love to have your take on CCC. Lots of season left.

According to what ESPN said just now it looks very serious.

There is an article on ESPN.com about UNC basketball. Discusses two things wildcat fans can relate:

1. Guards that don’t pass and dribble dribble dribble

2. The Pete Nance deficiencies. While I would love to have him on the cats today. He isn’t the savior and I might suggest collins got all he could out of Nance. And I will add, if nance hits his ft last year we win at least one more game and if he could play at another level we would have won 2-3 more.

I think he will make some good money playing overseas but sadly he isn’t his father or brother on the court.

It doesn’t have to be accurate. It can be riddled with ORs. But, geez, how f***ing dumb.

I promise, nobody’s feelings would have been hurt if Richardson were listed as the starter in week 11, and Lausch the backup, and then FREEMAN led the team on! It would have been exciting.

It would have been nice if Lou could’ve asked, “Geez, might Uihlein see the field at *some* point!?!”, or even *positive* questions — “I see Turner has moved up — what have you seen from him.” Man, imagine if there were positives!

It’s just dumb. This whole season was dumb. At least America has JJTBC and the Lions.

This is interesting.

Because of the NIL rules maybe yahoo now considers who goes to play as worthy business information similar to "Actor-so-and-so agrees to deal represent AllState Insurance in future ad campaign" or something like that?

I just saw it after reading this article - unfortunately it's behind a paywall but maybe some of you read the WSJ online?

Sharing a few paragraphs is allowed so...

The future of University of Miami’s football team was supposed to hinge on Jaden Rashada, a four-star quarterback from California who was a high-profile example of how big money promises to drive success in the new world of college football. In August, Rashada committed to Miami to begin playing in 2023, lured partly by a lucrative endorsement offer from LifeWallet, the medical-records and data company where billionaire Hurricanes booster John Ruiz is chief executive. Ruiz, through his company, and other boosters have been pouring money into name, image and likeness deals meant to entice top recruits to Miami’s sports programs.

Then something happened that no one expected. Miami started losing a lot of games in ugly fashion, first to Middle Tennessee State, then Duke. At 5-5, the Hurricanes are on the brink of missing out on a bowl game altogether. Meanwhile, several of the other programs who had previously courted Rashada, like Florida, were thriving by comparison. It all led to something momentous happening just after the stroke of midnight on Nov. 11. Rashada tweeted that he had decommitted from Miami and flipped to Florida. His tweet included a 43-second video in which he posed with the royal blue Lamborghini convertible of Florida booster Hugh Hathcock, who founded Florida’s Gator Guard booster “collective”—fundraising organizations that facilitate endorsement deals for a university’s athletes, Hathcock said he has not spoken with Rashada, an interaction that would not be permissible under NCAA rules, and loaned the car to the football team in June to use as a prop during official recruiting visits.

This is the new reality in college sports at a time when athletes can profit from their name, image and likeness, and passionate alumni are willing to throw millions at their favorite teams in hopes of securing a few more wins. Fortunes can rise or fall overnight. Alumni formed three collectives to back athletes financially. Meanwhile, Ruiz, a Florida businessman who was previously known for TV ads pitching his law practice, has become a controversial figure in college sports by spending more than $7 million through his company to sponsor Miami athletes since July 2021. Miami also hired a new athletic director and reportedly spent millions to lure Mario Cristobal from Oregon.

SNIP

Ruiz insists he is not that kind of donor. “This isn’t about winning sports games, this is about winning the game of life,” he said last week. “Our strategy and platform is different. But everybody else is focused on wins and losses.” Ruiz is undeterred by Miami’s mediocre football season. Ruiz plans to increase LifeWallet’s $10 million marketing budget to $15 million in 2023 and sign deals not just with Miami athletes, but those in “all 50 states plus Puerto Rico.” Ruiz hasn’t been shy about striking eye-popping endorsement deals with Hurricanes athletes to promote LifeWallet. Last spring, he drew ire for promising Kansas State transfer Nijel Pack $800,000 over two years plus a car.

“I run a lot of businesses and I’ve never seen the return on investment you get with NIL deals,” he said this month. His definition of “return on investment” is tied to social media impressions and brand recognition rather than teams’ win-loss records. Name, image and likeness, he said, “should not be just…we want a good team on the field’.” In fact, using endorsements as an inducement to attend a school is a violation of NCAA rules. The NCAA in June opened an investigation into several of Ruiz’s endorsement deals at Miami, but no consequences appear to have come of it. Ruiz said that he has not broken any laws and claims his deals have a “90 to 95% approval rating” from the athletes involved.

Full article here -

I understand there could be multiple reasons that explain Fitz's delay in hiring new coaches.
It does make we worry a bit that he might not have a short list of candidates primed for a quick hire.
Hopefully we hear something by the end of the week.

Jim

For women’s hoops. Only trailed by one at the half…DePaul took over in the second for a 81-63 final. Tough shooting day for NU as they hit only 3-20 from beyond the arc. When Brown and Walsh are off; things generally don’t go well for NU.

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We knew this was coming.

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Just for fun, I prompted GPT-3 to help NU find its next DC. Here's what it said:

Who should Northwestern football head coach Pat Fitzgerald hire to become the defensive coordinator at Northwestern University?

Pat Fitzgerald should consider hiring Bob Shoop as the defensive coordinator at Northwestern University. Shoop is an experienced coach who has served as defensive coordinator at Vanderbilt, Penn State, and Tennessee. He also has experience in the Big Ten Conference and is known for his aggressive defensive style. Additionally, Shoop has a proven track record of success and has been credited with helping to turn around the defense at Vanderbilt in a short period of time.

Nothing shows the difference more over the past 2 years than the DCs of our two programs, which were both hired in early 2021. Walters over at Illinois is headed for the Purdue job after transforming Illinois' defenses from a joke to elite over the past 2 seasons.

And the opposite happened here over the past 2 seasons.

This is the ultimate test for this program; the next DC here has to get our program back to elite in the next few seasons if we want to get back to being a competitive program in the style that worked while Hank was DC.

We know that it's possible for a top-flight DC to transform defenses quickly; Illinois and many others are solid proof of that.

So again, we'll be able to compare performances for our DC and that of Illinois from similar starting points (at least in terms of time). I'm pretty optimistic that Fitz'll get it right. Obviously, time will tell, but he knows what worked for 15 seasons here and getting back to that requires a DC that can transform this defense back to elite.

Does he go to Illinois or elsewhere? Does NU have a shot at him?

(DC for Illinois, in case you didn't recognize the name)

Resume:

While Bajakian survived, I feel that bringing in a dedicated QB coach is warranted. Bajakian has failed to develop any of the QBs he has brought in. The only good QB in his tenure was Ramsey and he had nothing to do with it. I think someone solely dedicated to the development of the most important person on the team is a no brainer. I cannot imagine that there are many power 5 schools without a QB coach. I think the QB coach could also serve as interim OC if and when they do not turn things around. I know it will never happen but I would love to see an outside the box hire like bring in a coach that was part of an innovative college offense or a high school coach running an innovative offense that has a star QB that could qualify for NU. What I do not want to see happen is a bringing in a someone who was a tight ends coach at some midlevel program who's offense was mediocre and has no experience coaching QBs. I honestly think the reason we do not have QB coach is so we can use that salary to pay the OC more, which would be fine if our OC was successful.

I also feel Fitz should relinquish Special Teams coaching duties. Field goal kicking has always been a liability under Fitz. It is sad to think that a school with as much money as NU has and as much money as BIG 10 football generates to not have these position coaches in an effort to save money.

DB from Oaks Christian in LA… supposedly walking on at NU over PAC-12 offers. Kind of wonder if it was previously a PWO offer that was made a scholarship offer with recent departures opening scholarships, but the tape makes me question the legitimacy of those PAC12 offers.

Either way, welcome and great to have some actual good news!

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Northwestern (6-2, 1-0 Big Ten) hosts Prairie View A&M (4-4) at 1 pm at Welsh-Ryan Arena.

It's a good day when you hire a new head coach and leave behind Greg Roman and Jason Garrett.

Congratulations to Troy Taylor.