Too many depressing things to talk about on offense so in the interest of finding a positive topic - 13 Josh Fussell came in at CB and looked really good I thought. Tight coverage and a couple nice breaks on the ball. As a redshirt Freshman thought he looked athletic and promising. Reminded me of when Sherrick came in off the bench and was lockdown in his first game. Hoping we have another talent. Looked better than 12 right away IMO, admittedly small sample size, and I think potentially better than 10 as well. Hope he can keep it up.

Triumphant Cats fans
Wonder where to lake the posts
How does Puget Sound

Arch Manning’s starting debut wasn’t particularly significant. Nothing nearly as exciting as his half-game numbers the previous week — two TDs and two ints, negative yards rushing.

What was significant, however, is the name of his opposing staring quarterback.

I present, GENERAL BOOTY, nephew of Josh and John David, but exceeding the bootyliciousness of the name.

Holy jeez, given name is General Maximus Axel Booty. They actually went with Booty Maximus.



I feel bad for having missed it all these years.

Nearly six decades of rambling around has taught me that things are rarely as good as they seem, or as bad as they seem, when are stuck in the midst of it.

Twenty years ago this summer, I climbed along this craggy ridge of shattered rock to reach the summit of Quandary Peak. It looks horrible, but it was nothing of the sort. The memorable thing about that day was the cloud cover. It was completely socked in--no rain, just a thick cloud layer all around the ridge that concealed the cliffs and valley below. All I saw was the rock in front of me, and the ridge line snaking ahead. And I knew the summit was not far off.



Now, we cannot unsee what we saw yesterday. That was ugly.

But there are some thing you can chose to see. Wander over to Central Street by Ashland. You will see a massive construction site with the foundational imprint of a massive structure devoted to Wildcat football. That edifice represents an $800M commitment to football. Big Ten football.

If you research a bit, you will also see news items that describe the B1G's ever-growing share of revenue from TV rights sales. The B1G is the most lucrative conference. The other thing you might discern is that direct payments to players is coming, and that we are in the most lucrative conference. This has the potential to dwarf NIL (which I still maintain is largely a bubble).

Finally, I climbed that mountain 20 years ago. Maybe I will get back there with my son, now that he has taken to rock climbing and has expressed interest in mountaineering. But I won't be around forever, and that mountain will be. Schill, NU Admissions and those old board farts are not the mountain. They are the hikers on the mountain. The hikers move on. The mountain stays.

1. Really kept thinking how the portal transfer hurt us this year. A program that depends on development cannot afford to lose players it has worked hard to develop. When Anthony Tyus left no one was too concerned but last night showed how important depth is and not only at running back but at wide receiver and Oline. If we are going to be a developmental program we must hold on to the players we develop. If Proebe had stayed, if Sullivan had stayed, if Heard, Hollis, Tyus, Gill had all stayed we would be significantly better. Not that the portal transfer system has let us grab a couple of players but I think we are an overall loss in that area. Was NIL the reason?
2. Really disappointed in Lausch. Was really excited and optimistic after the 2nd half of EIU. Back to chicken and egg questions. Looked like he had time to hit passes but held on to the ball too long, threw bad passes, receivers dropped passes. But was it lack of running game? Receivers not open, poor oline play? He seemed to scramble to open areas but receivers did not get open or catch ball.
3. Specifically I did not think Calvin Johnson or Kamalofe were close to physical enough for B10 ball. Kamlofe just does not hit the hole hard.
4. We did not have a receiver the equal of Butler, the qb Rogers or the equal of 3 of their running backs.
5. Lujan was thought to be creative but had offenses that made their money on the running game....how did we go into the season w/o having beefed up that room? Did we try?
6. On the positive side we continue to do many things fundamentally correct and see improvement in several areas, DLINE and Oline play has been better than expected, the young secondary is doing ok although it limits what we can do I believe on defense .
7. Moving forward, even when Cam Porter is back I think we need to get another back into the rotation.
8. I am already moving into familiar territory where any win will be celebrated but now looking for how young players develop and give us hope for next year and accept a win over Illinois will get me through a cold winter.........

2026 OFFER LIST (40)

2026 COMMITMENT LIST (1)

QB (1)
Johnny O’Brien (IL) - COMMITTED

RB (3)
Kory Amachree (MI)
CJ Givers (GA)
Damon Ferguson (MD)

WR (3)
Nasir Rankin (IL)
Conner Salmin (VA)
Amarion Jackson (NE)

TE (4)
Lincoln Watkins (MI)
Preston Fryzel (OH)
Ian Premer (KS)
Jack Utz (MO)

OL (11)
Gene Riorden (IL)
Owen Fors (IL)
Hudson Parliament (SD)
Deacon Schmitt (CO)
Casey Thomann (IL)
Landry Brede (OH)
Claude Mpouma (IL)
Eli Bickel (MI)
Grayson McKeough (PA)
Vlad Dyakonov (CA)
Collin Campbell (AZ)

DL (5)
McHale Blade (IL)
Damari Simeon (NJ)
King Liggins (IL)
Carter Meadows (MD)
Dre Quinn (GA)

LB (1)
Rodney Dunham (NC)

DB (3)
Kasmir Hicks (IN)
Jordan Thomas (NJ)
Isaiah Brutus (FL)

OFF THE BOARD (9)
Anderson
Sutter
Lansu
Williams, Jonah
Bonner
Vitti
Wilmes
Hall
Weatherspoon

Hi all, I wanted to hop on this morning and give you a quick programming update. I'm flying back to Chicago today so a couple of my weekly projects, PFF snap count posts on Sundays and the public recruit roundup on Mondays, are going to be pushed back as I won't have enough computer access today. Hope to have snap counts up for you on Monday and the roundup for Tuesday, but will let you know if there are any other delays.

Also, since it's a bye week, there will be no press conference from Braun tomorrow.

I know it wasn't the difference but I said before the game traveling to the West Coast on Friday was a mistake - at least based on my many years of business travel from the East Coast. The guys are students - I get it - but if they only make the one trip west the team should go out on Thursday. When they started that game their body clock was two hours later and they very likely woke up at 5 AM on Saturday morning.

Northwestern (2-1) is on the road this evening at Washington (2-1) for the Huskies' Big Ten debut. The game will kick off at about 6:10 pm CT and will air on FS1.

Not to be overly dramatic but. How have we not fired Lujan yet? These red zone formations and execution are beyond egregious. He cost us 2 TDs today by repeatedly putting Lausch back in shotgun when we have 1 yard to go and multiple plays to get it. Utterly insane. I was at a loss watching that game with the red zone scheme and play calling.

We already lost one game because of the insanity with Duke. I don’t think we were gonna win this game to be fair but…. this guy needs to be jettisoned to Mars at least. Lausch was not good by any means but Lujan absolutely ruined 2 easy touchdowns because he apparently doesn’t know how to call a QB sneak under center??? Or maybe a HB dive under center? Anything other than snapping it into shotgun from the 1 yard line play after play?? This isn’t effing South Dakota state dude. That was so infuriating.

Actually 4 might be too many. Can anybody talk me down?

Here are @mshelton33’s takeaways from the Wildcats’ drubbing.

Here are @mshelton33’s takeaways from the Wildcats’ drubbing.

No rhythm on offense whatsoever, though I will say I’m not all that down on Lausch — multiple vets dropped catchable balls, OL is beat up, etc. Defense trying their darndest but gassed.

Probably ends up a “learning experience,” but would love to be proven wrong.

All the Lausch supporters, what say you now???

Would be nice to have one.

We had a wonderful tailgate. We had flawless weather. We met some nice UW fans.
The game was pretty rough- this cannot be sugar coated. We missed having Porter. We missed catching some balls. Our cleats seemed to be incorrect for the turf.
The season is not over. Flush the loss. Captains and leaders need to keep being upbeat. The coaches need to get back to work. There is a lot of football left to be played.
Go Cats!

For tonight

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Just say you wish you had that one back. This is just nonsense.

They're so delightfully comedic! This performance had me laughing from start to finish.

Noticed during the Duke game too. Very low energy on the sidelines from the players. You know it is bad when Lauren is mentioning that the "Northwestern sideline is dead" on the homer radio broadcast.

Kicking a FG on the one (to stay down by two scores) isn't a great way to show your guys that you trust them. Braun is looking like a first year HC.

Frustrating end to Syracuse-Stanford game (I am a new Cuse fan as my kid goes there). Cuse scores go ahead TD and then lets Stanford march down the field. 4th and 8 with under a minute, this play was 100% going to that NFL bound WR, Cuse rushes 3 and single covers him with no safety for 20 yards down the field. What were they doing with the other 7 defenders? Of course the pass is complete for like 15 yards, they kick a FG and game over.

McCord is fun to watch but they live and die by him - the offense wouldn’t score without him but he also threw a pick 6 and an INT that led shortly to a FG. Although, take their offense and our defense and it would be a fringe playoff team.

NU losing to Duke in OT and Syracuse losing to Stanford on the last play just grinds my gears. It’s not a zero sum game but I hate to see those teams win when we lose.

@lou v was at Northwestern today for the press conference announcing the hire of new athletic director Mark Jackson. Check out his column on what Jackson had to say and his vision for the future of Northwestern Athletics.