The article talks about the failed attempt to unionize football at NU 10 years ago. Hopefully this one also fails like our did. There is no place in college sports for unionization.

Audige is back in Chicago!

Login to view embedded media

Was the best player in the first Shrine Bowl practice. Doesn’t attract the best college players but reports said he was dominant. Looks like he could be a 3rd or 4th round pick. Too bad we struggled at qb when he was at NU. Definitely under utilized.

I thought this was interesting. In Greg Smith's Midwest Storylines piece, he writes that Illinois is the state to recruit for D-linemen. Northwestern already has one in-state DL commit in Caden O'Rourke. They are only actively recruiting one of the guys mentioned for 2025: Nazareth's Gabe Kaminski. They also recruited legacy prospect Joseph Reiff for a bit, but he committed to Notre Dame pretty early. I had hope that Nathaniel Marshall from Fenwick, the No. 1-ranked prospect in Illinois, might be an academic fit, but apparently not.

Anyway, here's the item in his story:

ILLINOIS DEFENSIVE LINEMEN STANDING OUT AGAIN​

There must be something in the water in Illinois that is helping to produce defensive linemen. Last cycle the state produced a pair of five-stars with Justin Scott and Marquise Lightfoot. Both took their talents to Miami.

This cycle, Nathaniel Marshall, Christopher Burgess Jr. and Iose Epenesa all have five-star potential. Jaylen Williams, Joseph Reiff, Gabe Kaminski and Jason Dowell are all four-star prospects.

If your program needs defensive linemen you should be stopping in Illinois.

MORE: Complete 2025 state of Illinois rankings

Link:

I have a single ticket available to the bball game on Saturday. Would love to see it go to an NU fan- happy to take face value: $75. Section 115, row 10.

The parallels between Hankwitz and Lowery are very interesting. Staggering, almost.

Has CCC found his hall of fame defensive coordinator?

Have we locked Lowery up in a multiyear package?

If a blue blood program hires CCC away, do we promote Lowery to replace him?

I was thinking about the ultimate diehard fan test: would you “take the injury” to get our injured players back if you could?

Meaning you’d have a broken foot and your own recovery timeline but Nicholson would be back for MSU. Or, you’d have a torn meniscus and have to go through surgery and everything but we’d get Berry back.

Would you do it? Keep in mind: before the slew of injuries, we were dreaming of a Sweet 16 appearance.

Well, that was a tough one... playing Iowa without enough scoring options... and then losing our presence in the paint...
Here's how it looked statistically...


A couple of positives... Buie played great and shot the lights out. Star of the game for sure... but that wasn't enough.
Blake Smith put up a good game. His steady play has been startling for a very inexperienced guy recruited by no one out of high school.

The flipside is the play of Luke Hunger and Jordan Clayton, who combined for 0 for 5 from the floor and just didn't add a lot to the team effort.
Martinelli and Barnhizer played the full 40 minutes.

After Nicholson took a bad step and injured himself, NU faced the unpleasant challenge of having no size advantage at any position.
The difference was fairly immediate and fairly obvious as Iowa scored 43 points in 17 minutes after Nicholson left the game.
Iowa was 2 for 5 from outside the arc over that 17 minute period, shifting their focus to all-out attacks in the paint.

With Berry and Nicholson apparently out for the season, there are not a lot of numbers to form projections...

NU has been outscored 187-153 with Jordan Clayton on the court for 102.5 minutes.
NU has outscored our opponents 152-144 with Blake Smith on the court for 83.6 minutes.
Unfortunately he was +17 with Nicholson and -9 with Hunger or Preston.

There are some other rays of hope... if Langborg is healthy...
Hunger/Martinelli/Barnhizer/Buie/Langborg is 90-79 in about 44 minutes.
Preston/Martinelli/Barnhizer/Buie/Langborg is 45-42 in about 23.5 minutes.

otherwise we've got
Preston/Martinelli/Barnhizer/Buie/Smith ahead 16-15 in just under 7 minutes.
Hunger/Martinelli/Barnhizer/Buie/Smith trailing 41-32 in just under 19 minutes.

Mullins has the athleticism to (maybe) have a productive game. I'm not confident that Clayton can say the same right now.

@lou v checked in with 3-star DE Tommy Rupley about scheduling his visit to Northwestern, his decision timeline and more.

Absolutely brutal luck for us right now.

1) If Matt is out, making the tourney (via one more win) is considered a successful season versus making the second weekend prior to Ty being hurt.

2) Langborg needs to suck it up and get his butt back in the lineup. Even if he’s just a decoy and/or can only spot up. We need one more to secure our bid.

3) Luke Hunger needs to man up as well. He is incredibly soft for a guy his size.

I was proud as hell by the fight today but we have not clinched a damn thing yet. Keep punching! Rest up and get ready for MSU. I believe in these guys.

Here are @mshelton33's takeaways. He was courtside in College Park tonight.

Thesis: It’s more important than it used to be. No mention of Audige tho.

…auctioning off stuff from the stadium?

We took the kids to walk around the stadium. Every single banner (including bowl games), section signs, lettering, etc. is still up

Why not auction that off, like they did with the patriotic jerseys a few years ago?

My wife thought the “N” in Ryan Field would be worth a ton of money alone.

I’d happily pay a few grand for random NU stuff from the stadium to hang in my office or basement

Keep the faith as long as we have Boo Buie running the point!

Go Cats!

RIP all those dogs and moose. 😢

Going to miss this one due to family obligations. Could be a trap game after the big game at B.C. and Denver coming to town, but I don't think CMU poses much of a problem. Go Cats!

Stressfully, the game vs Minny next weekend is shaping up to be pretty close to a must win for the Cats, barring a big upset midweek in East Lansing. NU competed hard but fell short against Iowa with THREE STARTERS sidelined by injury. Ty won’t be back this year. We really need Borg. And boy oh boy is it nerve-wracking as we await news on Matt.

If we beat Minnesota at home, I think our ticket is firmly punched. If we lose our last three regular season games, we might slip to bubble status, and may very well need to get a BTT win to right the ship — especially because the committee will be aware of our injuries and trajectory.

There’s nothing we can do other than pray for our guys to heal up, and then show up in force to root HARD against the Gophers on senior night.

So - any thoughts on what happened? And what his downtime will be?

Boo Buie has had an amazing career against MSU. He is their bane. He is their master.

Boo Buie time to cement your legend by beating Izzy and MSU (again) at Breslin without your big guy and without Robin. But you’re the Boo in the BooBerry show. Let’s go!

A la Arnold

Preferably at halftime but probably after the boo buie ceremony

Scoreboard puts the terminator on the screen

Barney, Nicholson and berry take the mike or maybe it’s all recorded

They announce We’ll Be Back

The crowd will go NUTS

Minnesota will feel energy against the world they have never experienced.

We will win at least one of the last games

We will be in both games. We will not be rolled over.

Go cats

We were just plain worn down in the 2nd half.