Old school Chicago pol was "the hog with the big nuts."

Here's @mikefitz77's look at three things we learned, two questions and one bold prediction as NU tries to put Saturday's debacle behind them and prepare for the Boilers.

NU shows up today in this fun NY Times game.

Jesus Christ.

Absolute disaster of a play call with 40 seconds left on the clock and a 1st and 15 backed up on your goal line.

He’s really been quite bad at decisive moments.

First was the 50 yard kick with the punter

Now they did another slow developing route from their one yard line

Is there any self scouting going on? Any learning from mistakes?

How can you make the exact same mistake again AFTER you also made the same kicking mistake too?

The Cats are great, the Hogeyes smell, and Top Dog Law will get you your money.

Go Cats! Beat Io_a!

I think we bounce back and play a unicorn game today.

I keep hearing grumblings from Wildcats Twitter/X that Fitz was a way better recruiter than Braun. That is simply spin.

I checked and Fitz had classes in the 50-55 range for the most part per Rivals (one of the last 6 years was 42, I believe). Braun’s 2025 class, his first full one, is currently 59. Is that really that much of a difference?

With our stringent academic restrictions I’m guessing, realistically, the high 30s/low 40s composite score is about as good as we can do. Not saying Braun will for sure get there but we’re not far off already…

Curious everyone’s thoughts.

You have to show some sort of accountability for that horrible/inexcusable/pathetic/disgusting decision to throw with :40 left and Wisconsin only having 1 timeout. Let one of the other position coaches take the reins for at Iowa. Our season will be on the line. Win or we’re cooked for a bowl. This Wisconsin game was plenty winnable.

most teams are playing a secret scrimmage or a not so secret scrimmage......NU ?

12 boards
13 assists
19 points

Decent numbers I suppose…

...Chris Collins. Give Braun a frickin' chance. Buncha whining NU grads.

I don’t have the stats, of course, but I’ve believed for about a decade that winning two out of the three categories above means a victory.

For so long, NU eschewed even trying for the big play. This meant that the defense needed to take the ball away, and especially that NU needed to keep the ball on third down. Or fourth down. And it’s no coincidence that NU’s most consistent success came when NU got aggressive on fourth down.

NU was bad on third downs today — only 3 of 12. NU had only 9 g-d first downs to Maryland’s 25.

But, Kirtz had two deep deep catches and Henning another, while Maryland eked out three, including one after the game was decided.

It’s so nice to have a head coach and an OC that seek to move the ball through deep completions. It’s on tape now, and it’ll lead to more underneath room, more scrambling room, and hopefully — eventually? — some room to run. Take the top off the defense and suddenly you’ve got space underneath. It’ll be beautiful.

(Aside: Komolafe had been in the doghouse since he lost a fumble early on. He provided a spark that I’d hoped to see all season tonight.)


What a satisfying win.

Every game I can recall this season NU received the opening kick. Am I misremembering?

My takeaways from Northwestern's 40-14 defeat at Iowa.

My takeaways from Northwestern's 40-14 defeat at Iowa.

Is Northwestern really a B1G team? I think this program may benefit from dropping down to the Big 12 or even maybe to the FCS level. It’s not 1896 anymore, this program can’t compete in the new Power 2

This season is over. Lausch clearly isn’t the answer. We will be portalling for our next QB. Why not see what he can do? His offer list was pretty terrible but hey you never know.

This is a bad football team. Defense is ok, but offense and special teams are bad. The coaching is not helping either. Extremely disappointed in Lujan who’s just making a bad offense worse. Cats are getting pasted by a weak Iowa team.

..used a simple formula. Get a good coach and hit the portal hard! It’s not that complicated and it works!

rehire Fitz, Jake, and Hank??? This is rock bottom.

Seriously though, we have to ask more direct questions of the coaching staff, who don’t seem prepared or at minimum on different pages. Ugh.

Northwestern (2-3, 0-2 Big Ten) is on the road tonight at Maryland (3-2, 0-2 Big Ten) at SECU Stadium under the lights. The game is set to kick at 7:05 pm CT and air on FS1.

This one’s a must-win for a bowl, yeah?

Game 3 of the most important 4-game stretch of the season, right?

I hope NU makes McNamara look stupid.

Was last weekend so discouraging that fans have lost hope? Maybe it was.

Either way, super-quiet, quieter than usual here.




(Super hot resurrected gambling discussion, tho. I watched a bit of the Pistons on the FanDuel Sports Network last night. I saw that they had a huge lead, but not how they blew it.)

So after trying to do the impossible with not much time on the clock, multiple times in terrible field position. He finally gets decent field position and lets the clock run out.