Your challenge is to say something legitimately positive about the offense. You cannot use an underhanded compliment that is actually an insult, but you may damn with faint praise or by omission.

I’ll go first:

Jack Lausch has a lot of heart out there and deserved more completions than he ended up with.

The offensive line is probably better than it could have been given the lack of experience entering the year and all the injuries, especially in pass pro.

This season so far when the Moose have made their presence known the Cats have won. Gotta feel good about today's encounters. A pair walked across our street this morning. Then this evening they returned with one more to make it a rare trio.

Moose Mania
This morning two Moose showed up. Then in the evening they returned with a third.
After the others had their fill of the tasty vegetation, this one stayed on for dessert.

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The morning Moose:

The evening return:


Dinner for three:

The last to leave:

Here is link from yesterday’s Tailgate in Seattle where both WGN’s Northwestern Play-by-Play announcer Dave Eanet and NU’s new AD Mark Jackson Spoke.

Just to hear Jackson’s enthusiasm in taking on his new role is worth a watch-listen as he is flanked by the Northwestern Spirit Swuad and an animated Willie the Wildcat!

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Watching red zone all day and KC v ATL on Sunday night a whole lot of pro teams have had similar problems scoring on the ground from a couple of yards out. Most go pistol or shotgun as well

I missed the Coco injury, was going to the bathroom. I heard it didn’t look good. Any ideas? And did Theran Johnson also go out with an injury? I saw we replaced him but didn’t notice a play where / if he got hurt.

And do we know what Cam Porter’s injury is, any idea when he’s back?

@mikefitz77 has three things we learned, two questions we're asking and one bold prediction after Northwestern's 24-5 loss at Washington.

As much as I want him to be, he is not. We will be fortunate to end 5-7. I love this team and university, but thisis not a group of players that can compete with teams that have resources we don't. Wright is better period.

In fall of 2005, I was off campus as an intern at GE healthcare up near Waukesha and the ugliness that Camp Kenosha became. When @CoralSpringsCat discovered Kenosha, it was PERFECT for football. A massive campus that was dead at the end of summer where Barnett could rally the team, coach them without distraction, and build a positive culture of optimism. This is what I was sold as a preferred walk on when Northwestern recruited me in 2002. I turned down scholarships at smaller schools after my one season of varsity football. I was sold on the whole “3 Big Ten Championships in 8 years” too. I loved Big Ike, Coach Walk, Coach Patton, Coach Brown from Kent Roosevelt (I helped turn nearby Hudson from a loser into a winner by playing and then coaching for free during the summer of 2005. I talked Bill Nagy’s dad out of sending him to Wisconsin because of what happened to me in 2002).

When I was at GEHC, my friend Caleb killed himself. I got an email from my buddy Jon on the rugby team listserv and was saddened and confused.

When I got back to campus, I wanted to find out what happened to my friend. Caleb and I had befriended at 600 Lincoln my freshman year. I quit the football team but was cool with all the student athletes on campus except for the guys who bullied and abused me as a 19YO. There were constant fights and drunken nights amongst the student athletes, and a few brawls. The cops were there a couple of times even.

I found out that Caleb killed himself because he was gay. I was shocked. I did not know that Caleb was gay, and I did not care.

I had a bunch of gay or bisexual teammates at Hudson and at Northwestern. Now it is commonplace, but back then they were bullied the most and quit or transferred at a faster rate. Even if we needed them and their talent.

I now suspect that Caleb was assaulted or shamed. I think someone threatened to tell his parents back in Hong Kong that he was gay. His family was very anti-gay, and Caleb should have been safe in Evanston.

He wasn’t. I heard it was a grisly and bloody mess in his dorm room. 😔

I miss Caleb. He was smart, kind, and the kind of guy you wanted to be friends with at Northwestern. He played rugby for years despite being too damn skinny and had a funny nickname.

I spoke out for Caleb and all the kids in the nupredators thread and many other survivors of the toxic Northwestern atmosphere.

I want a full investigation by Loretta Lynch into all campus suicides for the past 20 years in honor of Caleb and other LGBTQ+ who were assaulted and shamed.

40% of LBTGQ+ people consider suicide at some point in their lives. This is inhumane. It must stop.

#GreenLivesMatter
#AllPeopleMatter
#RIPCalebNU2005
#PurpleAngel2Soon
#SellTSLA
#BuyTLSA

Go Cats.

That is all

@mikefitz77 has three things we learned, two questions we're asking and one bold prediction after Northwestern's 24-5 loss at Washington.

@lou v has the story on new Northwestern RB commit Ronny Johnson's decision.

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 (49)

2026 COMMITMENT LIST (1)

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

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

WR (6)
Nasir Rankin (IL)
Conner Salmin (VA)
Amarion Jackson (NE)
Dallas Dickerson (GA)
Aljour Miles II (TX)
Keaton Reinke (IL)

TE (5)
Lincoln Watkins (MI)
Preston Fryzel (OH)
Ian Premer (KS)
Jack Utz (MO)
PJ MacFarlane (OH)

OL (15)
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)
Ben Congdon (OH)
Lucas Tielsch (OH)
Sam Greer (OH)
Jack Fuchs (TN)

DL (6)
McHale Blade (IL)
Damari Simeon (NJ)
King Liggins (IL)
Carter Meadows (MD)
Dre Quinn (GA)
Max Meier (CA)

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.