As most of you know, I write the Northwestern preview for Lindy's college football magazine every year. I just submitted by long version for the Big Ten edition last week, so I thought I'd share it here for my Rock-ettes. I don't think there's anything in here that you, as a passionate NU fan, don't already know, and the format and word counts are rigid, so you can't go very deep (it's a national magazine, after all). But it does include a depth chart I ran by a source, quite a bit of my speculation/analysis about the upcoming season and a feature for which I interviewed Coco Azema last week. So here it is. It's a big story, so I'll have to post it in two parts. As always, I welcome your comments.
PART 1/2
FEATURE (400)
Headline: Can Braun sustain his success?
David Braun pulled off nothing short of a miracle last season. Think about the Northwestern program he took over last July.
An embarrassing hazing scandal had just led to the firing of the beloved Pat Fitzgerald, the school’s all-time winningest coach. The team he inherited went 1-11 the previous season, and he lost 11 players to decommitments or the portal. Several former players and Fitzgerald were suing the school.
Braun was the players’ choice to take over as the interim head coach, even though he had only been the defensive coordinator since January and had never been a head coach at any level. It would become evident that they made the right call.
Despite a preseason over/under of 2.5 wins, Braun shocked everyone by leading the Wildcats to an 8-5 record, including a Las Vegas Bowl win over Utah. He was hired as the permanent head coach in November, just days after his Wildcats went into Madison and beat Wisconsin by two touchdowns.
Braun proved last year that he could coach. He was named the Big Ten Coach of the Year. Players love playing for him. He not only kept the team together through an incredibly difficult time, he galvanized it.
But now Braun has to prove that he not only can lead a team, but lead a program. Can he consistently recruit Big Ten-level players? Can he raise money and handle all the politics of the job? Can he take the next step and sustain his success?
It’s not going to be easy. He has a veteran team, but also new coordinators on both sides of the ball. His quarterback is a grad transfer who couldn’t win the full-time starting job at either Vanderbilt or Mississippi State. The friendly Big Ten West is gone, and the Cats open Big Ten play at Washington, then face Ohio State and defending national champion Michigan back-to-back in November. The school’s president and athletic director are both under fire.
Oh, and the Wildcats will have a makeshift home field this year, too. While Ryan Field is undergoing an $800-million rebuild, they’ll play five home games at a new, temporary lakefront stadium on campus. Then they’ll play their last two at Wrigley Field.
It may sound daunting, but don’t count Braun out. Compared to what he took on last July, the challenges he’s facing this season don’t look so bad.
SCOUTING REPORT
OFFENSE (450)
There will be a new offensive coordinator and a new quarterback running Northwestern’s offense in 2024.
Coordinator Zach Lujan arrived from South Dakota State, where he won the last two FCS national titles, to replace Mike Bajakian, whose offenses struggled in four disappointing seasons. Lujan just graduated from SDSU in 2017 and barely looks older than some of the older players on the roster. He favors athletic, dual-threat quarterbacks and got one out of the portal on May 9 in Mike Wright, a grad transfer from Mississippi State and, before that, Vanderbilt.
Wright has appeared in 38 games over four seasons in the SEC, starting 14. He has thrown for 2,520 yards and run for 1,229 in his career. He’s no Jayden Daniels, but he’s an experienced veteran who can make plays with both his arm and legs. Plus, he has about 3,500 more total career yards than backup Jack Lausch.
The good news is that if Wright quickly picks up the offense, he has some weapons at his disposal. The Wildcats have some explosiveness at wide receiver in Bryce Kirtz and AJ Henning, a pair who combined for 94 catches and nine touchdowns last season. Henning has the type of speed that can blow the top off of a defense, a rarity in Evanston. Redshirt freshman slot man Frank Covey IV should also make an impact after playing in just one game last season due to injury.
The backfield is another strength of the team. The mail carrier will be 220-pound hammer Cam Porter, who led the Wildcats with a meager 654 rushing yards and four rushing touchdowns a season ago. His thunder will be offset by Joseph Himon II, a shiftier, all-purpose back who can provide some lightning to Porter’s thunder with his speed and pass-catching ability.
The offensive line is a work in progress under new position coach Bill O’Boyle. At least he’s got an anchor he can depend on in left tackle Caleb Tiernan, a 6-foot-7 senior with 18 starts under his belt. O’Boyle wants to play the best five up front regardless of position, so returning starters like Josh Thompson and Ben Wrather could get shuffled to make room for grad transfers Jack Bailey (Colorado) at center, and Matt Keeler (Texas Tech) or Cooper Lovelace (USC) at right tackle. Bailey will be playing his sixth year for O’Boyle at his third different school. The expectations are high for sophomore guard Jordan Knox, who had post-season surgery but is expected to be 100% by fall.
While numbers in the OL room are low, the Wildcats are ridiculously deep at tight end. That unit will be led by graduates Thomas Gordon and Marshall Lang, who together caught 24 passes last season.
DEFENSE (450)
Northwestern has a new coordinator on defense, too, but former linebackers coach Tim McGarigle will keep the same system they ran last season under Braun, who served as both the head coach and DC. The defense made great strides last season after two disappointing seasons under previous coordinator Jim O’Neil. They have a chance to be special this year with lots of experience coming back and potential playmakers at all three levels.
Up front, Northwestern is flat-out loaded at defensive end, where they go six deep. Aidan Hubbard led the Wildcats with six sacks a year ago and will start on one side. He could be flanked by Michael Kilbane, who showed flashes as a true freshman last season and looks like an emerging impact player. The Wildcats also have a pair of pass-rushing specialists in Anto Saka and sixth-year man Richie Hagarty who have speed off the edge. Then there’s Sean McLaughlin, a starter last season who may get squeezed out of playing time, and Jaylen Pate, another sixth-year man who can move inside to tackle on passing downs.
At tackle, Najee Story, back for his second year as a starter, can be a disruptive force in the middle. He’ll be joined by Carmine Bastone, a former walkon who played in all 13 games last year and made 26 tackles, the most for a tackle. They’ll be backed up by Brendan Flakes and some combination of the two redshirt freshmen who saw their first collegiate action last season: Dylan Roberts and Tyler Gant.
The linebacker group will be spearheaded by Xander Mueller, a playmaker on the outside who figures to be a first-team All-Big Ten candidate after collecting 110 tackles, a team-high 10.5 tackles for loss, five sacks and three picks last season. He’ll be joined by middle linebacker Mac Uihlein, a redshirt junior who was the No. 1 player in Illinois in 2021, and Kenny Soares, a rangy athlete who got quite a bit of playing time last season.
The Wildcats’ strength in the back half is an experienced safety tandem. Sixth-year man Coco Azema is the quarterback of the defense and a returning captain, while junior Devin Turner is back for his second year as a starter. Both can cover a lot of ground in the deep middle of the field, as well as deliver big hits in the run game. Theran Johnson is the Wildcats’ lockdown corner and co-led the team with five PBUs in 2023. The other side will be manned by Ore Adeyi, who was the team’s third corner a year ago and must replace Garnett Hollis Jr., whom the Wildcats lost to the transfer portal.
SPECIAL TEAMS (125)
Northwestern returns veteran graduates at both kicking positions.
The Wildcats had struggled in the kicking game in recent years, but kicker Jack Olsen was finally healthy and had a strong 2023, going 14-for-19 on field goal attempts, with two of his misses coming from 50+ yards. Hunter Renner averaged a Big Ten-low 38.6 yards on 70 punts, but that is misleading because he excels at the directional kicking that Northwestern favors to limit returns.
Northwestern has a potential game-changer in electric return man Henning. He is a threat to take it to the house every time he touches the ball, though he has yet to do it as a Wildcat. Azema is another kick return weapon who averaged 25.6 yards per return and had a 61-yarder last season.
SCHEDULE ANALYSIS (125)
Northwestern opens 2024 with three manageable non-conference home games against Miami (Ohio), Duke and Eastern Illinois – though Miami beat them the last time they played in 2022 and Duke has beaten the Wildcats five straight times.
Once they get to Big Ten play, however, things get tough. The Wildcats will travel 2,000 miles west to open the conference slate at Washington. Then, they draw both heavyweights of the “old” Big Ten, Ohio State and Michigan, the defending national champions, on consecutive weekends in November. Good luck with that.
Add the fact that Northwestern will play its home games at two different venues while Ryan Field is being rebuilt and you can see why the road will be as bumpy as the Dan Ryan Expressway for the Wildcats.
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