Fitz talks to the media and staffers rank games by difficulty
We're just waiting on game times.
Good morning. Welcome to another edition of the Inside NUsletter. We’re just two weeks away from the start of the Big Ten football season. Do we have game times yet? No. Would we love them? Yes. In a regular world, kickoff times are often released two weeks before the game, so maybe we’ll find a sense of normalcy on FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff tomorrow. Who knows.
Today, like always, we’ll highlight some of our articles from the past week, some of the craziness that took place in the college sports realm as well as some random enjoyable stuff we found on the internet.
If you’ve come to expect anything from Inside NU, it’s that we don’t like to take ourselves too seriously. If this is your first time reading, the Inside NUsletter should come off as informal but informative. Let’s get into it.
What we’ve been up to
As the NBA Finals wind down, managing editor Daniel Olinger caught up with Inside NU alum Henry Ward, who served as a member of the basketball operations support staff in the NBA bubble. During his time in the bubble, Henry mopped the court during games and rebounded for stars like Luka Doncic and Jimmy Butler.
Dan is also starting a weekly column entitled “Five Things I’ve Noticed,” which, as indicated in the title, will entail a film room with analysis of, well, five things he’s noticed observing men’s basketball, women’s basketball, or football. In its inaugural edition, Dan dives into men’s basketball and its lack of dunks.
Northwestern football returns in only two (!) weeks, and, with the numerous uncertainties thrust upon the program in the midst of a global pandemic, opportunities for some younger players should emerge. Indeed, here are five redshirt freshmen who could make an impact for the ‘Cats come October 24. Names such as Evan Hull and Coco Azema may already be familiar to Northwestern fans, but it’ll be intriguing to see the likes of Genson Hooper Price, Rod Heard and Thomas Gordon get snaps.
In anticipation of football season, our staff ranked each of Northwestern’s games in terms of its winnability. Here’s the composite list:
8: Maryland
7: Illinois
6: Nebraska
5: @Michigan State
4: @Purdue
3: @Iowa
2: @Minnesota
1: Wisconsin
A roundtable featuring everyone’s defense of their rankings is coming very soon, so keep your eyes peeled.
Pat Fitzgerald talked to the media via Zoom on Wednesday. In a more candid session than normal, here’s what Fitz had to say when asked what would constitute a successful season for the program:
“From a health and safety standpoint, we want to be able to keep our guys as healthy as they can. So to me that, you know, from a macro level [having a virus-free environment] is absolutely a successful season, if we’re able to accomplish that. It’s our policies, it’s our procedures, it’s the way we execute those, and then obviously, the social choices that we make, and we’re all responsible for that. So I know that we’re all working hard to make great choices and wear masks and have social distancing and great hygiene, control those controllables. And then making decisions and choices on how we travel, the way we’re running day-to-day is all with the health and safety as a priority. But we get out on the field, our number one goal is to win. We’re playing to win a Big Ten West, we’re playing to win a Big Ten championship. That’s what I think all 14 teams are doing. But that’s the micro, and the big picture of the macro is the health and safety of our guys and the whole entire football program.” - Pat Fitzgerald
Pound the Talk, Inside NU’s weekly podcast, previewed Northwestern’s offense and analyzed each position group. Hosts Claire Kuwana, Will Karmin and Matt Albert will cover the defense next week.
So far we’re through one quarter of our Know Your Opponent series. Read up on thorough previews of Maryland and Iowa from Ben Chasen. The Nebraska primer drops later today as our preseason content rolls on.
What happened this week
In our weekly dose of Big Ten West football news, Wisconsin announced senior quarterback Jack Coan is out indefinitely after injuring his foot in practice last Saturday. Coan threw for 18 touchdowns and five interceptions last year and will be surely missed by the Badgers however long he’s out, though it sounds significant. With Coan unavailable for at least the first few weeks of the season, highly touted redshirt freshman Graham Mertz is now QB1.
While Minnesota standout wide receive Rashod Bateman had already announced his decision to opt back into the season on Sept. 18, not much was known about the proceess. Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic went behind the scenes in his piece about Bateman’s choice to return this season.
In another great article from The Athletic, Scott Dochterman gave us the story of the only team in Big Ten history to be banned from the conference for a certain amount of time, the 1930 Iowa Hawkeyes. For what, you may ask? Yup, paying it’s players.
Additionally, The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach gave us the details on a new one-time transfer exception proposal the NCAA is expected to introduce. If adopted, the proposal would allowed all college athletes to play right away after their first transfer rather than sitting out for a year. Currently, football, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, baseball and men’s ice hockey require transfers to sit out a year unless they’re granted an immediate-eligibility waiver. Players have long sought more transfer freedom from the NCAA.
Meanwhile, the best conference in college football, also known as the Mid-American Confernce, or MAC, announced its schedule Wednesday. The schedule includes six games for each team, beginning on Nov. 4, and a championship game to be played at Ford Field on Friday, Dec. 18. Most importantly, the first three weeks of the season will see every single team play on either a Tuesday or Wednesday night. Get ready for some #MACtion. With the Big Ten planning to play some games on Fridays, there may well be some level of collegiate or professional football on every single day of the week in the front half of November.
Now for our COVID-related news section for the week. Just yesterday, the SEC issued warnings of $100,000 fines and potential suspensions for coaches who don’t follow COVID-19 safety protocols. This comes just a week after multiple NFL teams have had to postpone games due to an outbreak in the Tennessee Titans organization, which is referenced in the SEC’s memo.
In our COVID-related-news-that-shouldn’t-have-happened-if people-weren’t-stupid section of the week, campus police at SMU cleared out SMU’s entire student section last Saturday because most of the crowd wasn’t wearing masks or social distancing. SMU allows up to 1,000 people in their student section, but requires masks when social distancing is not possible.
Flipping over to the college basketball side of things, Myron Medcalf of ESPN gave us an intriguing story on how the University of Hawaii plans on playing basketball games this year. The Big West conference, of which the Rainbow Warriors are a part of, is the only conference in the country that has to plan travel to and from the mainland United States. Logistics these days.
Finally, and most importantly, ESPN released the first edition of its Way-Too-Early Top 25 rankings for women’s college basketball. After a Big Ten championship season, Northwestern slots in comfortably at No. 16. Not a bad place from which to start climbing.
Good Tweets
No. 4 Georgia pummeled No. 7 Auburn 27-6 last Saturday, but the real game was in the stands, with fans wearing or not wearing different types of masks. This dog cone is one creative attempt at a workaround. Side note: the guy from afar kinda looks like (or at least dresses like) Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez.
There was a vice presidential debate Wednesday evening. For reference, the Holy War is the annual rivalry game between University of Utah and BYU.
Back to the innovative (?) Georgia fans!
This meme started this week, and we’ve yet to Tweet one out (don’t rule it out, though). But here’s B5Q rightfully owning Nebraska.
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See you next week.
Written by Colin Kruse and Mac Stone with help from Eli Karp.