Inside NUsletter Issue 1
Let's see how this goes.
Good morning! Welcome to the first issue of the Inside NUsletter. Thanks for taking the time to read it. We hope you’ll like it. If you know someone who you think will like it, share it with them by clicking the button below.
Today we’ll highlight some of the articles we’ve published over the last week or so, other interesting college sports news as well as some random things we found on the internet and wanted to share.
If you’ve come to expect anything from Inside NU, it’s that we don’t like to take ourselves too seriously. This newsletter should come off as informal but informative.
So let’s get to it, shall we?
What we’ve been up to
It’s been two weeks and a day since the Big Ten announced its schools would adopt conference-only schedules for all fall sports, if they’re played. The move is a necessary step to increase the likelihood of a season while simultaneously acknowledging that any season won’t happen as normal, if at all.
We’re hoping to see a new schedule from the conference in the next week or so, and it could look significantly different from its original form. It may not even be the final schedule, as there could be several contingency plans at the ready should things need to shift.
It just so happened that on the day the Big Ten made its announcement, we released our hypothetical Northwestern 2020 football season based on Pat Forde’s piece reimagining conferences. The editors collaborated to think/play out a most unconventional season, so read it if you want to be entertained.
Of course, we don’t know if football will happen. We’ll provide as much coverage of a 2020 season as possible, and we’re preparing as if some kind of season will happen, because we’d be kinda screwed if we didn’t do anything and there was a season! Don’t think that we’re marching ahead with our content and turning a blind eye to our COVID world. Pat Fitzgerald said it’s all about preparation, right?
The editors also rolled back the clock and drafted their all-time NU football teams. Each person picked a QB, two RBs, two pass catchers (WR, TE or SB) and a defense. You can read the case for each team as well as watch the recording of the draft, held over Zoom last Thursday. And you can still vote and help Eli out since he can’t understand for the life of him how his team has just eight percent of the vote.
We don’t know a ton about Mike Bajakian and how the Northwestern offense may look since they haven’t practiced in roughly five months, so film room guru Dan Olinger watched some tape to get a feel for Bajakian’s play calling tendencies. TL;DR: the offense can only go up, expect lots on the ground and get used to seeing different plays out of the same formations.
But it hasn’t been all football. Since Casey Simmons committed to Northwestern a few weeks ago, Will Karmin caught up with some of his youth coaches as well as fellow recruit Brooks Barnhizer to contextualize Chris Collins’ impressive 2021 recruiting class and if it can help turn the program around.
Things that happened this week
Every day seems to bring a new twist to the 2020 college football season that has yet to happen. There are simply so many questions as to how things would proceed if players or coaches test positive for COVID-19. It’s one thing to have policies and protocol in place to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus; it’s another to put protocol in action once someone inevitably gets infected.
After North Carolina head coach Mack Brown asked who would theoretically take his place if he tested positive for COVID, Bruce Feldman, Max Olson and Andy Staples of The Athletic explored the likely candidates for each Power Five school.
For NU:
“Northwestern can’t go wrong with either Tim McGarigle or Lou Ayeni in an interim role. Both played for the Wildcats and have proven to be really good recruiters. Pat Fitzgerald would probably have no issue trusting either one to handle that responsibility.”
Some small schools and conferences have already canceled fall sports, and others, like the American Athletic Conference, ACC and SEC, have delayed the start of competition until September.
The San Jose Mercury News reported yesterday that the Pac-12 is set to release its revamped, conference-only schedule next week.
According to the article, the schedule is expected to have the following:
10-game regular-season, with each team playing its division opponents and five crossover games.
Season openers scheduled for Sept. 19, previously Week Three on the original 2020 calendar.
At least two bye weeks built into the lineup, creating windows for games that cannot be played as scheduled.
The Pac-12 championship at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas could be played on any of three weekends between December 4 and 19
This all seems reasonable, and especially for states in the West dealing with virus surges, it gives them a little more leeway to allow things to calm down. One thing should be made clear: they’re planning on things not going perfectly smooth, which is why those extra bye weeks are included. It wouldn’t be surprising to see a similar philosophy from the Big Ten, along with front-loaded division games, which Adam Rittenberg had reported.
So what are the financial implications of losing a season? Well, athletic departments everywhere are already feeling the crunch. Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard wrote in a transparent, honest letter a couple of weeks ago that if sports aren’t played this fall, his department could suffer $40 million in unfunded expenses.
Just last night, Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez projected a loss of between $60 million and $70 million if the Badgers play a conference-only, 10-game season and losses of more than $100 million if season is canceled entirely.
“In 2018-19, Wisconsin's football program accounted for about 58% of the department's $157.7 million in revenue, according to the university's most recent financial report to the NCAA. The Badgers generated $24 million in ticket sales and $8.3 million from contributions related to football, as well as $45.6 million from media rights, $9.4 million from bowl revenue and $5.3 million from program sales, parking and concessions.” - Mark Schlabach, ESPN
It’s worth noting that every athletic department is in a different place financially, but after losing out on March Madness revenue and COVID putting a strain everywhere, cancelling the season would have some significant consequences.
So, what can people do to try to make this possible? Well, everything public health experts have preached: wear a mask, watch your distance and wash your hands. It’s become clear from the powers that be that outside of testing capacity, what will shut a season down is unsafe spread of the virus on campuses or the surrounding communities and local health systems being unable to handle a surge. So far, most Big Ten college towns and states have put mask orders in place, which is a start (disregard Wisconsin 2x and no Maryland).
Northwestern in the NBA (no seriously)
This is not a drill. NU basketball alum Vic Law checked in for the final five minutes of the NBA’s first bubble scrimmage as his Orlando Magic took on the Los Angeles Clippers.
Unfortunately, things did not start off great for Law (#23), as he clanked each of his first three attempts from the field, including a very awkward pull-up jumper from the right elbow.
To make things worse, Law’s most notable sequence was this defensive possession on which he missed the boxout on the perimeter and then compounded the mistake by committing a dumb foul and gifting Rodney McGruder with an and-one layup.
However, it wasn’t all dark clouds and rainy skies for Law, as that slip of the ball screen he used earlier to free himself for an open look came in handy. Law never made contact with the on-ball defender, instead darting straight to the rim with his defender (Patrick Patterson) still stuck in some quicksand.
He also lucked his way into a steal when LA’s Amir Coffey lost control of his dribble and bounced the ball straight into Law’s hands. However, credit Law for staying alert and having the presence of mind to throw a pinpoint outlet pass for the fast break dunk, netting him an assist.
Law should see some more run in Orlando’s next two scrimmages against the Los Angeles Lakers on July 25 and the Denver Nuggets on July 27, but that’s probably all he’ll get. The Magic are still fighting to secure an Eastern Conference playoff spot, so the likelihood that they play a 15th man who only saw nine total minutes of action in pre-suspension play is minimal.
Might as well watch him while it lasts.
Good Tweets
Well, the internet is always bound to have a field day when Rutgers is involved. After New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy issued an executive order limiting gatherings to 500 people, Rutgers’ attendance at home games has been capped at that number. So yes, you can imagine the fun Twitter had with that.
Without repeating a lot of tweets, sources are saying it is typically easy pandemic or not to social distance at Rutgers home games.
This also applies to Northwestern!
There was also Senate hearing with the NCAA on name, image and likeness legislation which predictably showed that senators maybe don’t quite understand the landscape of college sports, especially football and men’s basketball.
We also sent a good tweet this week! (lol just indulge us in this one. If you don’t know the tweet, you can look it up and find other examples.)
One final thing
Today could be a big day. The NCAA Board of Governors is scheduled to consider voting on whether to cancel fall championships. Without repeating what Nicole Auerbach lays out really well, a decision to cancel championships in the upcoming season would back football into a very bad optics corner, and schools are pleading the NCAA to hold off on any cancelations.
So yes, Friday July 24 could be a critical juncture in determining whether or not there will be football this fall.
How was that? We acknowledge the Inside NUsletter is an experiment, and we want to improve it every single issue so it can hopefully become a consistent component of our operation.
But it’s hard to do that without your feedback. Give us your questions, comments, suggestion, compliments and everything else by emailing us at insidenu@gmail.com.
*whispers* and subscribe if you haven’t yet.
We’ll be back in a week. Until then, take care.
Written by Eli Karp with help from Lia Assimakopoulos and Daniel Olinger
Had a nice beat that I could really groove to.
Lot of interesting material