The Purple Drank

SIPPIN ON PURPLE, FOLKS

2009-09-22T10:46:00.003-04:00

So, like I said, big site stuff.

The Purple Drank got called up to the big leagues: from now on, I'll be posting at sippinonpurple.com and I'd really appreciate it if all you guys followed me over. I'm really excited about joining SBNation, which is pretty much the best thing around nowadays, so, seriously, check it out, update your bookmarks and do whatever it is you people need to do. Just follow me over, because the stuff I do is just going to get better. But I can only make it so good on my own - the great thing about SBNation is that the blogs are pretty much community based. So all y'all gotta chip in.

Everybody who's been reading here, thanks very much for your support.

The Purple Drank

Born June 2009

Died September, 2009

You will be missed, but your memory will live on through my constant southern hip-hop references on the new site.

R.I.P.

Monday Stuff

2009-09-21T14:37:00.004-04:00

So, yeah, like I said, BIG THINGS POPPIN on this site in the next few days. So keep your eyes out, keep coming back. Here's just a short post:

As you probably done heard, NU landed a serious basketball prospect, for the first time in the history of Northwestern sports. Jershon Cobb, a 4-star recruit from Atlanta, committed to the Wildcats yesterday. Cobb is one of several elite prospects from who were contemplating NU, and the first to commit. (the rest are in the class of 2011, Cobb is 2010.) (By the way, if we land 1/5 of the guys we're in the running for in 2011, it will be hands-down the best class in NU history. It's that good. We're recruiting two five-star players in the top 20 rankings nationally. Yeah, poop your pants, folks.) I personally am ecstatic, as noted, basketball is my sport, so this definitely dampens the football thing. Tavaras Hardy has done absolute wonders for Northwestern as a recruiter - Carmody's weakness at NU has always been his utter inability to handle recruiting. And if he has actual tourney-level talent on his team, thanks to Hardy, he might actually turn into a successful basketball coach. 'Cuse loss aside, it's a good time to be an NU sports fan. By the time I graduate from this school in June 2012, Northwestern will have gone to an NCAA tournament. Book it.
New poll up - can we be a little less homer-y this time? (That being said, I'm voting NU.)
I realized what went wrong on saturday: when Ryan Lichtenstein, Syracuse's nervous freshman kicker, was getting prepared to take the biggest field goal of his life, NU should've sent redshirt freshman defensive tackle Evan Luxenburg over to the Syracuse sidelines to engage Lichtenstein in conversation about what its like to have last names that really sound like small European nations, but were slightly misspelled in some way. He could've started calling him bro right off the bat, even though they've never met, and discussed how people always spell his name like the country, and he always has to correct them, and then asked him if he has the same problem, and, bro - we're bros, right - it's so annoying, right? What language to they speak in Liechtenstein anyway? German? Yeah, something like that, I don't even know. Less people have probably heard of Liechtenstein than Luxembourg, so you probably don't run into that problem a lot, though, right bro? Bro? Oh, you're about to kick a field goal, it's cool, go ahead we're bros, just don't tell your teammates about our "bros whose names sound a lot like small European nations beginning with the letter L" club, cuz they'll get angry at us. Oh, what's that, I'm getting in your head? You're about to shank the field goal?
The fact that I typed all of that isn't a good sign for my mental health. But it totally would've worked.

So yeah, keep it locked and loaded here, as noted, big things are popping. Names of the week tomorrow, and I promise that Minnesota has the best damn names of any football team in the country.

Guhhhhhhhhhhh: the recap.

2009-09-20T17:58:00.004-04:00

It appears our plans of getting the easiest four out of conference opponents possible so we're 4-0 in our non-conference slate, has, uh, backfired.

Crap.

I admit, I have to take some of the blame: the lack of preview posts this week is pretty much the only difference I can think of between this week's loss and the wins in the first two weeks. I'll get on it this week.

First off, thanks to everybody who commented last night. I, sadly, didn't comment as much as I should've because my iPhone reception was spotty where I was, but, this will change next week. Trust me. Big things poppin around here.

This was an extraordinarily frustrating team. I'm not going to say we were the better team, because we weren't, but it was a very winnable game, and about 40 little things we should've done made it a loss.

Mike Kafka. The man played pretty much the best game I've ever seen from a college quarterback... except for one throw, at the exact worst time he possibly could've thrown that one throw. Look at his stats before his final throw of the game: 35-41 passing, 390 yards, 3 touchdowns, no interceptions, 5 sacks for -37 yards, then 8 rushes for 30 yards and a touchdown, and one reception for 24 yards and a touchdown.

Unfortunately, his stats turned out to be 35-42 with 3 touchdowns and an interception. Which came on the last drive of the game. Tragic, considering how great a game he had, that he's the goat. When after an entire game of beautiful precision passes for short yardage and the occasional strike downfield to receivers that just happened to find a seam in the defense - the man completed his first 16 freaking passes - and he proved he could run after a long hiatus where he refused to, and even more exciting, he showed his ability to do the Mike Vick in Madden 2004 play, which is running towards the line of scrimmage, forcing any linebacker and cornerback to cheat up a little bit and try and keep him from busting out a 40 yard run, and then dropping a pass to the receiver inevitably left open by that cheating up. However, all this is forgotten, as he threw a pick that ended NU's chances of winning the game in regulation, and pretty much sealed the loss.

Also, he needs to learn how to take a sack and not fumble, though. Desperately. That first play from scrimmage on offense really cost us the game.

Defense. Most football teams try to have one, but Northwestern has made a controversial decision not to have one this year, after an offseason of talking about how great our defense would be, no less. Yeah, I know two of our top four cornerbacks were injured and something called a Demetrius Dugar was left to cover Mike Williams, one of the best receivers in the country, at times, and David Nwabuisi replaced a proven linebacker in Nate Williams (and played pretty well, to be honest), but this was an abhorrent defensive effort. First off, Greg Paulus had our defense on SKATES. He pump faked, everybody bit. He faked a handoff, hey, everybody bit again. He ran a few yards towards scrimmage, hey, everybody's pretending the guy they should cover doesn't exist and just leaving that mofo as wide open as humanly possible. Whenever NU defenders had a choice to make, it seemed like they always, always made the wrong one.

Kicking. Earlier, I wrote a post about NU kickers, and how poorly timed NU's missed PAT's are.

Demos and Villarreal have combined to miss four extra points in the past two years. Not a lot, considering how many opportunities they have to shank them. Well, I'm proud to report that of five games Northwestern has lost in the past two years, three prominently feature missed extra points, and two - this one, and the Alamo Bowl last year - would have been Northwestern victories in all likelihood if not for shank jobs.

It's so frustrating. Demos nailed a game-winning 49-yarder last week, with enough juice on it to be a 55-yarder. This week, a 19-yarder essentially cost Northwestern the game. WHY CAN'T YOU MISS THESE WHEN WE'RE BEATING TOWSON BY 40?

Jacob Schmidt and Arby Fields actually played decently, especially Schmidt. But it's pretty freaking disappointing that the injury bug hit so hard at running back, where we needed some sort of spark just for an extra few yards here or there.

Great game by our receiving corps. Demetrius Fields had pretty much the only drop, and they were pretty much always open. Our superback corps looks like a talented unit, and if they can play like this, I'll be pumped.

I was so glad to see the Brewer pass, because I knew it had to happen eventually, after how we used Eric Peterman last year. That play can be devastating week after week. Worst comes to worst, it's just a screen to Brewer for a few yards. Best comes to best, it looks like it did yesterday.

The playcalling was a lot better this week, so that's good. We ran an actual offensive gameplan. That's good.

Basically, if we get healthy and our defense is half as good as it was supposed to be in the preseason, this team can still make a minor bowl. But it's looking bleak. Really bleak. Memphis Bleek.

We have Minnesota next week. I highly suggest you keep coming back to the site, because really, really, really cool things are going to happen in the next week. No hints, but, really cool things.

Game Thread: Northwestern @ Syracuse.

2009-09-19T17:54:00.001-04:00

So 34 of you voted you thought NU would win, and one of you thinks Syracuse will win. I have a feeling the game will be closer.

Anyway, here's how it works: comment, and I'll talk to you. Last week, Patrick played along, this week, very few of you are at the game because its in Syracuse, so, please, play along. Should be good.

Go Cats, yo.

Brendan Smith Memorial Picks, Week 3.

2009-09-19T12:31:00.000-04:00

Normally, I do major preview posts on NU's games - not this week, it's been hectic, so, nah. Sorry about that. Without further ado, here are your Big Ten/NU picks.

11 AM: Eastern Michigan @ No. 25 Michigan.

Watching EMU lose by 30 to Michigan will be tough for NU fans. It's like watching your friend hook up with a girl you thought you had a chance with, except it's really not like that at all, because its a football game.

Pick: Michigan.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: I'm telling you, eagles have the tactical advantage against pretty any land mammal, except for, like bears, and elephants, and other stuff like that. They got wings and talons. Trust me on this one. EMU wins their second straight Big Ten game. Game, EMU. (Wolverine mascot death fight record: 1-2)

11 AM: No. 8 California @ Minnesota

I thought Air Force would give Minnesota a run for their money, and they did. And California could maim Air Force. This will be ugly, Minnesota's not much of a team despite their 2-0 record.

Pick: California.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Bear vs. Gopher is a major, major mismatch, and you probably didn't need me to tell you that. Game, California. (Golden Gopher mascot death fight record: 1-2)

11 AM: No. 5 Penn State @ Temple

I hope you guys don't like insightful analysis. Lou Holtz could pick this one.

Pick: Penn State

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: I generally give the edge to winged creatures, but owls just don't have the same tenacity eagles do, and although they are predators, they normally kill mice. Unlike the mouse, humans don't kill lions by luring them to walk into glue traps, so you can tell the lion will be more difficult for owls to kill. Meanwhile, lions are lions. Game, Penn State. (Nittany Lion fight record: 3-0.)

11 AM: Wofford @ Wisconsin

I scanned Wofford's recent schedules for an embarrassing loss to put in this section, and sure enough, they lost 70-24 against Appalachian State last year, and, uhhh, yeah, they're good and all, but, um, 70 is a lot of points. Wisconsin will get the W.

My guess as to what Wofford's mascot is, without looking: The eagle. Nah, yo, the Golden Eagle.

What it actually is: The terrier. That doesn't give me much confidence with regards to their chances in a mascot death fight.

Pick: Wisconsin

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Badgers are surprisingly feisty, whereas terriers are adorable. Game, Wisconsin. (Badgers death fight record: 1-2)

11 AM: Northern Illinois @ Purdue

I really think Purdue is a team that you gotta watch out for. I thought they'd beat Oregon last week, and I don't think they'll be the tenth team in the conference like everybody's predicting. I mean, they're worse than NU, but, still, they'll do alright.

Pick: Purdue.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: The Huskies beat the Badgers in week one, but they can't beat people. And Boilermakers are people. Game, Purdue. (Boilermakers mascot death fight record: 3-0)

11 AM: #11 Ohio State "@" Toledo, in Cleveland.

Nothing says "Toledo" quite like, uh, Cleveland, so, look for the hometown crowd to carry Toledo to a 56-20 loss. Toledo likes to give up lots of points, and Ohio State likes to score them.

Pick: Ohio State

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Rockets can fly to to the moon. Buckeyes are nuts. Game, Toledo. (Buckeye death fight record: 0-3)

2:30: Michigan State @ Notre Dame.

Yeah, bad loss for Michigan State last week. If they win that game, I can give their lack of a good quarterback, running back, or, like, anything a pass and give them a W here, but, nah. They're not like last year's MSU.

Pick: Notre Dame.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Spartans and Fighting Irish like to fight. Except Spartans fight with weapons, and Fighting Irish fight old-timey boxing style. Game, MSU. (Spartans death fight record: 3-0)

2:30: Indiana @ Akron.

Indiana has looked bad against decidedly lower-level teams. Akron is a decidedly mid-level team, and Indiana's first road game of the year.

Pick: Akron.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: After immediately giving the Zips a loss in their first matchup because I didn't know what a zip was, I decided to look it up this week. "Zip" is short for "zipper" because people made clothing with zippers on it in Akron. Their mascot is a female kangaroo. Game, Indiana. (Hoosiers mascot death fight record: 1-2)

2:35: Arizona @ Iowa.

To me, Northern Iowa is to the Hawkeyes as Eastern Michigan is to Northwestern. Both times, a team played way, way, way too close against a team they should have beaten easily. Both times, there was questionable game preparedness and play-calling on the parts of the better team. And both times, the better team won. This is a top 25 team that had a major, major hiccup against their first opponent of the year, and it'll haunt them in the rankings for a while, but it won't haunt them on the field.

Pick: Iowa

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: A preview of the NU-Iowa matchup later this year, my analysis is simple: One's inanimate, one's a cat. Game, Arizona. (Hawkeye mascot death fight record: 0-3)

6: Northwestern @ Syracuse.

This game will be tough. Really tough.

Our defense right now is a mess. Our d-line just got done getting owned by EMU and failing to tackle a guy named Dwayne Priest. Meanwhile, DeLone Carter and Antwon Bailey make a great running back tandem for Syracuse. This is a problem.

Mike Williams will be playing professional football next year. Sherrick McManis, who might be playing professional football next year, would generally be assigned to guard him, but he's sort of injured. Justan Vaughn, a guy who backs him up, is also injured. Therefore, guys like Jordan Mabin (good) Mike Bolden (hasn't really played) and Ricky Weina (also hasn't really played, but, yeesh) and hordes of others (potentially horrific) will be assigned to guard a preternaturally talented wide receiving beast, getting passes from Greg Paulus, who hasn't looked bad overall in his first few starts, and is learning on the fly. This is a problem.

Stephen Simmons, who has anchored our questionable running game this year, is, in fact questionable this week. This means guys like Arby Fields (ok) Jacob Schmidt (maybe on 3rd-and-two, but nowhere else) Scott Concannon (nope) will be taking snaps. This is a problem.

Mike Kafka has looked just above average. Against Towson and Eastern Michigan. This is a problem.

Our coaches haven't shown any signs that they'd like to call a successful football game. This is a problem.

But at the end of the day, last year, Northwestern rocked Syracuse, and let's look at what changed:

Andrew Robinson, who started at QB for the Orange, is now a backup tight end. He's been replaced by... an ex-Duke point guard. Meanwhile, CJ Bacher, has been replaced by somebody arguably better. This is good for us.

Last year, Mike Williams, didn't play. This year, he will. This is bad for us.

Our defense has looked shaky, but ultimately, is a very similar unit to the one we had last year, and which dominated the Orange. This is great for us.

Again, this isn't very in depth. But at the end of the day, we won by 20 last year, and could have won by more not enough has improved for Syracuse for me to think that we'll straight up lose.

Prediction: Northwestern, 24. Syracuse, 17.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: The Orange are 0-2 against Big Ten opponents in the mascot death fight league, because they are a color. They're still a color. Game, NU. (Wildcats mascot death fight record: 1-2)

My picks last week: 6-5, pretty dismal. In my defense, Air Force, Fresno State, and Purdue came close to making my upset picks come true, but I was too risky. For once, I would've probably done better last week vs. the spread.

Projected Big Ten record this week: 7-3

Projected Big Ten mascot death fight record this week: 6-4. (Overall, 16-16.)

This is Your Quarterback?: An Homage/Hatefest to Greg Paulus. Mainly a hatefest.

2009-09-18T16:29:00.000-04:00

This. This is your quarterback?

Greg Paulus would've been one of the least likable players in basketball even if he didn't play for Duke, the least likable team in the country. Duke would be the least likable team in the country even if their coach wasn't Mike Krzyzewski, the least likable basketball coach in the country. And Mike Krzyzewski definitely didn't need Greg Paulus to be the least likable basketball coach in the country. It's a holy trinity of unlikableness, and from here, Syracuse found a quarterback.

I mean, that guy? That guy who slapped the floor and played way way too intense defense to overcompensate for not being very good at it and reminds you in every way of that dicky guy in your pickup game who yells at his teammates and mugs the crap out of you on defense and then turns around and yells AND ONE when he shoots and actually expects you to give him the ball back when he misses saying "BUT I SAID AND ONE YOU FOULED ME" even though you barely even touched him and actually calls charges on people in a pickup game, who went to the school that makes NU look diverse and screams "overprivileged kids from Jersey" that everybody was surprised that their lacrosse team WASN'T going out and raping poor strippers, and whose coach is that arrogant cocky guy whose MO is leading talented teams to underwhelming tourney performances for teams that manage to be worse than the sum of their parts and has a freakin penchant for recruiting top 5 talented players and trying to jam them into his system like square pegs into round holes until they don't have much of a chance at all of being successful at the pro level you should be thankful this isn't a 2,000 word diatribe about the NBA careers of Josh McRoberts and Shelden Williams and/or the likelihood that an athlete like Kyle Singler has anything resembling a good NBA career, the guy who played at that school with that coach, that guy? (I WRITE RUN ON SENTENCES WHEN I'M ANGRY)

That's your quarterback? Man. Jesus. Wow.

That being said, I'm a bigger basketball fan than I ever have been or will be a football fan. Way bigger. Yeah, I watch baseball in the summer, and my fall weekend afternoons are totally engulfed by football, but they're not ball, they're not the game I was raised on. And when you're 6'2 and still can't touch rim, you grow to develop a hatred of one certain class of people: those who are talented enough to play basketball, but don't really like it that much. (ROT IN HELL, MARK HENDRICKSON!) This is why as much as I love mobile quarterbacks, I sort of hate Terrelle Pryor. And it even makes me question the GOAT for that 1.5 year stretch where he cast aside the game for some other game which he wasn't good at, realized he wasn't good at it, and came back.

But on the flip side, I've always considered the rare few who choose ball over football, baseball, or whatever sports they're good at to be near-saints. I loved Charlie Ward as a kid, until I found out he was an anti-semite, and now I only like him. Nate Robinson was a ridiculous cornerback, and at 5'7, it was probably a long shot for him to go pro in basketball instead, and I've always loved him even more for that.

And with this tortuous reasoning, I hate to say this, but I respect Greg Paulus. Yes, he was the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to basketball players: he wasn't that great, and he's a complete and utter tool. But he was a great high school basketball player, and a great high school football player, and when he came to that fork in the road, he took the right path, and even if he has a good year and went pro, people will still remember him as a baller, not a quarterback. So, despite all the aforementioned reasons why I really, really dislike Greg Paulus, I honestly have respect for the guy.

That good? Alright, now I can post video of him getting his sh*t handed to him.

I'd say Greg Paulus is the most yammable-on guard I've ever seen. I've seen decent mixes of people getting dunked on for centers whose defensive games revolve around getting blocks, and who have been in the NBA for decades (Shawn Bradley, Theo Ratliff, and Jermaine O'Neal all have targets on their backs, and should really be taught not to jump sometimes), but Paulus, for a guard, who played a little over 100 college games - that's an NBA season and a playoff run - has a legit compilation of videos of him getting absolutely WRECKED by dunkers. (With Onyx as the soundtrack, no less.) For a guard, it's a really astounding level of production. I think it's part of his overanxious defending habits and his dependancy on drawing charges (note he only jumps to try to block Dwayne Collins) that makes it seem like a good idea to try and get in the way of people about to viciously hammer on his head.

Yeah...

2009-09-18T13:58:00.003-04:00

As you could probably tell I've been away from the internet for about two days, so, the crazy amount of posts I had for the Towson and EMU games won't be up for Syracuse this week, but I will have them every other week of the season. I'll have a post up later today, and probably one more, then a game thread tomorrow afternoon, so, stop by.

Also, it appears my advice that you pick Maximilian Leo (WHOSE NAME TRANSLATES TO GREATEST LION FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY) fell on deaf ears. The people elected Syracuse WR Van Chew as Syracuse's best name. Congrats to Van! I'm going to figure out how to make cool graphics for this award, but until then, appreciate the awesomeness that is Van Chew. Here's to him getting a reception tomorrow.

Comin at you live from Jetblue's JFK Terminal

2009-09-16T12:55:00.001-04:00

Yup, I'm headed back to Evanston, finally. I'm not saying "posting on this site might decline a bit because I'll be at college and therefore have things to do and other people to talk to as opposed to the past few weeks where 95% of my friends have left town to go to their colleges and I've been sitting in my room refreshing lake the posts and playing NBA Live 2004," but, yeah, posting on this site might decline a bit because I'll be at college and therefore have things to do and other people to talk to as opposed to the past few weeks where 95% of my friends have left town to go to their colleges and I've been sitting in my room refreshing lake the posts and playing NBA Live 2004. On to some stuff for today.

Most important news of the day: NU's game on saturday will be on ESPN360, meaning NU gets to go a full season where none of its games are somehow completely off the grid despite the fact that we're in the height of the sports information era. Last year's game vs. Duke was the only Big Ten football game not to get on TV at all in the 2008 season, and it looked like this one would become this year's only one, but we're saved. In even better news, ESPN360 is free at colleges, where college sports are meant to be consumed, something I learned watching the Champions League during class.
NU came out with its two-deep for this week a few days ago, and its ever-so-slightly different from the one we had in the first two weeks. First of all, Mike Bolden, a backup corner, is no longer injured, so Justan Vaughn's got company, and it was nice knowing Ricky Weina, but don't expect him to play. Steve Flaherty is officially considered Stefan Demos' backup on kickoffs this week, whereas previously nobody filled that role (I still say he should kickoff all the time to ease Demos' leg) and most notably, Sidney Stewart, who was sick last week, is apparently sick enough that he's been replaced by Demetrius Fields and backup Carl Fisher at his wide receiver slot. Hope he gets well soon.
The JetBlue terminal here is literally one of the top five nicest places on the planet earth. Free internet access, lounge seating, ridiculous food options, I just ordered a burger with guacamole on it from a touch screen... it's pretty much like if heaven, if heaven was an airport terminal. I'd recommend flying into New York from wherever it is you live, checking out this airport terminal, and then flying back. It's that great.
I've taken to skimming the NU Rivals boards on occasion just to get a sense of how people are feeling about the program. Anyway, I happened across this post about NU's defensive front seven, and its one of the better pure football analysis posts I've read. NU's front seven obviously performed relatively poorly on Saturday considering the skill level of the opponent, outside of Nate Williams and Ben Johnson on his pick six, but that post makes me somewhat glass half-full about the whole thing. It seems like EMU gameplanned brilliantly and had some excellent, or excessively lucky, playcalls, and that part of this gameplan was to try and outscheme our d-linemen since EMU's o-line gave up a lot talentwise to them. It's a strategy not a lot of tougher opponents will likely try, and since I'm still convinced that we have a fairly talented defensive unit, this post seems to make it seem like some good coaching a game-ready Corey Wootton will do the trick in terms of rehashing a unit that looked pretty poor against EMU.
And re: the polls. I expected you guys to be a little less homerly after our game last week, but, 22 votes in, 22 of you say NU will win. I guess you guys aren't too concerned.

So, maybe a post later, maybe not, but for now, vote up them polls, son!

Players on Northwestern's roster...

2009-09-15T16:34:00.003-04:00

... picked at random and ranked from least likely to most likely to be upset that saturday's game will prevent them from fully celebrating the Jewish high holy day of Rosh Hashanah:

(just going by names)

David Nwabuisi - 1: least likely to be upset

Demetrius Fields

Stone Pinckney

Jeravin Matthews

Chuck Porcelli

Bryce McNaul

Sidney Stewart

Ben Johnson - 5: could go either way

Jacob Schmidt

Jeremy Ebert

James Kurzawski

David Arnold (sleeper pick)

Andrew Struckmeyer

Aaron Nagel

James Nussbaum - 10: maybe somewhat upset

(by the way, upon brief checking of Nagel and Nussbaum's player profiles, I'm convinced that they won't be upset either. Our roster may very well be jewless.)

That being said, I'm Jewish, and although I'm not extraordinarily religious, I'm definitely disappointed that the scheduling worked out that way - I had the opportunity to go to Syracuse and cover the game, but after much passive-aggressive insistence that I not do this from various more religious family members of mine, I pulled a much less dramatic version of the Koufax and turned it down. Point being, we control the media, and we can't even get football games moved off the high holy days? What gives! (P.S. We do control the media. I'm a Jew at a journalism school, there's a memo, I got it.) Then again, football takes place on saturdays, so, this whole thing would be irrelevant if I was anything more than a moderately religious person.

Most importantly, the whole thing gave me a opportunity to finally make some jew jokes on this site, which I'd been waiting a full three months to do.

(Northwestern Highlights points out in the comments that the game on the holiday is great, because he has an excuse not to go to a holiday dinner, however, I retort that the real purpose of this post is less complaining and more ranking NU football players on Jew potential.)

Name of the Week: Syracuse Edition.

2009-09-15T13:01:00.001-04:00

Earlier I said I'd be doing two polls every week. One of them is, as noted, just a simple "who will win on Saturday" poll.

The other is something that I had a sense you guys were liking in my team preview posts(although maybe I was wrong): my ongoing quest to find the best name on the football team of each college we play. So that we have somebody to look for in a sea of players we don't know. Because last week, Lorenzo Seaberry recorded a tackle, and rather than be angry that Stephen Simmons had just been stopped from getting a few more yards, I thought to myself "well, I guess it sucks that Steph got tackled, but if somebody had to do it, I'm glad it was Lorenzo Seaberry III, owner of the second-best name on the Eastern Michigan defense."

So I'll list the nominees, and pick my choice for name of the week, but it's up to you guys to decide who will win the week, and who will end up on the year-ending ballot where the 12 (or 13!) best names we faced off against this season fight for the honor of having the official Purple Drank best name of the year. (I've planned this out, you see. There'll be a trophy presentation or something.)

And yes, I know there's already a Name of the Year blog, which is hilarious, but I feel this serves its own distinct and wonderful purpose for my blog, and therefore don't consider this to be a rip-off, rather, a repurposing of a great idea other people already had. (although tell me in the comments if you disagree.)

So, here it goes: name of the week, Syracuse Orange edition. The poll will be up starting now and will come down friday morning, so, rock the vote. Remember, I'm looking for the best name, not necessarily the funniest, so interpret that as you will.

There are four candidates this week:

CB Shamarko Thomas, #43: Not a particularly great name - he's got a flashy first name, coupled with an unspectacular last name, which rarely works, unless the name is way over the top in a D'Brickashaw Ferguson manner. I'm not a fan, but the name needed mentioning. Thomas, a true freshman, probably won't see the field on saturday, and, in an NU connection, was a teammate of Wildcat freshmen Josh Plasencia and Brian Smith at the IFAF Junior World Cup.

WR Van Chew, #82: Short and to the point, neither of Chew's names are actual names. Van is a type of car, and occasionally comes up as an awesome first name (see: Morrison, Wilder), and Chew is something you do to food before digesting it. His full name is Vanzago, which sounds like a type of cheese.

On the field, Chew is a sophomore wide receiver who played as a true freshman last year, including a 35-yard touchdown against Pittsburgh.

WR Da'Mon Merkerson, #6: Da'Mon's parents took a relatively boring name in Damon and makes it about four times as great. I'm unsure about how Da'Mon is pronounced - it could still be pronounced like Damon - but I'll go ahead and assume it sounds like "Da Mon", or, how you would call someone "the man" if you were doing a really really inaccurate Jamaican accent.

Merkerson came to Syracuse as a wide receiver, but switched to cornerback for the beginning of last season, recording three tackles against NU, and then switching back to wide receiver by the end of the year, recording one touchdown reception.

And my endorsement in the name of the week election...

Long Snapper Maximilian Leo, #57: First off, that's just fun to say. But that aside, let's examine this name: Most of the time, the double first name is a bad indicator of a human's worth. (I'm looking at you, Greg Anthony!) But generally, these double first names are nothing like Maximilian Leo. Maximilian is one of the best names ever. According to the wikipedia, people named Maximilian generally have one of four professions: Emperor, preferably Holy Roman Emperor, martyr, Robespierre, or fictional character. Leo is thinking outside the box by being a long snapper. Most people with this name probably prefer to be called "Max", but these people are stupid. I didn't take Latin for very long, but I can tell you that Maximilian transfers from Latin to "greatest" and Leo translates from Latin to mean "lion". So this dude's name means greatest lion. GREATEST LION, YO. If I was named that, I'd maul people all the time, and I bet the reason Maximilian is a long snapper is because if he had a more contact oriented role, he'd just start uncontrollably mauling every mofo who got in his way, including teammates, referees, fans, and stray gazelles and wildebeests and stuff.

So those are the candidates. Vote early, choose wisely. I've made my preferences known, but I wouldn't be disappointed with any of the candidates winning, although I do feel it's a relatively weak slate, especially in comparison to the absolute doozy of Minnesota's names (which I just checked, and are absolutely off the hook.) So do it to it, and back your candidate in the comments section.

Tuesday Things

2009-09-15T12:28:00.000-04:00

Some stuff:

Okay, so, first off, I have to acknowledge the fact that I've officially begun to OD on the polls. I've started posting them critters at a rate of like, eight a day, and its too much for them to be meaningful, interesting, or worthy of your votes. To those of you have been voting, thanks, but from here out, the polls will occur regularly, but with a more precise schedule. From here to infinity, this is how we chill: there will be two polls a week. The first will be a simple "who's going to win on Saturday", and will be posted on Monday and left up until Friday at midnight. The other one will be something I'll discuss in a post in a few hours, and judging from the feedback I've gotten so far, I think it's something you'll like.
I've added another site to the blogroll: Spread Far The Fame, a new blog that's pretty funny and generally impressive. My only issue is that with Ryan from that blog, Ryan from Welsh-Ryan Ramblings, Pat Ryan, Ryan Field, Welsh-Ryan Arena, and Jeff Ryan, I'm confused. So go over there, and check it out. But come back. Please, baby, don't leave.
NU released its basketball schedule, and its great for people who are allergic to RPI. NU has one away non-conference game (@ NC State) and two neutral site games (vs. Notre Dame, vs. Iowa State or St. Louis). And that's it. And outside of Stanford and Butler, the teams we play at home are no great shakes, or even good shakes for that matter. With 8 games against non-conference schools with marginal basketball programs, NU is staring down the barrel of a 20-win season if they take care of those games and win a little more than half of the rest.
If some of the emails in my inbox are correct, than new students arrive on campus today. If you're a freshman, and you're reading this, first off, NERD!, and second off, congrats, and enjoy the heck out of the next week, because its a blast, and then also enjoy the next four years after that, because the 1/4th of it I've gotten through has been pretty good too.

So yeah, I've got two posts for y'all later today, and also, two polls.

Next on the Chopping Block: Syracuse.

2009-09-14T11:52:00.000-04:00

Four times this year, and, well, every year, NU plays an out-of-conference opponent. The question arises: who are these guys? Some people only want to know who they are in a football sense, but, to truly understand our opponents on the gridiron, you have to know where they come from, so football strategy can wait. I plan on getting to know these universities a little bit better with posts on each college, mainly with info gleaned from their wikipedia pages.

This week's victim (or not): Syracuse.

This post is going to be a little shorter than the other posts, mainly because unlike EMU and Towson, you've probably heard of Syracuse outside of football. I was gonna apply to Syracuse's journalism program if I didn't get in to Medill, and had my only college interview with a Syracuse admissions person about three days before finding out about whether or not I got into NU. It's probably still the only college interview in the history of college interviews where ex-Knick training camp invitee Demetris Nichols was a prominent topic of conversation.

Where: Syracuse, NY. You figured this out, right? Something I discovered at college is that people from outside of New York expect residents of New York City to have a good understanding of the goings-on in the rest of New York state, but I have no idea where Syracuse is, unless you consider "upstate" an acceptable answer.

Size: 'Cuse has 13,203 undergrads, or 1.6 Northwesterns.

Stadium: Syracuse plays both football and basketball games in the Carrier Dome, one of two FBS teams to use the same venue, along with the Idaho Vandals' Kibbie Dome. The Carrier Dome seats 49,000 for football and a preposterous 33,000 for basketball, meaning the average Syracuse basketball game has more in attendance then the average NU football game. You should be crying right now.

Interesting alums: A lot. Syracuse is probably the only school with more sports journalism folks than NU, with Bob Costas, Mike Tirico, Matthew Berry, and, the clincher, the velvety tones of Marv Albert.

Current NFL Players: There are 17 ex-... uh, Orange, on NFL rosters, and I won't list them all. (Man, this post is boring.) Highlights include Dwight Freeney, Will Allen, and, of course, Donovan McNabb, who played at Syracuse with Marvin Harrison, who no longer is on the tally of current Syracuse players in the NFL. Famous players like Jim Brown, Art Monk, and Larry Csonka played at Syracuse as well.

Current Mascot: Otto, the Orange. It's an orange. A giant freaking orange with arms and legs. The mascot used to be an indian called the "Saltine Warrior", but in 1978, Syracuse was the first school to give in and make their mascot politically correct, and turned him into a Roman warrior, but everybody hated this because it was stupid, so they decided to make it into an anthropomorphic freakin' orange.

Syracuse's teams, as you probably remember, used to be called the "Orangemen", but, because everybody is way, way, way, way too politically correct nowadays, the school changed the team to the "Orange" because "Orangemen" and "Orangewomen" wasn't gender-neutral and this hurt people's feelings. However, they ignored the fact that this is really stupid, and that now two dudes who played for their teams were now "Oranges" and that team names without "s" are supposed to be in the WNBA and a mild sign that terrorists are winning.

Mascot if I ran the school: Guess what, decided that these jokes in the previous posts weren't funny, so, hey! Done with it.

Difference between the amount of times this team has been to the NCAA Tournament and the amount of times NU has: Well, this one's definitely less interesting than in the other posts, because Syracuse is, like, great at basketball and everything, and therefore it's not surprising that Syracuse has been 32 more times than NU. They've been to the Sweet Sixteen 18 more times than NU has been to the tourney, the Final Four four more times than NU has gotten to the tournament, and won the championship once, in 2003, behind Melo, Hakim Warrick and Gerry McNamara.

You could legitimately make a starting five with all Syracuse players that would compete in the NBA: Jonny Flynn, Demetris Nichols looking way out of place at shooting guard, Melo, Hakim Warrick, and Etan Thomas at center. This team would defeat a squad of NU NBA-ers consisting of Evan Eschmeyer in his mid-30's and four Evan Eschmeyer clones by approximately 7,000 points.

Also, Sherman Douglas made his NBA in 1990, the same year my parents decided to give me the middle name of Douglas, causing me to think that I was named after a solid, but not great point guard for most of my life, despite my dad's repeated insistence that it's just a coincidence that that dude has 2/3 of the same name as me.

Elsewhere in Syracuse sports: Cuse's men's lacrosse team is a little bit like our lacrosse team, except worse: they've won 11 national championships, including the last two, but they've never managed to win more than three in a row, so, yeah, we're not impressed.

Tidbits:

They ran out of hot dogs halfway through day one of shooting: A few years ago, Hollywood people made the decision to make a movie called "The Express" about Ernie Davis, the Heisman-winning running back who led Syracuse to a national championship in 1959 as a sophomore, making great strides for black athletes off the field, only to die of leukemia before ever playing a pro game. Sadly for filmmakers, Syracuse's classical-styled football stadium, Archbold Stadium, was torn down in 1978 to build the Carrier Dome. So they shot the film on location at, where else, Ryan Field, which doubles as Archbold, and, comically, the Cotton Bowl. Directors CGI'd in fans, which is something NU's athletics department really should consider. Not surprisingly, the film was criticized for its historical inaccuracies, mainly the writers completely fabricated a game to show Davis experiencing racial abuse in the south, but I'm sure the fact that they showed a jam-packed Ryan Field didn't help.

I'll be honest - this is boring the hell out of me, and I can't possibly write any more on this post. Actual football stuff will come later.

2-0?: The Recap.

2009-09-13T11:31:00.003-04:00

First off, thanks to Patrick for playing along and commenting on the game thread yesterday, it was cool to try out, and it'll be back in future. The rest of you who didn't comment get a free pass because you were hopefully all at the stadium, so, be there next time.

I predicted NU would win this game by 38 points. Obviously, I miscalculated.

I believed that NU was a talented enough team to defeat an unheralded EMU team handily without much playcalling diversity, or effort. For two quarters, I was correct.

I'd like to chalk up the EMU comeback in the second half to lack of focus, painfully predictable playcalling and NU's nagging habit of playing at the level of their opponent, but the truth is, this team has problems that make them seem a lot worse than we thought at the beginning of the year.

I'm not a doom and gloom guy. I'm pleased with victories, and today, I'm happy. The following is just a list of observations, and, as you'll notice, a lot of them are negative. I have a funny feeling this team will beat Syracuse next week, but a lot of the things here have to improve, or else, quite frankly, they won't.

Coaching: Yeah, we played vanilla, just like we said. This is the last week this year we can afford to do this, clearly. We're not good enough to pull off that trick against FBS opponents, so, the days of running twice as much as we pass are over. Silly playcalling over and over again down the stretch did aid the EMU comeback, and that's fixable.

Defense: WOAH. Wasn't this unit supposed to be one of the best in years? Like last year's, but better?

First off, tackling. It's one of the most fundamental things in football, and the major role of defenders. So it's disconcerting that time and again NU's players were in position to tackle people, and just straight up didn't. That's bad.

The line looked suspect. And when I say suspect, I mean Eastern Michigan's offensive line handled them. It's the talk of the town that Corey Wootton doesn't look ready, and I have to agree with that assessment. But this is just a weaker unit all-around than it was last year, and I'm not sure why people, including me, expected it to be better in retrospect. Last year, we had three passable defensive ends: Wootton, who was a beast, Browne, who was also, and Mims, who was pretty good. They substituted for each other, and were constantly fresh. And up the middle, we had John Gill, who people actually had to watch out for. Now, all the attention is focused on our ends, and to be honest, we're relatively weak directly up the middle. EMU ran right at our defensive tackles, and did so for about 5.4 yards per rush. EMU's o-line was being touted as extraordinarily week, giving up six sacks last week... and they looked like grown men against the NU d-line.

Nate Williams is a bright spot so far, but our linebacking corps is part of the reason for that 5.4 yards per carry. It's not a good sign that our speedy LB's are being blocked out by o-linemen on their second line of blocks on run plays. Credit where credit is due, Ben Johnson made that one great play, but he's been pretty lackluster outside of that, not to mention that it was thrown right at him through no effort of his own.

Also, it should be noted that we've given up two wide open passes for touchdowns on plays where it looked like there was a miscommunication in which a cornerback stuck with a man and then passed him off to let the safety pick him up on deep coverage... and the safety wasn't there. Vs. Towson, the play just appeared to be a miscommunication between the cornerback and the safety, and it wasn't clear with whom the fault rested. Yesterday, safety Jared Carpenter was supposed to pick up Jacory Stone, but bit on a simple lookaway from Andy Schmitt, and voila, nobody was covering Stone anymore. The miscommunication was acceptable, I guess, when we were up 40 on Towson, but by week two, these sorts of mistakes that allow people to be completely unsurrounded in the end zone are frightening.

Credit where credit is due: Brad Phillips played great, Jordan Mabin didn't mess up, and Nate Williams seems to have a nose for the ball. Also, I guess you can't ignore the fact that Sherrick McManis didn't play today, but you wonder how much he would've helped.

So yeah. Not many positives on the defensive side of the ball. We shouldn't be giving up 24 points to EMU, we shouldn't be allowing a bottom-tier o-line body us and let their running back go for 130 on us.

Special teams: YO. Outside of punter messiah Stefan Demos' game-winning 50 yarder, about which enough cannot be said, our special teams game was in absolute shambles, throwing away field position and occasionally leaving points on the field. Let's see:

We had a muffed punt based on miscommunication between the punt returner and the people trying to set up blocking for him, and that cost the Cats seven points.

We had extremely poor coverage on kickoffs: the Eagles had great field position on multiple returns in the first half and needed Demos, aka he who can do no wrong, to make a potential touchdown saving tackle on one return.

We had back to back failures by Brendan Smith to judge the punt and let it roll to the 1- and 2- yard line.

Again, Demos gets a pass, but we also had some pretty poor punting.

Luckily, all this is special teams stuff is correctable: Smith getting under the ball knocks three of those poorly executed plays off the list, and there's nothing staying in your lanes won't do on kickoff returns. But this special teams play gifted EMU a touchdown, and if uncorrected, will gift another school a victory.

Offense: Our offense didn't look as bad as the other units. Just like on defense, we've got issues in the trenches: our offensive line didn't look particularly great, racking up holding calls left and right.. But they were good last year, so I won't fret.

The era of Mike Kafka the devoted pocket passer is over. Yes, he can throw, but let's be real: to have an effect against opposing defenses, he has to show off the wheels. It's obvious. Today, Kafka out of the pocket looked only good, not great, overthrowing people a bunch and throwing a pick, although the pick wasn't his fault as he got hit on the play.

It's also obvious that we were way overdependent on our running back play today. Now, don't misconstrue that statement: Stephen Simmons looked better than he ever has against FBS opponents, and Jacob Schmidt looked like someone who can actually contribute, especially on short-yardage plays. But we need to throw more often, and on deeper routes. Just to mix it up. We had a plan to not do that yesterday, and it backfired.

In terms of personnel: Scott Concannon will hopefully improve with time, but I think his audition for playing time this year is over, despite a really great opening game against Towson. Arby Fields looked like a freshman, and I guess that will happen, so you can't be mad, but he's not ready for primetime. And I think we're trying to overutilize Josh Rooks and his hands of concrete-like material.

So, yeah. Obviously, flush it, and come back and win next week, and we can forget this ever happened. The Cats are half-way to what should be their goal every year: sweeping the out-of-conference slate.

Obviously, there should be complaints: we just nearly blew a game against an extremely week team.

But yo: Stefan Demos hit a game-winning 50-yard field goal. Like it says in the sidebar: this site is about slowing down and enjoying the good things in NU sports. So live life a little, folks. And enjoy watching more football today.

Northwestern, 27, Eastern Michigan, 24.

2009-09-12T15:07:00.006-04:00

I'm not going to act like that's a good win. We played a team we were much better than, and then showed we were much better than them by dropping 21 on them in the first half.

Then, stuff got real. We almost choked away a game against a team that went 3-9 in the MAC last year. We gave up 120 yards rushing to something called a Dwayne Priest. This game is not something to be proud of, and this team has some major, major issues heading into next week.

But at the end of the day, we just got to watch the Wildcats win a game on a last second field goal, and we remembered what it feels like to involuntarily throw your hands up to celebrate a football team scoring. And that's a good thing.

I'll have a detailed game wrap-up either tonight or tomorrow, so, we'll deal with that then. All praise be to Stefan Demos.

Game Thread: Eastern Michigan vs. Northwestern.

2009-09-12T11:30:00.001-04:00

I know, I know, I said I wouldn't do game threads, but I'm trying it out. I have my reasons, punks, so don't ask. Or do. I'll probably answer you.

First off, you should be at the game, not reading things on the internet. (You still have time to get up and go if you're in the area, folks!). But if you're not, stop by and comment.

I know it probably makes more sense and is much classier to go and comment on LTP, and by all means, go ahead and do so, but I'd like to get a game comment section going. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work, but I'm tryin it. I'd like to get a running commentary going, so, hey, yo, say something, and I'll say something back.

Before the game, here's some links to other things I wrote about the game, of course, you could just hit the "EMU" label, but, hey. Links.

Here's an actual preview of this game sort of deal.
Here's a highlight reel of EMU getting handily defeated by Army in one of the top ten depressing college football games I've ever seen a highlight reel of.
Here's the most in-depth preview of EMU that I could write, which isn't saying much.
And here's discussion of things nobody really asked about pertaining to Earl Boykins and Domino's Pizza.

Poll results: 59 of you voted, 58 of you think that NU will beat EMU. One of you is either a rogue EMU fan, a reader with poor motor skills trying to vote from an iPhone, or someone absolutely tripping balls right now. Good luck with that, dude.

So, if you feel the need, comment below. I couldn't come up with an intriguing reason for people to comment, so I struck a deal with ex-Towson offensive lineman Jermon Bushrod, currently pictured below. He promised me that for every quarter that you don't comment, he'd murder a helpless animal with a sledgehammer.

He hasn't picked his victim yet, but inside sources tell me he's deciding between a bunny and a month-old Jack Russell Terrier.

Northwestern vs. EMU, Volume Three: THA RECKONING

2009-09-11T15:14:00.004-04:00

So, tomorrow is NU's second game of the year, and, it's against Eastern Michigan. You'd think the talent level of our opponent would increase after playing an FCS school like Towson, but these fellas are only marginally better. Of the 120 teams in the FBS, ESPN's got EMU looking like the 119th, after getting rocked by an equally futile Army team, and at the beginning of the year, the New York Times had them 113th, which was probably a little optimistic of them.

Suffice it to say, that vanilla stuff we found so delicious last week will probably make up most of our arsenal this week again. I'd like to see our playcalling be a little bit more out there - we weren't even blitzing last week - but still, relatively close to the vest. It might be a bummer that NU has such weak opponents to open the year, but on the positive side, the few weeks provide opportunities for us to get game reps in non-pressure situations that allow our inexperienced offensive starters to get some PT together, and we're making the best out of it.

The injury report lists Jeravin Matthews and Sherrick McManis as "doubtful". I'm thinking these guys are probably not injured that badly, but, to be honest, why bother playing them and risking injury against an opponent like EMU? Justan Vaughn seems pretty talented, so it will be good to see him get a start, so the McManis injury doesn't really hurt us there. Matthews is somehow one of the more known entities out of our running backs crew, and what's more, I think he'll be useful more as a RB/WR hybrid, and his ability to play multiple positions and catch defenses off guard seems like the type of thing that will be more useful the less time he gets now. So that's that.

Last week I said the goal for the week was just to get in and get out, no injuries to starters. I'd say it's pretty much the same this week. I'd like to see our second-string playing in the second quarter, even if the game still is up for grabs. If it is, Kafka and company can come back in at halftime to put it out of reach, as I'm confident they're talented enough to do. But if it's a touchdown or less game, I'd like to see the second unit play, for better or for worse, just to see how they handle it. I'd like to see Dan Persa lead us on a scoring drive when the opposing defense is still in it to win it, and I'd like to see a big stop by like, I dunno, Purple Drank favorite defender Stone Pinckney to keep NU in the lead, a sort of baptism-by-fire sort of deal. That would be nice, and I'm convinced Fitz will bring in bench guys to play early regardless of the score.

Now, on to the gameplan.

Offense: Again: we know Mike Kafka can run. However, he's sort of our starting quarterback, and I don't want to see him getting injured this early in the season. So if I were him, I'd set a reasonably attainable goal for tomorrow: don't get tackled. We have a sturdy o-line, so he shouldn't have to worry about sacks. If he runs the ball on a scramble, he should slide down, as he's been unwilling to do in the past because of his wheels, or end up out-of-bounds or in the end zone. And if he runs an option, pitch it, something he seemed a little bit scared of doing against Towson. Kafka did a great job of passing last week, but he still didn't stick around in the pocket long enough to suit my likings - I'd like to see him just chill out back there for once, just to show that he can.

Persa as noted, I hope gets some serious tick, more than just the two throws he had last week.

At running back, we've got some unsolved issues still after the first week. I'd like to see more of what we saw last week, which is pretty much just everybody getting their fair share of carries. I'd like to see if Jacob Schmidt could emerge as a third-down back sort of carrier, and if Scott Concannon is worth anything. And I'd definitely like to see Jeravin Matthews stay on the sidelines, because he doesn't need to risk it. The running game should get a little bit more inventive this week - last week, we shied away from runs outside the tackles and options for pretty much the entire game once it got out of hand - and that was no fun. I'd still like to see the running game get the bulk of the playcalls, but, I'd like these playcalls to be more like the ones we'd see in a Big Ten game. Not just dashes up the gut, although we do have to keep those in the offense.

I liked the spread of the ball to various WR's last week, and expect the same. Nobody did anything spectacular except Brewer, and, with what will hopefully be another relatively small passing sample size, it would be unlikely to expect anyone besides Brewer to rack up a big game. I know this week will probably rightly be a vanilla attack, but, I'm dying to see Brewer pull a Peterman-esque end-around pass. I know it can work for another touchdown this year if people aren't expecting it, so, maybe it can wait a few weeks, but I'm anxious.

Defense: As noted, this Schmitt fella is a bit of a gunslinger, even with the non-hurl-it-80-times-a-game offense EMU has this year. I want our secondary to get their grown man on and play like they should've last week. I foresee three picks, and that's being conservative.

Corey Wootton was barely a factor last week, and this week, he and Vince Browne go up against an o-line that gave up 6 sacks for a loss of over 50 yards last week. LTP has said this all week, but these two also have to get their grown men on, and I want to see Corey legitimately play this week whereas last week he just got a few series and called it a day. This year, opposing o-lines will be hurling as much of their manpower as they can at him, and if he can't overcome that this week against EMU, he won't be able to overcome it in the Big Ten season. Not to mention that Browne should be absolutely teeing off against minimal opposition on the other side.

People I'm watching:

Corey Wootton. Corey was my person to watch last week, and he barely set foot on the field, so, I haven't taken my gaze off of him yet.

Arby Fields: is he really our best running back? He'll have the opportunity to prove he is this week, and I think he will.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: this is a classic battle of fearsome land predator vs. fearsome air predator. As is generally the case in this type of battle, it's a mismatch: the cat is unable to attack the eagle unless the eagle comes to him first, therefore, the eagle is perennially on offense. Game, EMU. (Wildcat mascot death fight record: 0-2.)

Prediction:

Eastern Michigan, 7, Northwestern 45. Fitz will be less relenting than he was last week against Towson, but the opponent will be slightly better, so I foresee roughly the same score. The only difference is that I expect our defense to be a little bit more on top of themsleves after the coaching staff got surprisingly mad at them for allowing two touchdowns against Towson. I expect the Eagles to flukily push one across on a deep pass that manages to go unintercepted, but generally, this will be a romp for NU.

We're 1-0, and we're trying to go... 1-0 again. Is it okay that I find coach-speak fun to buy into sometimes?

Go Cats, yo.

some quick site stuff

2009-09-11T14:56:00.002-04:00

Got an EMU prediction/gameplan post coming up momentarily, but, just figured I gotta get some quick things out of the way.

First off, since I'm a journalist and hate putting out wrong stuff, I feel like pointing out that some of the stuff I wrote in the first EMU post about attendance issues at Eastern Michigan was sort of off, so much so that jhodges did me a favor and commented with more precise information, so, check that out.

It appears I missed some decent EMU names, and I'm proud of my readership for scouting out rosters. The DeMaster brothers, Dan and Kyle, have honorable mention-worthy names, as pointed out by an anonymous commenter. Honorable mention-worthy: they're no competition for the 1-2 punch of Paopao and Lorenzo Seaberry III. (And, yes, I've already picked out the winner for Syracuse.)

I added another blog to the blogroll on the right: Craig Moore's, which, at first, I thought would just be another one of those "hey, I'm an athlete with a computer!" joints which features compelling post titles like "Big game today!" and "Tired after practice", and didn't feel like I needed to link to it. But Craig's got it goin on. I rarely laugh at things on the internet, but I actually did chuckle at his "my shot is like a nice girl" line. He's already well on the road to surpassing Rod Benson as the world's best minor-league basketball player blogger, but I think he needs to pump out some rap music to get to the top.

The NU vs. EMU poll closes at midnight, so, if you haven't voted, and don't want EMU to pull out a come-from-55-behind poll victory in the late hours of the night tonight, go over to the right side of the page and do that.

A bad omen

2009-09-11T11:42:00.000-04:00

Like any true blooded American, I watched a little bit of the Steelers/Titans matchup last night.

Anyway, at one point, I heard Al Michaels mention that Jason Jones was absolutely working Trai Essex. In fact, I hadn't noticed it, but Jones, the Titans' defensive end, was matched up against Essex, the Steelers' starting right guard. This was such an important matchup that the Observer-Reporter, a southwest Pennsylvanian paper, chose to highlight it as the thing to watch for in the game. And sure enough, Jones had just beasted around Essex for a 19-yard sack of Ben Roethlisberger.

The upshot of this? Jones, a second round draft pick in last year's draft, went to Eastern Michigan. Essex, on the other hand, is an NU grad, and still probably the only person in NU history named "Trai".

The upshot of that, of course, is that we're playing EMU tomorrow, in football, which is the sport Essex and Jones were playing.

My advice? Panic. Stock up on perishable goods and tape your windows and all that good stuff. In terms of omens, the sack by an EMU DE against an NU o-lineman two days before those schools play is the equivalent of opening a ladder indoors because you need to protect yourself from falling shards of glass from a mirror you just broke that was being held by a black cat on a ladder that you're walking under.

If you don't have a bomb shelter, start digging.

Brendan Smith Memorial Picks: Week 2.

2009-09-10T15:27:00.003-04:00

Do you guys care who I think is going to win other Big Ten games? What's that? No?

Well, tough. There's nothing else to blog about on thursdays.

(all times central, which means as a New Yorker I'm doing math over here.)

11 AM: Western Michigan @ Indiana

The polar opposites of our opponent this week made Michigan look pretty good last week, but Indiana is a hulking pile of badness. This game is bad. Linkin Park bad. I still like the Hoosiers to pull out a win, but it will be competitive down the stretch.

What I would guess Western Michigan's mascot is, without looking: The Broncos? I had this one last week.

What it actually is: DING DING DING DING DING! I won't actually count this as an official correct guess since I had them last week. But I'm still impressed.

Pick: Indiana.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: One of the more competitive mascot matchups yet: On the one hand, bucking broncos can and do kill people, but on the other, you've got Barbaro. (too soon?) But I gotta go with the broncos: they're difficult to tame, while people from Indiana don't seem particularly intimidating to me. Game: Western Michigan. (Hoosier mascot death fight record: 0-2)

11 AM: Central Michigan @ Michigan State.

Central Michigan looked like a good MAC team heading into the year, but lost to Arizona pretty brutally. MSU on the other hand, looked like pretty good. They probably scheduled this thinking it would be an easy win, and it will be.

Pick: MSU.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: the Chippewas are going to come at the Spartans with a fighting style they're not used to, which might throw them off a bit, but when it comes down to it, Sparta is a military machine which any groups of soldiers would have trouble defeating, unless they have guns. Game, MSU. (Spartan mascot death fight record: 2-0.)

11 AM: Syracuse @ No. 7 Penn State.

The Orange looked good against Minnesota, but this ain't Minnesota.

Pick: Penn State.

Pick to win in a mascot fight to the death: The ruling I made last week is that orange, as a color, is incapable of dying, and therefore, shouldn't be allowed in the mascot death fight club. Game, Penn State. (Nittany Lion mascot death fight record: 2-0.)

11 AM: Fresno State @ Wisconsin.

Fresno State played Wisconsin close last year, losing 13-10, and that was when Wisconsin was, you know, good. Last week, Fresno State won a tuneup by 51, while Wisconsin got by against NIU, 28-20. This one will be closer than that, a genuine toss-up. By the way, I'm really low on Wisconsin this year.

Pick: Fresno State

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Last week, the Badgers had a tough loss against the Huskies, and they face a similar mascot death fight this week against another canine foe in the Bulldogs. A similar mascot death fight with a similar result. I'd like the Badgers in a fight against a smaller dog, like a chihuahua or a dachshund, but Huskies and Bulldogs have too much grit and strength to fall to the tiny, rodent-eating carnivore. Game, Fresno State. (Badger mascot fight death record: 0-2)

11:05 AM: Iowa @ Iowa State.

Both struggled with FCS opponents: Last week Iowa State gave up 17 points to North Dakota State, and Iowa gave up 16 to Northern Iowa. The difference is that Iowa State also scored 34 points, while Iowa only scored 17. My instinct is telling me that Iowa just had a bad game and will revert to something close to last year's form soon, but common sense is telling me that they'll lose to ISU on the road.

Pick: Iowa State.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: I'm still unclear on what a hawkeye is. Is it someone with great vision? Is it the disembodied eye of a hawk? Until I get an explanation, this team will have trouble winning mascot death fights. Game, ISU. (Hawkeyes mascot death fight record: 0-2.)

2:30 PM: No. 18 Notre Dame @ Michigan

This game is so annoying.

Pick: Michigan.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Even the most Fighting of the Irish would have trouble against a ravenous wolverine, and unfortunately, the fisticuff enthusiast leprechaun in Notre Dame's logo looks like it stands even less of a chance, magical leprechaun abilities aside. Game, Michigan. (Wolverines mascot death fight record: 1-1.)

6 PM: Air Force @ Minnesota

I have this image of Mike Kafka running for 217 yards last season, and I have this image of Air Force wreaking havoc on Minnesota with their "we're a service academy and therefore we feel compelled to run a completely option based offense" state of mind. Squeaking by Syracuse didn't help.

Pick: Air Force.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: I think falcons probably eat gophers in real life, so this isn't a good matchup. Game, Air Force. (Golden Gophers mascot death fight record: 1-1.)

6 PM: Illinois St. @ Illinois.

Analysis: I'ma stop analyzing the ones that are like "derivative of state vs. state", because, even in cases like Northern Iowa vs. Iowa where it could be close, is anybody going to predict it being close?

What I would guess Illinois State's mascot is, without looking: the Indians. (In retrospect, probably not very likely, cuz of the whole politically correct thing, but it sounds right.)

What it actually is: The Redbirds.

Pick: Illinois.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Redbirds, presumably cardinals, are tiny and harmless. It would be a difficult kill for a Fighting Illini, but an inevitable one. Game, Illinois. (Illini mascot death fight record: 1-1.)

7 PM: No. 3 USC @ No. 8 Ohio State.

People seem to be giving OSU a chance in this one. At this point in world history, even with Terrelle Pryor being an absurdly talented athlete, probably the one quarterback I would like for my college football team if I were building one from scratch, I just see USC and Ohio State being in different leagues right now. I'd give OSU ten points in this one and still expect them to lose.

Pick: USC.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Buckeyes are nuts, folks. I don't see them winning a mascot death fight all year long, whether they're poisonous or not. Game, USC. (Buckeyes mascot death fight record: 0-2.)

9 PM: Purdue @ Oregon.

A lot of people probably see the Boilermakers making it close after last week's Duck debacle. I see them winning.

Pick: Purdue

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Have you ever played Duck Hunt? Boiler manufacturing engineers have. With real guns. And real ducks. Game, Purdue. (Boilermakers mascot death fight record: 2-0.)

Totals, excluding yet-to-be-picked NU vs. EMU:

Projected Big Ten record in Week 2: 5-5.

Projected Big Ten mascot death fight record in week 2: 5-5. (on the year: 10-11)

My picks last week: 10-1. Admittedly, the early season is a little easy going, but this week I went a little bit out of the box I think, so we'll see.

Gettin Familiar With: EMU Football.

2009-09-09T14:53:00.000-04:00

I told y'all about EMU, now lets read about their football team.

(Oh, and, if you want shorter posts, tough.)

Historically vs. NU: The Eagles and the Cats have two meetings, in 2006 and 2007, one at Ryan Field, and one at Detroit's Ford Field. NU won the '06 game 14-6 on the strength of running touchdowns by, oddly enough, quarterbacks Mike Kafka and Andrew Brewer, and the '07 game was a 26-14 win led by 361 yards passing by Mike Kafka and 122 on the ground from Omar Conteh. Still remaining on the squads that played then are Kafka and Brewer (who combined to go 16-26 with 110 yards and a Kafka pick through the air), QB Andy Schmitt, who went 3-9 as a backup in '06, EMU starting running back Dwayne Priest, who had four yards for 19 carries as a backup in the 07 game, and stud EMU wideout Jacory Stone, who caught 8 passes for 85 yards at Ford Field. The starting QB for EMU in '07, Kyle McMahon, is now the backup, which probably disappoints any of you who remember his 28-48 three pick, no touchdown performance.

Hard Times: EMU hasn't experienced a winning season since a 6-5 campaign in 1995, and didn't have one since 1989 before that. Against Big Ten teams, they're a remarkable 0-15, and 0-14 on the road, with the Ford Field game being the only time the Eagles have "hosted" a Big Ten opponent.

Overview: EMU, like Towson, isn't a very good football team. They, like Towson, went 3-9 last year, although against a higher caliber of opponents. (except Indiana State, who they beat 52-0. Towson could probably manhandle them.) They showed some offensive promise scoring 108 points in the last two games of the season, with Andy Schmitt throwing for exactly 1000 yards between the two games while throwing eight touchdowns and only one pick (and rushing for three more!) but on the flip side, they gave up 107 points in those games. This year, their extreme spread offense is gone, and they didn't start off well by dropping their home opener to an Army team that also went 3-9 last season. New coach Ron English look promising, but, progress takes a while, and it won't be happening this year with a team with a new coach, new coordinators, and seven new position coaches. Also, "promising" in regards to EMU is a mid-place MAC finish in a few years, so, that doesn't mean much.

Sense the Depression: EMU's marketing slogan for this football season is thus: "Embrace the Process." That's near starving puppy on the sadness level. I don't think I've ever seen a marketing slogan acknowledge that the team is in the midst of a giant ocean of suck, and that it will take years to get out of.

This tells you more about EMU's team than the following several thousand words, so, skip it if you wanna.

Offense: As noted, Schmitt had some serious stuff going on in those last two games of the season, averaging 500 yards passing and scoring 11 TD's. Well, it was a little fluky: take away his two nova games (in which, it should be noted, he threw 156 times) against Temple and Central Michigan, and in the other ten games, Schmitt was 153-261 for 1648 yards with seven touchdowns and seven picks. Luckily for Schmitt's arm of going Kerry Wood on him, the Eagles have slowed down their pace, as coach English has installed a more pro-style offense, meaning he only threw 31 times against Army, completing 18 for 183 yards with a TD and two picks.

The running back is Priest, who was a backup RB in last year's "pass until Schmitt's arm falls off" offense up until this year, but still managed about 500 career yards. He looked decent against Army, carrying 19 times for 83 yards and a TD. However, the team only had 40 yards rushing total because of some pretty poor pass protection leading to a bunch of sacks.

On offense, the person to watch will be Jacory Stone, a wide out who is on the Biletnikoff award watch list. (Then again, 17% of Americans are on a college football award watchlist, including one of my aunts.) Stone led the team in receiving yards and receptions last year, and had a pretty nice 25-yard grab against Army which you saw in all its pixellated glory on the video I posted today.

The offensive line is sieve-like, allowing seven sacks against Army for a loss of 53 yards, meaning that pretty much one in every five times they dropped into pass protection, they failed, and I'd bet there were a decent amount of hurries with numbers like that.

Overall, not an impressive unit to me. A quarterback with two impressive games that account for about a third of all his career stats is not, as many previewing this game will say, the sign of a dynamic offense. It's a unit adapting to a new system under a new coach and a new coordinator, and, with the pasta strainers up front on the o-line, not much will get done.

Defense: Defense? Pshh. The team gave up 35.33 points per game last year in the MAC, and when you remember that one of those was a 52-0 romp over Indiana State, who have lost 52 of their last 53 games, that becomes even less impressive. This is a team that nearly lost both of those games in which Schmitt was busy breaking the laws of physics by throwing 80 times a game, allowing 55 points against Temple and then 52 in the win over Central Michigan.

People will pass off Army's 300 yard rushing game this past weekend as a fluke because Army runs a crazy triple-option running attack that will make any defense's rushing stats look bad. But consider that EMU gave up 341 on the ground to Akron last year, in a game where the Zips also passed for over 200 yards. This is a really, really weak defense.

The new coordinator, Eric Lewis, has never had a coordinating gig - for the record, his offensive counterpart, Ken Karcher, has held head coaching jobs and offensive coordinating jobs at multiple levels - so this defense won't get better right away. On the plus side, they have DB Johnny Sears, who transferred to EMU after being kicked off of Michigan, so he's clearly got talent (although this blog documenting his departure from Michigan notes that he was "really bad", and the commenters agree), and he hasn't gotten into the starting lineup yet. Senior DE Brandon Downs looks to be the leader of the defensive unit after getting ten tackles and two sacks against Army. However, the "star" of the defense is Jermaine Jenkins, whose listed position is... "star". The team's depth chart for the front seven shows three d-linemen, three linebackers, and Jenkins, who is neither here nor there. He's listed as a linebacker on the team roster, but I guess in actuality he plays on the line occasionally, allowing the team to vary 4-3 and 3-4 sets without having to switch in and out defenders.

Transitive Property Logic that leads me to believe that we'll win by a lot:

9/27, 2008: Northern Illinois, 37, Eastern Michigan, 0.

8/30, 2008: Minnesota, 31, Northern Illinois, 27.

11/22, 2008: Iowa, 55, Minnesota, 0.

9/27, 2008: Northwestern, 22, Iowa, 17.

Transitive Property Score Differential: 101.

(By the way, I obviously could've gone straight to Minnesota to NU, since we beat them, but... I figured adding the extra 55 points made this whole thing more convincing, right?)

All Name Team: Pretty strong competition on the Eagles, but I narrowed it down to four runners-up and a winner.

Runners-up, listed in ascending order of name goodness: There's junior offensive lineman Bridger Buche (Bushy?), redshirt freshman wide-out L'Shane Bynum, true freshman wide-out Kinsman Thomas (The fact that Kinsman is third really attest to the deepness of this name class), and, in a shocking second place finish, senior linebacker Lorenzo Seaberry. First off, it should be noted that Lorenzo is my second favorite name, (behind Marcus) because you can be either an Italian renaissance statesman or a member of N.W.A. with that name. I swear, my child will be named either Marcus or Lorenzo. But moving on, Seaberry's full name is Lorenzo Seaberry III, which is an astoundingly great name, and sounds like something I'd say my name was if I was prank calling someone as a pretentious wasp character but hadn't bothered to think up an actual name until the person actually asked what my name was, and I had to come up with it really quickly on the spot.

Winner: Junior linebacker Nate Paopao, who has one of the best football names I've ever heard. Nate is a juco transfer, and thanks to the EMU official pronunciation guide, we can find that his name is pronounced "POW-POW", the only name to get the all-caps treatment. Nate has six siblings, all of whom manage to have better names than him, but I won't drag them into this, because they don't deserve to google themselves only to find that somebody's writing about them on the internet, so, find his roster page to see for yourself.

However, if a member of the Paopao family does read this, let it be known that you have phenomenal taste in naming, and like I said in the last post, this isn't about humorous names as much as it is about classy names that make me want to sip expensive scotch and smoke cigars and discuss how great your family's names are in a well upholstered room with a fireplace. Hope you appreciate. I also hope you download the "Pow!" application for the iPhone, where you punch the air and a cartoon punching sound effect is made, because if you do it twice really fast, it's like your name.

Bam-Bam shoulda been called Paopao.

So how do we play them?: We could play them the same way we played Towson and win. It's as simple as that. For the game to be as big a margin of victory, we'd have to actually call multiple plays inventively and blitz, or maybe even do basic things like stunt linemen or spend the entire second half running in between the tackles, but let it be known that we probably won't need to to win. I hope we do, though, because those things are fun.

If I had to give a team-specific instruction, it would be that we need to watch for the deep ball to Jacory Stone, but, quite frankly, we don't need to, and we'll still win. I'll give a gameplan in my friday post like I did last week.

So that's EMU football. Embrace the process.

Ever wonder what an EMU football game looks like?

2009-09-09T11:43:00.001-04:00

Here's your answer: a highlight reel of the Eagles' game 27-14 loss to Army on Saturday.

Judging from the video, EMU will be the most pixellated team Northwestern has faced since our 2001 matchup against the Goombas from the Super Mario Bros video game for the original NES, and we all remember how that turned out.

One of the many sacks by the goomba d-line that caused NU's quarterbacks to jump off the screen while flailing their arms.

Besides the low video quality and cliché music selection (which I still find cool in conjunction with NU videos, for some reason), you can take things away from the video.

First off, seeing that whole messed up Army triple-option thing shows you that the way Army gained yards on the ground is a lot different from the way NU will attempt to, so EMU's rush defense isn't as weak as the stats would make them seem. They still look pretty bad though.

On the other hand, Andy Schmitt, who put up rather gaudy stats last year out of an extreme spread offense, looks like a gunslinger of the Rex Grossman variety, getting a lot of air under passes he probably shouldn't be throwing in the first place, but, he does, and it led to EMU's only two touchdowns of the day. He throws four long balls in the clip, and I like to think that Mabin n Mcmanis make those four throws into three picks and a knockdown, whereas Army turned it into two picks and two long completions. Either way, those two should be preparing for loads of deep balls (pause) out of the gun, but, then again, they'll probably be taking a nice long rest during the second half against an opponent of this caliber, so they shouldn't be too worried.

this must be some type of sick joke.

2009-09-08T14:44:00.003-04:00

As noted, I like me some AP polls. It's a nice checkup on NU's perception around teh college football world, which is hard to get from inside our big "hey, Northwestern is good!" biodome shielding us from the outside world.

So, I checked the updated polls today, and after my big freakin' song and dance on sunday... we're not even receiving votes anymore. None.

I know this isn't something to be upset about, because not a single person in the world gives about the bottom of the AP poll, but, I've assembled a timeline of recent events.

A few weeks ago: NU had five AP votes.

Saturday: NU beats Towson 47-14.

Today: NU has no AP votes.

To help interpret that timeline, here is a timeline of of Northwestern-related things Kevin Gorman, a high school football reporter from Pittsburgh who gave NU all five of their votes in the last poll, has done, or at least things I'd imagine he's done.

A few weeks ago: Gorman fills out his ballot. He remembers NU did well last year, and puts us 21st.

A day after that: Gorman looks at everybody else's ballot, and realizes that not a single other human being in the universe thinks we're a top 25 team. Rather than stand by his guns, he makes up his mind to remove NU from his next ballot regardless of how they perform, in order to avoid being laughed at by some nerdy sports writers.

Saturday: NU beats Towson 47-14.

Yesterday: Gorman fills out his next ballot, in which he removes NU, but leaves Texas and Tennessee in the highest position of any reporter filling out a ballot.

Right now: A bored NU blogger contemplates using the word "spineless" in this post, then realizes he really, really hopes nobody is writing posts about how stupid his ballots are in ten years when he is a journalist of some sort.

Overall, I can't fault Gorman for his actions: he's just a guy who's filling out some stupid ballot, and he doesn't deserve to be criticized for it over the internet. He made a mistake by ranking NU as highly as he did. If I were him, I wouldn't have done that, but I would've stuck by my cojones and left NU as high in the next poll. But like I said earlier, the AP poll is a nice look into the way NU is perceived, and I guarantee you, there's not many other schools that could pull off a magic trick like having votes one week, winning convincingly, and then making them disappear.

New polls

2009-09-08T00:26:00.004-04:00

Just added two and got rid of the seven or eight polls I had lying around on the right side. Vote, folks, because it's the only way that my site looks like it has readers.

For the record, the result of the last post was: 54 of you guys thought Northwestern would win, and two thought Towson would win. I'm predicting those two people who voted for Towson were amongst those old jewish people who voted for Pat Buchanan in Florida by accident when they were trying to vote for Al Gore but couldn't understand what was happening because the ballots were too confusing to them, so, you're still allowed to read the site.

Next on the Chopping Block: Eastern Michigan

2009-09-07T21:18:00.002-04:00

This week's victim: Eastern Michigan University.

Where: Ypsilanti, Michigan. Ypsilanti, a town of 22,000 is about 35 miles from Detroit and eight from Ann Arbor. In fact, it's only around 5.5 miles from EMU's Rynearson Stadium to Michigan Stadium, meaning EMU students can easily see two 3-9 football teams within ten minutes driving time. The Wikipedia says that Ypsilanti is called "the Brooklyn to Ann Arbor's Manhattan" in a local Board of Commerce pamphlet, and as a native New Yorker and major snob, I feel the need to point out that this is among the top five stupidest things ever written, for literally thousands of reasons I can't be bothered to explain.

When: EMU was founded in 1849 as the Michigan State Normal School, which, if you ask me, is sort of a slap in the face to Michigan State. It has since changed names to the Michigan State Normal College, Eastern Michigan College, and now, Eastern Michigan University. Unfortunately, in this very same bit in my last post, I said that Towson was briefly called "Towson University Ochocinco". It wasn't funny then, and also, I don't have a joke to make here, so, lose-lose situation.

Enrollment: EMU has 18,245 undergrads, or 2.2 Northwesterns.

Stadium: Rynearson Stadium was built in 1969 and holds a little bit over 30,000. However, no football game has ever attracted more than 25,009, so, once again, NU's attendance problems can cry EMU a river. The stadium briefly played home to the Detroit Wheels of the WFL in 1974. The WFL lasted only two seasons, but the Wheels were even more short-lived. You can already tell the team was off to a bad start, because they couldn't afford to rent out a stadium in freakin' Detroit, but the Wheels tried to make a go of it in Ypsilanti. They got a dismal 10,000 fans to come to their first game, and after dropping their first ten games, numbers decreased to levels that were low even for WFL games. In an attempt to increase attendance, the team's ninth game was moved to London, Ontario, where they drew only 5,000 fans, the team's 13th game was moved to an away game at Shreveport, Louisiana, and then, in week 14, the league decided they'd had enough already and scrapped the team, canceling the rest of the 20-week schedule.

Interesting Alums: I'm starting to think the lists in this category say more on my sports-centric worldview than on the nature of each alumni base, but, most of the EMU alums I've heard of are athletes.

George Gervin isn't really an alum, as he transferred to Long Beach State before getting kicked off the team there, but the Iceman is probably the most famous person to have attended EMU I see on the list. Gervin led EMU to an NAIA Final Four in 1972, and went on to be one of the NBA's 50 Greatest players, and one of the NBA's Two Greatest players to have a last name that was six letters long that contained the letters "ervin" and either began or ended with the letter G. EMU grad Earl Boykins carved out a ten year career in the Association despite going undrafted and being only 5'5, the second-shortest player in NBA history. He's mainly remembered for being able to bench close to three times his body weight and for standing next to Yao Ming one time. Another famous athletic Eagle is Bob Welch, who won the 1990 Cy Young, and whom I'd never heard of.

An interesting alum in relation to NU football is Ronald Beard, who graduated from EMU and went on to go get a Master's Degree at Prairie View A&M. Soon after he got the degree, Prairie View, a historically black I-AA school, decided to eliminate their athletic department, which was over 3 million dollars in debt. However, the school cobbled together funds to keep the football team operating, as the Panthers (not the best team name for an historically black university if you ask me) had a good football tradition, winning five national black titles in the 50's and 60's, and hired Beard as the head coach before the 1991 season. They soon discovered that putting together a team was a bad idea. In Beard's first year on the job, the Panthers put up 48 points on the season, and gave up an average of 56 points per game. The team lost every game that year, including a 92-0 loss to Alabama State, and went on to lose and all 44 games under Beard's four year span as the head coach. Beard isn't totally to blame - he was dealing with a team with no scholarship athletes, and also pulling triple duty as the school's head golf coach and a teacher who spent 28 hours a week in the classroom. But 0-44 is pretty bad. The streak finally ended in 1998 with a 14-12 victory over Langston State, by which point the team had lost 80 straight, a D-I record which more than doubles NU's record losing streak and might never be broken. Unless he is hired elsewhere, which is unlikely, Beard will forever hold a share of the record for worst collegiate head coaching record of all time, as his 0-44-0 winning percentage works out to .000 in the record books.

Current NFL Players: Four: Charlie Batch, the Steelers' backup quarterback, Kevin Walter, a solid WR for the Texans, TJ Lang, a rookie OL for the Packers who took Tyrell Sutton's roster spot, and Jason Jones, DT for the Titans.

Current Mascot: Swoop, the eagle pictured at the top of the page, whose beak looks a little bit like when comic strip characters are confused or disappointed or something.

Charlie Brown's mouth is the inspiration for Swoop the Eagle's beak, although luckily, Swoop isn't drawn with worry lines on his forehead.

EMU teams were known as the Normalites and the Men from Ypsi up until 1929, when the team became the Hurons. However, in 1991, this name was struck down in the name of political correctness and unoriginality, and since then, the team has been known as the generic Eagles, and the team has only had one winning season. These people are still quite peeved about the whole name change thing, but it appears the Eagle name isn't going to go anywhere until political incorrectness starts being cool again. Meanwhile, the Hurons are somewhere in mascot heaven, plotting to kill Chief Illiniwek from now until eternity.

Mascot if I ran EMU: This has been discussed already.

Difference between the amount of times this school has been to the NCAA Tournament and the amount of times Northwestern has: Four, all between 1988 and 1998, and they've had some success. In 1991, the last team known as the Hurons made a sweet 16 run, defeating Mississippi State and then Penn State in overtime, before falling to UNC. Then, in 1996, Earl Boykins dropped 23 on Duke to send the Blue Devils home in the first round for the first time since 1955, before losing in the second round to UConn. The '88 team and '98 teams lost to Pittsburgh and Michigan State, respectively.

Elsewhere in EMU sports: Eagles teams have little success on the national level: they were D-I runners up in cross country in 1940 and in the College World Series in 1976, but other than that, there's just a bunch of D-II and NAIA trophies. The most successful EMU team is the men's swimming and diving team, which has won 25 MAC titles, the most by any school in a single sport.

Tidbits

My advice is to wear gloves: EMU's forensics teams are off the charts good. They've finished in the top ten nationally every year since the National Forensics Association began giving out awards in 1971, they've brought home ten national championships and 66 individual championships, not to mention 36 out of 37 state championships. When I read this, I pictured EMU being a lot like CSI: Ypsilanti, but unfortunately, "forensics" actually refers to individual speech competitions.

Yeah, but we have a BK: People the world over owe the hunger of EMU students and fellow Ypsilantonites for cheap, slightly edible pizza delivered within half and hour. In 1960, Tom Monaghan and his brother, James, bought an Ypsilanti pizza store named Dominicks. A year later, Tom bought out James' share for a used VW Beetle. A few years and a name change later, Monaghan opened up the first Domino's franchise across town, and when Monaghan sold his share of the company in 1998, he got approximately a billion dollars for it, meaning he could by a used VW Beetle, and then still have about a billion dollars left over. Sadly for Ypsilantonians, or whatever they're called, Domino's moved their corporate headquarters down the road to Ann Arbor, because, after all, Ann Arbor is apparently the Manhattan to Ypsilanti's Brooklyn.

NU's Attendance issues, in perspective: We frequently complain about our difficulty making our 47,000 stadium look close to full, and with good reason: all that emptiness is mighty depressing. But EMU has bigger issues.

If your D-I institution average less than 15,000 football fans a game for a whole season, your school goes on to some sort of NCAA probation that could prevent them from hosting postseason games, and, if uncorrected for ten years, could result in them losing D-I status. EMU has a pretty good formula for low attendance, despite having 18,000 undergrads: they're a commuter school, meaning students are out of town on weekends, their home stadium is six miles away from a college football stadium that holds 110,000 fans and is nearly always sold out, and their team is consistently awful. This has led to drastic measures: an alumni group bought 5,000 tickets for some games for local high school students when the team went 1-11 in 2006, and the team has taken to occasionally hosting home games at Ford Field to cater to the school's Detroit-centric alumni and commuter base. There, the attendance is around 25,000 a game: low for Ford Field, a cavernous stadium that seats 70,000, but great for EMU. (You probably remember an NU tilt being held in Detroit in 2007.)

Anyway, that's all the random stuff I could dig up on EMU. On Wednesday, I'll discuss their actual football team, but there will be other posts up before then, so, come back, folks.

The EMU Emus

2009-09-07T11:51:00.000-04:00

The grind of not being back at school yet means I'm posting twice on Labor Day. Deal with it.

As of right now, I know nothing about EMU, and you probably don't know much either. (I'll have a post on the school later today, a post on the team wednesday, and a post on how we should handle them thursday, so you'll soon learn.)

But what I do know is that the administration at EMU missed a golden opportunity. Their team name is the Eagle. Their team name SHOULD be the emu. Emus, as you may know, are six-and-a-half foot tall birds from Australia that can't fly, run 30 miles an hour, and considerably more interesting and original than the Eagle as a mascot.

The emu is clearly a sick practical joke played on the rest of the animal kingdom by evolution. (okay, christians, or an intelligent designer.) It looks like a haystack with legs, has a weird creepy head that's sort of covered with feathers but sort of isn't, and has puny little three-inch long wings hanging off the side just to prove that it's a bird.

Also, it's batsh*t insane.

In case you need more evidence that the emu is, indeed, batsh*t insane (you shouldn't, just look at that thing), here's a video of an emu eating another emu's poop.

You can say the eagle is fearsome, unlike the emu, but a quick search of youtube shows this isn't true: there's several dozen videos of emus staring people down and then chasing them, biting them, kicking them, or, but, most frequently, sticking their heads into peoples cars and refusing to leave.

So, long story short: the emu is a vicious, batsh*t insane creature that is considerably more interesting than the eagle. And whenever I see Eastern Michigan University written out as EMU, I think to myself that their mascot should be the Emu, and, yet, it still isn't.

This is why you read my blog.

Around the Big XI, plus other stuff

2009-09-06T13:25:00.001-04:00

First off, some responses to things you had to say in response to my mascot death-fights:

The Thief commented on my original post saying that Buckeyes are poisonous, and therefore, couldn't be eaten by Midshipmen. Fair enough. However, they could, like, stomp on them, shoot them, or bring them into their boats and throw them into the water, all of which would be effective ways of dispatching the Buckeye. It also should be noted that according to the wikipedia, the poison in buckeyes can be eliminated "by leaching the pulverized nuts in multiple changes of boiling water, to yield a wholesome starchy porridge once important to some Native American people", and, furthermore, can be eaten by other mammals such as deer or squirrels. Therefore, poisonous or unpoisonous, predict the Buckeyes go 0-12 in their mascot fight death schedule, since they are the seed of a tree - possibly 0-13, since the Buckeyes are probably bowl bound.

Joshua seems to think that I've misdefined the Wildcat in my other post, and, to be honest, he's right. The Wildcat is wild version of the domestic cat that lives in Europe. The wikipedia tells us that it is about two feet long, ways about eight pounds, and is "extremely timid."

The wikipedia also tells me that the word "Wildcat" can be used to refer to bobcats and lynx, which can actually kill something and aren't simply the wild versions of the thing scratching on the bedposts of lonely old women across the globe. I'm going to use this definition as opposed to the snuggly european one. Trust me, it will improve Northwestern's mascot fight death pool winning percentage at least 20 times, unless Miami of Ohio changes its mascot to the "tiny harmless mice", in which case that little tiny Euro-wildcat might be able to fend for itself.

In other news, I'm bored enough with having two weeks left until going back to college that I just wrote two hundred words about wildcats.

So the Big Ten had some mighty close calls this weekend. I predicted the conference would go 11-0, in fact, it went 10-1, on the virtue of ranked Iowa blocking two straight field goals against the University of Northern Iowa, a overtime miracle win for Minnesota in Syracuse, a squeaker of a win in Columbus over Navy, who came to play. To some, the conference looks weak.

But let's not go printing up Purple to Pasadena t-shirts yet. A week doesn't tell you much, which is just as true of the games of our ten conference foes as it is about NU's romp over Towson. A few more weeks of similarly sucky play by teams like OSU and Iowa, and we can talk title. For now, let's just focus on ourselves.

However, a week was totally enough to tell us that, no, Illinois isn't much good. If they get more votes in the polls tomorrow than us after that game, well, journalists around the country need to learn something.

The Top 25.

I have somewhat of an obsession with the AP poll. Not sure why, but I get a rush out of seeing those little numbers in front of my school's name. So every week, until we get into that poll, I'll be profiling both our performance and the performances of teams in between us and that No. 25 spot. Last year, it took the Wildcats a few weeks just to start getting votes, and they ended up in the poll, and this year, we have a preposterously easy schedule, and five votes already. If the team performs the way they should, they really should end up top 25 by the end of the year. The losses will begin racking up for the mediocre teams in the top 25, and NU will most likely be 3-0 in two weeks, and if they can keep that undefeated streak going, they could be in the rankings by this time next month.

Current position: 44th.

Positions we'd need to move up to be top 25: 19.

How many top 25 teams actually lost: Four, with FSU and Mississippi still to play: Oregon, Virginia Tech, Oklahoma, and Georgia.

So how many spots should open up? I predict one: all those losses were to top 25 teams, and all of those teams were ranked above No. 16, making a drop out of the rankings unlikely. Oregon's loss was particularly ugly though, and they lose their star running back for the rest of the year, so I wouldn't be surprised if they fall out of the voting. Iowa's squeaky win might scare off a few voters, but at the end of the day, it's still a win, and they'll probably hold on.

How many teams in between NU and the top 25 lost?: Four: Illinois, NC State, Central Michigan, and one of either Cincinnati or Rutgers, who play Monday night. (Miami (FL) also plays Monday against a ranked team in FSU.)

Should NU pass any of them?: I've already made my opinions clear on the Illinois thing, and the other three - NC State, Central Michigan, and the loser of the Cincy-Rutgers game - will definitely fall below NU.

So what are NU's chances of cracking the top 25?: Preposterously slim. NU will likely pass those schools and pick up a few votes, but pretty much end up in the same place next week, as other schools will probably pass NU.

Is that justified?: Yeah. Objectively, nobody can say NU deserves to be in the top 25 teams in the country right now. I'd put them between 35-40 right now, but time will show this team improving.

1-0: the Recap

2009-09-05T17:54:00.006-04:00

So I watched the game, took a long, long walk, just to make sure I wasn't sitting in my room from sunrise to sunset on pretty much the nicest day in Manhattan history, and now I feel ready to set down my thoughts on that game.

First off, I said that there was pretty much no way this Towson game could turn out well - even if we did well, there'd be the thought in our head that "oh, it was only Towson." Well, I was wrong. That game went about as well as it possibly could've with only a few exceptions: the worst part of the game was a rather nasty looking injury to Jeravin Matthews, and our defense fell asleep on two drives. But otherwise, I thought we managed to look great even with the context that we were playing against a rather scrubby team. Our first team was clearly overwhelming, then, our second and third teams proved that they were both better than Towson's starters.

Even with a gameplan conservative enough to make Karl Rove tingly, the Wildcats ran rampant. There were large stretches of the game where it was clear that we'd be running the ball right up the middle on every play, and we were still regularly converting first downs. We ran the ball 23 times on first down, and passed it six times. We ran the ball 21 times on second down, and only passed it six times. And yet, even with that run-heavy attack, we still moved the ball down the field pretty easily.

The fact that the first four possessions of the game resulted in four punts and four TD's makes me feel pretty confident about this team. After that opening stretch, our whole team seemed to loosen up and take the whole process a little bit easier, resulting in the output slowing a little bit, but, there's no way you could really be angry at that happening. The score could've easily been more lopsided than 47-14, but neither Fitz nor I would have actually liked to have seen that happen, because that first quarter was all the affirmation we needed that we were way, way better than the other team. There's no better way of saying "I'm not trying to score" than making Mark Woodsum run on five consecutive downs.

Oh, and experience is clearly overrated: five guys caught, ran or threw for their first touchdowns today.

So let's break this down by unit.

Throwing it: In my prediction, I called for Mike Kafka to just chill out and throw the ball. And sure enough, he did, and sure enough, he looked absolutely fantastic. I don't recall any poor throws, and he went 15-20 on a variety of short passes. He still could use a little bit more confidence in his ability to throw out of the pocket, but still, he looked great. In future, I'd like to see him throw a bit more, but this was a great tune-up, and allowed us to fully figure out our RB situation. He also looked good on the ground.

Dan Persa decided to go with the thunder-and-lightning approach to being quarterback, throwing two passes, one for a 72-yard TD and the other for a telegraphed pick into what looked like a crowd of three defenders and one receiver. I like his game though - he's going to be a good quarterback when it's his turn to start, although that could be my obsession with running QB's talking for me. He should get a few more reps against EMU, and then he should ride pine for the rest of the season.

Joe Mauro, it turns out, is a real human being, which is good to see, as his existence was previously questionable.

Running: I called for a bunch of RB's to run the ball straight up the gut in my prediction, and because Fitz must've read that and tried to make me look as smart as possible, he complied. Stephen Simmons, Arby Fields, Jeravin Matthews, Jacob Schmidt, Scott Concannon, and Mark Woodsum all got time taking handoffs and going in between the tackles with them. By far the most impressive was Fields, who, a week before new student week, is already having a pretty beast freshman year. If I had to rank the crew, I'd go Fields, Simmons, Matthews, Concannon, and Schmidt. That being said, they all looked really good. It was cool to see Schmidt and Concannon, guys who, like Joe Mauro, hadn't completely convinced me of their existence as actual people, get into the end zone, and I wouldn't feel uncomfortable with them taking snaps in Big Ten games after seeing each of them break out decent gains against the Towson d. Simmons didn't have any signature plays, but he's definitely our most consistent back at this point, and should continue starting unless Fields really cranks up the heat.

Catching: We have a number one wide receiver, and his name is Andrew Brewer. Brew has proven himself as a deep ball threat since spring ball, and the culmination of that was a 72-yard streak past the Towson d. I really love his size and speed (pause) and think he'll be a true threat in Big Ten season.

Our other wide receivers proved to me that they could catch the ball when nobody was near them pretty well, which is good. The only drop I remember belonged to Josh Rooks and he was hit pretty heavily. Demetrius Fields kept confusing me when the announcer said "Fields with the catch", and for those of us looking for more superback action, Drake Dunsmore looks like he'll really be able to contribute from that position.

Also, after a long time, I finally learned how to pronounce "Markshausen." I assumed there was a "shhhh" in the middle, but apparently it's like "Mark's house in" which was news to me.

O-line: Solid. Although I still think Ward shoulda redshirted, but I guess it sends a good message to any four star recruits out there looking to come to NU but going somewhere else so they could play as freshmen.

D: Not a great game for the d. First off, the two touchdowns really shouldn't have happened, and, surprisingly, the Tigers moved the ball relatively well through the air for a team with three freshmen quarterbacks going up against an imposing secondary. However, for now, I'm going to look back the two touchdowns, and celebrate what was an absolute lockdown performance in the first quarter. This performance might have resulted in a loss if we were playing against some good team, but, luckily, it wasn't, so, we can let it go: all told, they did pretty well. The secondary wasn't great, though, and we've read too much about that unit for them not to be, so, hopefully they improve.

I'm really confident in the linebacking corps of Davie, Williams, and Johnson, by the way. Those guys are good.

Where was Corey Wootton? I barely noticed him. I was expecting to see him record somewhere near a dozen sacks after last season and after reading about how bad Towson was, but, instead, he didn't even record a tackle, and I don't really even remember seeing him that much on the field.

Our second unit gave hope for the future: that Quentin Williams pick was fun to see, and my boy Stone Pinckney recorded two tackles. Long story short, when they were on the field, the younguns looked great.

Kickin it: Stefan Demos looked good as a kicker and punter, but I've decided that to keep the poor kid's leg ligaments from turnin to puree by week 9, I think Steve Flaherty should take over kickoff duties. And I'm not saying that just cuz he's a journalism kid: Demos had seven kickoffs, no touchbacks, Flaherty had one, and one. Ball don't lie. That way, we divvy up Demos' heaping of kicking duties, and still manage not to dirty wonderchild Jeff Budzien's redshirt.

So, a huge offensive day, but it only makes one W. Admittedly, it was really, really, really, really depressing to watch - I almost cried when Towson snapped it out of the back of the end zone, and the crowd was really pathetic - but it's always good to see a W. We dodged the karma gods of college football with all the Mauro-Woodsum handoffs, and now, we can move on. On to Eastern Michigan.

Northwestern, 47, Towson, 14.

2009-09-05T14:52:00.002-04:00

Let's be real: that was fun. A bit depressing to watch, you felt kind of bad for Towson at points, but, still, seeing NU win, always fun. Regardless of the circumstances.

Full coverage later.

Why Aren't you at Ryan Field?

2009-09-05T11:00:00.000-04:00

It's 10 AM, central time. What are you still doing looking at blogs?

(Futureposted yesterday by a blogger who doesn't want to see a 2/3 empty stadium for his team's home opener.)

(Oh, and, I would be at the game, but, yeah, I live in New York. So, not happening.)

It's What You've All Been Waitin For, Ain't It: Week One.

2009-09-04T15:05:00.005-04:00

So tomorrow, we play Towson. The word surrounding our gameplan this week is likely to be "vanilla", and that's a great thing.

Last year's starting skill position players on offense had about three of game reps to gel before last year's Big Ten schedule. These guys have three weeks. Luckily, those three weeks contain three relatively easy games. NU's players are good enough to win this on talent alone, and won't need fancy playcalling, so look for that vanilla stuff to just help them get into rhythm and get comfortable with each other.

You can sort of sense this coming from the way NU handled last year's Syracuse game. In the first game of coaches McCall and Hankwitz, the playcalling was pretty bland, and in the second quarter, when the game was still relatively up for grabs, we saw Mike Kafka come into the game. However, since the game was still losable, Bachér and fam came back in until the game was safely out of reach, when subs started to come in in droves.

Next week, against Duke, the playcalling was a little bit more bold. One drive featured direct snaps to Tyrell Sutton and an end-around pass to CJ Bachér. So, the future weeks are for experimenting.

This week is just for going in, playing the starters for 20 minutes, and getting back out.

Predictions:

Offense: I don't want to see Mike Kafka running around. Judging from the way he merked Minnesota last year, Kafka is faster and most likely stronger than a lot of guys playing on the Towson defense. If he gets a head start towards the line of scrimmage on a bootleg, he'd probably be past the Towson secondary faster than Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson.

But we don't need that. What we do need is a Mike Kafka that can consistently complete short passes to his receiving corps, and a Mike Kafka that doesn't have a concussion or some other injury. I want to see him passing out of the pocket and getting on the same page as his receivers. (Yeah, I know he's been passing to these guys on the second unit in practice for years, but, he's never played in a game with them . So he needs to get on the same page.)

Towson has a comically weak running defense, one I should've highlighted a few days ago in my post about their football team, but, here will suffice: the Tigers gave up 231 rushing yards per game. TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY-ONE. Opponents averaged 5.57 yards per carry. Highlights include Navy's 558 yards on the ground (they only threw four times), led by Shun White's 348 yards rushing, Coastal Carolina's 302 yards on the ground, and James Madison's 440 yards rushing.

Luckily, NU has an unproven running corps that we need to see getting some action. I want Simmons, Fields, and Matthews each to get a large amount of carries. This is still an open competition, and I want to see these guys compete. If our running game racks up a lot of yards straight up the middle against Towson's swiss cheese run defense, it will go a long way towards selling our run game so that we can do more interesting things with our play calling. Let's keep it a little bit run heavy after Kafka completes a few out of the pocket.

Defense: This unit is too good for Towson. This team gave up six sacks in their spring game against a considerably less talented defense in, well, their own defense. If they do get throws off, our secondary is waiting to pounce. They'll quickly learn that passing will not work against our defense.

Stopping the run up the middle could be the weakest part of this year's defense, and, luckily, Towson's offense is extremely run-heavy, so it will be a good opportunity for our DT's to get some reps and step up and make some stops.

People I'm watching: Dan Persa. He should get heavy tick in the second half, so let's see if he can play.

Our whole running back platoon: as noted. These guys, as noted, should rotate in and out the whole game. I want to see everybody on the depth chart get in there and show whether or not they can compete or not. If Jacob Schmidt or Scott Concannon comes out having the best game, fine maybe he deserves more time. If Arby Fields has the best game, hey, maybe he should be starting come Big Ten season.

Corey Wootton. Corey's healed. I wanna see some maulings.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Tigers and Wildcats are pretty similar in name, but whiel you know that the Tiger is a vicious killing machine, a wildcat is a really vague term. It could be anything from a puma to a stray cat that's spent a few years on the streets. Therefore, I have to pick the Towson Tiger. Unless you're dealing with one of those Siegfried and Roy tigers, in which case, Wildcats.

Prediction:

Towson, 6, NU, 44. That's five touchdowns and three field goals. Fitz won't run up the score, but with a weak defense as bad as this, I expect even running up the gut in the fourth quarter to net a TD or two. I do expect Towson to get on the board, just based on us not being ready yet.

Wait's over, folks. Go Cats, yo.

Apologies to the Big Ten Network

2009-09-04T14:46:00.003-04:00

Earlier in the week, I said that I was having difficulty finding the Towson-Northwestern game on my cable box, even though I was able to find every other game possible.

Well, since then, my TV box has apparently updated, and the game has appeared on upcoming schedule, tomorrow at noon, listed under "Big Ten Football". I'm sorry for the widespread panic I probably caused, and for underestimating the Big Ten Network. For all its faults, the BTN really is a great resource for fans of the conference's 11 schools. They outcover pretty much everybody, and they make it possible for a fan of a school with 8,000 kids in Illinois living in New York to watch their school's silly little cupcake home opener. And if that wasn't enough, apparently, all those Rotel queso ads absolutely rake in cash for the schools. (My personal favorite ads on the BTN are the ones for Solo cups, as if college students hadn't heard.)

That being said, I'm not going to pay money to get a channel that I'll get in my dorm room for free in two weeks, also, I'd rather watch the game in a sports bar with, you know, other people, than in my own room.

Brendan Smith Memorial Big Ten Picks.

2009-09-04T12:57:00.001-04:00

Memorializing what, again?

Oh, yeah, that. It's been almost six days since I posted that. Too long.

Anyway, pickin: no scores, just games. I'm just gonna tell you who I think is going to win.

Do you guys care who I think is going to win? Probably not. But if you're like me, you just want to read as much about football as you can right now, so, here goes. If you want, you can skip this post, cuz I'll have better ones later.

11 AM CT: Montana State @ Michigan State.

Analysis: Both Montana and Michigan are states that start with the letter M. One is better at football.

My guess as to what Montana State's mascot is, without looking: The Cougars.

What it actually is: The Bobcats. Not that far off, to be honest.

Pick: Michigan State.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: A single bobcat might be able to cause problems against a single Spartan, but Spartans work well in packs. Game MSU.

11 AM CT: Minnesota @ Syracuse.

The last time we saw Minnesota, they were stumbling and bumbling their way down the stretch by losing five straight to end the season, including the Brendan Smith game, a 29-6 loss to Michigan, and a 55-0 loss to Iowa. However, they still have Adam Weber and Eric Decker, and Syracuse is, as noted on here, recovering from a hellish apocalypse of a season and now have a new head coach and a quarterback who hasn't been tackled in four years. Minnesota should win by a lot, but they won't.

Pick: Minnesota.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Orange is a color, and therefore, cannot die, I'm DQing them right off the bat. Game, Minnesota.

11 AM CT: Navy @ Ohio State.

People have criticized OSU taking Navy and their freaky triple option run-on-every-play offense in a week where what they really need is a tune-up game a week before playing USC. They're right, in a way, in that, yes, they need a tune-up, and these are two very, very different offenses that will be difficult to play in back to back weeks. However, this is not a trap game: OSU is just too talented. This'll be a blowout.

Pick: OSU.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Buckeyes are nuts, right? Midshipmen can eat those. Game Navy.

11 AM CT: Akron @ Penn State.

Jesus, this is boring, what with all the obvious victories. I hope Akron scores, if only to prevent the obvious headlines about the Zips offensive performance from appearing in every single reputable publication in the state of Pennsylvania and Ohio on Sunday morning.

Pick: Penn State.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: A zip is an onomatopoeic sound, and therefore, not a tangible object. Game PSU.

11 AM CT: Toledo @ Purdue.

Both teams have new head coaches. You're probably like, "hey, why does Toledo need a new head coach after that great season where they beat Michigan?" But you have to remember that that Michigan game was an outlier in an otherwise bad season. Toledo went 3-9 last year, with the only wins against Michigan, and... two NU out-of-conference opponents, Miami (OH) and Eastern Michigan, who they beat 42-14 and 41-17, respectively. All this to reinforce how bad our out of conference schedule this year is, as if you didn't know already.

Pick: Purdue.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Yeah, rockets are scary, but boilermakers have the engineering prowess to make rockets, and presumably, would know how to disarm them or otherwise escape death by rocket.

11:05 AM CT: Northern Iowa @ Iowa.

I'll put it this way: I guarantee 90% of the players on Northern Iowa wish they played for Iowa. That artificially imagined statistic is not the stuff upsets are made of.

My guess as to what Northern Iowa's mascot is, without looking: I'm sticking with Cougars. I'm confident, if nothing else.

What it actually is: the Panthers. The big cat motif is a wise one to stick with.

Pick: Iowa.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Well, a panther is a vicious, murderous beast, and a hawkeye is either the disembodied eye of a hawk or a person with good vision, both of which could be devoured quite easily by your average panther. Game NIU.

2:30 PM CT: Western Michigan @ Michigan.

The battle of the directional schools against the larger schools the athletes wish they played for continues. WMU was actually pretty decent last year, but I have a feeling that Michigan won't be that abhorrent this year. Just mediocre. And that this one won't be as close as you think it will be.

My guess as to what Western Michigan's mascot is without looking: I know I just stuck with the cat motif, but, Michigan directional schools seem more down to earth. I'm going with the Rams.

What it actually is: the Broncos. It's actually in the school's logo, so I should've seen it.

Pick: Michigan.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Most interesting matchup yet. Common wisdom goes with the wolverine, since they're ferocious, but they're relatively small, definitely not big enough to bring down a bucking bronco. I think this one ends with an upset via a bronco hoof to the head.

2:40 PM CT: Illinois vs. Missouri.

The Braggin Rights game features a Missouri team trying to find its identity after losing Jeremy Maclin and a boatload of Chases, while Illinois needs a win for this year to mean anything. Juice and Rejus have some fun, and Illinois will come away with the win.

Pick: Illinois. I just said that, didn't I.

PIck in a mascot fight to the death: The most lopsided fight yet. Game: Mizzou.

6 PM CT: Northern Illinois @ Wisconsin.

Nothing about Wisconsin impresses me. If you want a bold prediction, I think Purdue will have a better season than Wisconsin. I would pick this as a Big Ten loss, but NIU isn't a particularly great program.

Pick: Wisconsin.

Pick in a mascot fight to the death: Another interesting mammal fight between two animals not known for their killing prowess. Huskies are bigger and more durable, and although they're not carnivorous by trade, I think the Arctic Circle has gotta be a pretty tough place to survive: Game NIU.

11 AM CT: Towson @ NU.

My pick: in the next post. Yeah, it's like that.

My projected Big 10 record in Week 1 (including Indiana, excluding NU): 10-0.

My projected Big 10 mascot death fights record in week 1 (including Indiana [for the record, the Eastern Kentucky Colonel is probably packing heat, and wouldn't hesitate to just shoot the Hoosier in the chest with his ivory-handled pistol], excluding NU): 5-5.

Like I said, come back later for my prediction on the NU-Towson matchup. If you thought this was an exercise in futility, tell me, and I won't do it next week. In my defense, it really does look like the Big 10 has practically no competition this week. If I had to pick a loss, it would be either Illinois or Wisconsin.

One. Day.

2009-09-04T12:08:00.002-04:00

A different Youtube video every day, just to get you sufficiently pumped.

I saved the best for last. Ten minutes of solid dramatic music set to every highlight from the 2008 season, except none of the highlights from games we lost. For ten straight minutes. Yes.

T-minus 24, folks. T-minus 24. And think about this. Watch that video.

Did you watch it? Ten less minutes to football season now than there were when you started.

College football last night was actually pretty boring, but hey. I always find myself in the first few weeks of the season rooting for every team with slightly more votes in the AP poll than NU to lose, and that wish came true with NC State and their multitude of ten votes coming up short, although I was disappointed with ranked Utah and Boise State beating lesser opponents. (I also pull for every team in another BCS conference to lose to non-BCS opponents, but unfortunately, Iowa State wasn't really troubled by North Dakota State.

On the Big Ten front, Indiana... sort of represented, taking down Eastern Kentucky, 19-13, so my 19-13 pick was close, I guess. However, I set a bad precedent picking a score for that game. I will, however, be picking the Big Ten games in a quick post later today, and, guess what, I got two more posts coming up too!

I've been posting up a storm recently, and it's not stopping any time soon. So check back later.

I think we're going to disappoint Towson.

2009-09-03T16:35:00.006-04:00

Towson is an FCS school that runs a football program, year-in, year-out, with little glamor or glitz. As noted about a billion times, they've only played one FBS school in team history, and that was in-state opponent Navy last year.

And Towson seems excited to be playing a opponent that's on a bowl-game level, but the problem is, I think they're a little bit too excited. I think they have some image that because NU has had a decent amount of success in the past few years, we're a major, big time, Hollywood program, with tens of thousands of murderously raucous fans screaming obscenities and hurling D Batteries and soda bottles filled with blood onto the field.

The Baltimore Sun tells us that head coach Rob Ambrose has been putting his team through practice with "music, thunder, and screaming" piped in to simulate the atmosphere of NU's 47,000 seat Terrordome.

The article includes a smattering of funny quotes: (Editors note: I wish I could tell you why all the font on my blog goes black for a few paragraphs, but no idea.)

"First up is Northwestern - yes, that Northwestern - a bowl-savvy, lip-smacking Big Ten team whose scrubs might give Towson fits."

"Not lost on the Tigers is recent history. Three years ago, New Hampshire, another team from the unheralded Colonial Athletic Association, journeyed to Evanston, Ill., and stunned Northwestern, 34-17."

Rob Ambrose says that ""Our guys are going to find out that, as big and bad as a top 20 team is, if they play their butts off, they can play with anybody."

"Northwestern has 47 lettermen back from a team that beat Michigan before 107,000 in Ann Arbor.

On the other hand, Towson has new uniforms"

Uh, while it's cool to see NU portrayed in such a flattering light, there's some serious overexaggerations. First off, Towson might have beaten Michigan in front of 107,000 in Ann Arbor last year. Next, although we were ranked No. 19 for a little bit last year, calling us a "Big, bad top 20 team" is a bit of a stretch. Also, we've played in bowls, we're not quite bowl-savvy, I'm not sure what "yes, that Northwestern" is supposed to mean, and although we were expected to win against New Hampshire, the author is writing about it like it was Hoosiers or something. (By the way, despite the slight tweaking of facts to make this story more dramatic than it should be, the author is not fictional Baltimore Sun reporter Scott Templeton. And to be honest, it's not a badly written story, nor is it really tweaking the facts, I just find it really funny how NU is described in the complete opposite way of how we've come to expect it. If you're reading this, author of this story, keep doing your thing.)

Also, Towson is organizing a big trip to watch the game, the only time they're doing so all year, and an author for Towson's student newspaper calls us "inarguably the school's toughest opponent in program history."

Look, like I said, it's all flattering. But I'm sorry, we have to disappoint. There will probably be somewhere in the range of 15-20,000 people at the game on Saturday, leaving the stadium about 2/3 empty, and, in terms of us being, big, bad boys, although we wish everybody thought that we were, the other ten schools in our conference laugh at us. Even when we beat them.

Basically, as I've said about a million times, this game is a whirlpool of disappointment. If we do great, we're saddening a bunch of happy-go-lucky Towsonians excited to see their Tigers compete against a Big Ten school, only to see them get ransacked in front of a half-interested crowd. If it's close, our team isn't too good. If we lose, well, I hope you enjoyed people talking about us positively.

That being said, I think we'll win by a lot. And although this means that we'll forever have to live with the guilt of bringing sadness upon the comically overenthusiastic people who wrote these articles, on the plus side,

Two Days/I'm an Idiot

2009-09-03T11:20:00.000-04:00

A different youtube video every day, just to get you sufficiently pumped.

Props to whoever recorded this. There's nothing like a college football student section (except maybe a college basketball student section), and while the season starts in two days, the quarter system means I've got another three weeks until I get to stand on metal bleachers and go hoarse, and that's sort of depressing.

For those of you wondering about the "I'm an idiot" portion of the title, well, you'll notice that yesterday I had a post saying "four days" and today I have a post saying "three days."

Well, last saturday, I had a post saying "Seven Days" because I looked and saw it was a week from football season. However, it took until today for me to actually look at a calendar and realize, "hey, that countdown means there's still a day left on saturday", which is stupid. I'm not counting down to sunday.

Anyway, yes, I'm an idiot. In my defense, I'm a journalism student, and therefore, haven't taken a math class since high school, haven't gotten above a C+ in a math class since tenth grade, and haven't gotten a B in math... ever. (I'm proud to be one of the few Northwestern students who says they got bad grades and means it. I assume this means I'm amongst the top five journalists of all time, but I'll leave that for you to decide.)

In other news, college football starts tonight! In even better news, Big Ten football starts tonight! Indiana plays Eastern Kentucky, and if this game took place two years ago, and was basketball, and you changed the word "Eastern" to "Western", I'd totally watch it, and it would be on the news as a matchup of potential tourney teams. Sadly, none of those things are the case.

Eastern Kentucky is sort of an FCS powerhouse - 31 consecutive winning seasons - and Indiana is sort of a FBS, well, whatever the opposite of powerhouse is (slaughterhouse? crackhouse?), so expect it to be closer than your average I-A vs. I-AA matchup.

I'm going Indiana, 24, EKU, 17. Watch a bit and switch over toe the Oregon-Boise State matchup. You gotta pull for the Hoosiers, because you never, ever want your future opponents to drop a game (or nine) to FCS squads.

It also should be noted that Indiana added a little over 3,000 seats to Memorial Stadium in the offseason, pushing the difference in size between our stadiums from about 2100 to about 5500. I'm not sure what the purpose of this was, but suffice it to say, with a hot start to the year and good student support at Ryan Field, who knows, maybe Indiana will challenge for the 2009 edition of the prestigious Big Ten's Most Empty Seats award, which NU has won handily pretty year ever. Sadly, short of back-to-back NU Rose Bowls or a snap decision by Purdue to move all their home games to el Estadio Azteca, I think NU will probably be the frontrunner for this trophy for a long time.

Gettin Familiar With: Towson Football.

2009-09-02T14:09:00.002-04:00

I told y'all bout Towson, now to find out about the football team.

This is a photo of ex-Tiger Jermon Bushrod. It's not related to this at all, but it is by far the coolest picture ever taken of somebody playing for the Towson Tigers, and quite frankly, would probably be the coolest picture of someone playing for Northwestern, so I had to post it.

I mean, I'd need you to find me a person who wouldn't look awesome holding a mallet. I would look awesome holding a mallet.

Historically vs. NU: No meetings. Towson's first game in school history against an FBS opponent was last year's season opening 41-13 loss to Navy.

Overview: Towson isn't a good football team. The team went 3-9 last year. The three wins came against Morgan State, Columbia, and Rhode Island, with the Rhode Island win being their only victory against a conference opponent in a 1-7 slate. Sean Schaefer was a pretty good quarterback, throwing for 3286 yards with a 25-16 TD-INT ratio, but remember, that's against FCS competition.

So, that, minus...: A decent amount of people. Head Coach Gordy Combs was fired after his 17th season at the helm of the Tigers, and was replaced by Rob Ambrose, UConn's offensive coordinator and an ex-wide receiver for Towson. Schaefer, the QB, graduated, Matt Castor, the teams leaving rusher, left the team due to personal reasons, and the team leader in receiving touchdowns, Tommy Breaux, graduated. The Tigers are not very experience-heavy, in fact, they only have 8 seniors this season, which is a really, really, really low number.

Offense: Towson's offense, predictably, is a jumble. It's bad enough that they lose all those starters, only averaged Ambrose ran a very rush-heavy system at UConn, with Donald Brown leading the nation with over 2000 yards on the ground. Here, he might not have a choice: as of today, there's no starting QB. Blake Peterson, a 24-year old who spent two years as a missionary in Argentina, then went to the University of New Mexico, then transferred because he realized he'd never play, backed up and played in six games last year, and looked like the sure starter after spring ball, but true freshman Peter Athens has supposedly given him a run for his money. The Tigers also have Jeremy Jayne, a quarterback who transferred from Temple, providing ex-DI talent.

As noted, they don't have a returning running back, which is a problem for a fellow like Rob Ambrose. Jas Lee Rouson, who has a great name, was the second leading carrier last year, but he's injured, and it appears carries will go to either Trevor Walker or Tremayne Dameron, both of whom redshirted last year. (It should be noted that Tremayne lists his favorite author as Owen Meany, which is either a clever, hyper-literary inside joke or a sign that Tremayne isn't one for the books. These are the things you must know.) Damien Kinchen started a game last year due to injuries to the top two running backs and also could play.

If you're wondering about Towson's offensive line, they gave up six sacks... against their own defense in the spring game. That might sound reasonable, but you clearly don't know about their defense. (It's pretty bad too. I consider this a segue into the defense part of this post) I hypothesize the poor offensive linesmanship is because Chuck Taylor, a 345-pound offensive guard who started 25 games at New Mexico State before transferring, ate one or two of his platoonmates. Either that, or he provided them with his old-timey basketball shoes that he told them would help them play football, but instead made them hang out with annoying hipsters all the time and they smoked a lot of cigarettes and drank PBR and decided to quit the football team.

Chuck's shoes are good for 1930's basketball but have little traction.

(In all actuality, Taylor is supposedly a pretty good OG.)

Defense: SEGUES, HOMIE! The Towson defense allowed 35.25 points per game against atrocious opponents last year. They allowed 30 points in 12 games (the exceptions being the victories against Morgan State and Columbia) 40 points in four games, and a whopping 58 against James Madison in the season closer. However, the unit was dominant in the spring game, only allowing one touchdown, recording six sacks and an interception. The impetus behind any improvements will be defensive end Brady Smith, who transferred from Boston College, where he had started 20 games in his first two seasons, recording a sack in the ACC Championship game against Virginia Tech.

In case you're wondering what scheme the Tigers will run, the answer is... "multiple." Matt Hachmann, an ex-NU recruiting assistant and Towson's new defensive coordinator, said they simply aren't decided yet. This, friends, sounds like a team to worry about.

I have to ask, what's up with all this transferring?: Towson, as you might have noticed, has a high proportion of players who are transfers from FBS schools. Well, quite simply, it looks like Rob Ambrose has tried to corner the markets on transfers. FCS transfers are attractive to guys at FBS programs looking to play, because unlike transferring to other FBS schools, you aren't required to sit out a year, and Ambrose has capitalized on this, luring Smith and Taylor, and attempting to lure Justin Roper, a transfer QB from Oregon, who eventually decided to play for the University of Montana. As for why they're transferring, it appears many just wanted a change of scene although for the QB's, those guys needed to go some place where they could play after finding they weren't FBS talent. Smith seems to be the only notable exception, as he was good enough to play at BC, and liked it there, but was kicked out of the school because he was a tad too rapey to remain under scholarship at BC.

Transitive property logic that leads me to believe that we'll win by a lot:

9/20, 2008: Coastal Carolina, 31, Towson, 3.

8/30, 2008: No. 22 Penn State, 66, Coastal Carolina, 10.

11/8, 2008: Iowa, 24, No. 3 Penn State, 23

9/27, 2008: Northwestern, 22, Iowa, 17.

Transitive property score differential: 100.

All name team: Runners-up: The alliterative Ghanaian redshirt freshman linebacker Brian Boateng-Botwe, sophomore DT Marcus Valentine, and of course, senior LB Alex Butt. I particularly like Butt's name because it's such a great contrast between a relatively serious name in "Alex" and a very not serious one in "Butt". It's sort of like Gary Pelvis, or something.

Winner: Senior wide receiver Tamba Tongu. This is a great name. It's alliterative, and it's got a nice rhythm and a nice flow to it. It just rolls off the tongue (Tongu-e?) very nicely.

(It should be noted I'm not looking for the funniest names, just the best ones. Sometimes that means funny, but I'm looking for quality. For example if I scanned the Wildcats roster, I'd definitely pick Stone Pinckney. That's such a great name. I'd like to be named Stone Pinckney. With a name like Stone Pinckney, you could be like a congressman, senator, or golf school instructor, and on the other hand, you totally could be a fireman, news anchor, or porn star. It's a limitless name.) (What I'm trying to say is, unlike Name of the Year blog, this isn't so much an "I'm laughing at you" as it is an "I salute your wonderful name, if you'd like to come over and smoke a cigar in celebration of your wonderful name, you're free anytime. You know my number" sort of thing.)

So how does NU play em?: Just stick to our strategy. We don't need to alter our game plan. This should be like the spring game or scrimmage, just with the other team instead of our defense. Take the starters out sometime in the middle of the second quarter, and just play Northwestern football. We can save our experimenting for EMU or Miami (OH).

Prediction: Nope. Wait till Friday.

Three Days.

2009-09-02T12:43:00.002-04:00

A different Youtube video every day, just to get you sufficiently pumped.

Boy, it's sure going to be exciting to see all those guys... in action... this year for the Wildcats... oh crap.

PS: I will be revealing the results of the poll to the right directly before gametime, so I suggest you vote now. It's getting heated, as one person has manned up and voted for Towson, so, vote. It's your civic duty.

Presidents to Represent Me.

2009-09-01T17:21:00.001-04:00

I, like every other Northwestern student, received an email from a guy named Morton O. Schapiro today. The gist of the email is that he's the new president of Northwestern University, and he's replacing Henry S. Bienen, whose last day on the job was yesterday. (For some reason, I was really picky about middle initials in this paragraph.)

I think it's safe to say that Schapiro immediately becomes the second or third most important figure in Northwestern sports, behind Pat Fitzgerald and Jim Phillips.

To understand why, look at Northwestern sports under Bienen's administration. Bienen took over the job on January 1, 1995, and Northwestern sports was an elaborate joke at best, with a few NIT teams, and really, nothing else since the 1960's.

Exactly a year later, the team was in the Rose Bowl. (This had nothing to do with Bienen, but, still.) Bienen quickly realized something no other Northwestern administrator ever had: sports teams seem irrelevant to the school from an academic standpoint, but they breed more than school spirit. The increased exposure from the Rose Bowl appearance led to an increase in applications, which allowed NU to be more selective of who they accepted academically and earned the school money. Yes, having good sports teams is fun, but it's also great for the school's image at large, and I'd say NU has improved overall due to our team's on-field improvements. He devoted himself to improving the school's sports teams, and the coaching hires he made show it. Although he can't take credit for the Rose Bowl win, our football teams, plus our teams in other sports such as lacrosse and softball have seen much more success under Bienen than under any previous president. And that's probably not a coincidence.

On the flipside, Bienen is supposedly Bill Carmody's biggest fan, and the main reason he's still employed. Bienen loves himself some basketball, enough so that he brought it up for no apparent reason at a speech to the parents of incoming students last year, and he's good friends with Carmody. There's a lot of speculation that the end of Bienen's administration will bring the end of Carmody's if there isn't major improvement this year. We'll see how it all actually turns out, but, remember, the athletic director and all the coaches are employed by the school, and the final decisions as to who keeps what job are made by the president.

Schapiro comes from Williams College, which is somewhat of a sports powerhouse on the D-III level. The Ephs have won 13 of 14 Division III director's cups, which are awarded to the school that has the best all-around performances in NCAA championship events, with points awarded based on team finishes in every sport the NCAA sanctions competitions in. (On the D-I level, Stanford has won the Director's Cup 15 of the 16 years the cup has been awarded, with their only second-place finish coming in the trophy's inaugural 1994 season. This makes me a little suspect, as Stanford doesn't seem like a sports powerhouse, but I guess they're definitely a program NU can look up to, even if our football team is way, way better.) Long story short, Schapiro knows how to run an athletic department. If it's worth anything, Williams recruited the best player in my high school's basketball history, and he comes off the bench there.

So, the Schapiro era starts today, and its impact will be felt in NU sports. I think we'll be in good hands, and I think the bottom-feeder days of NU sports are fading fast.

Bienen, oddly enough, has accepted a position as the chairman of the Board of Directors for the UFL, which is the same football league that CJ Bachér is currently quarterbacking in. So good luck with that, ex-Prez/CJ.

Next on the Chopping Block: Towson.

2009-09-01T13:23:00.003-04:00

Four times this year, and, well, every year, NU plays an out-of-conference opponent. The question arises: who are these guys?

Some people only want to know who they are in a football sense, but to truly understand our opponents on the gridiron, you have to understand where they come from, so football strategy can wait. I plan on getting to know these universities a little bit better with four quick posts on each college, mainly with info gleaned from the school's wikipedia pages.

This weeks victim: Towson University.

Where: Towson, Maryland, a place in Baltimore County the Wikipedia is very precise not to refer to as a town. There aren't many notable Towsonians, but Carmelo Anthony, the proud West Baltimore native, went to high school in Towson before transferring to the Oak Hill Academy. In a weird NU connection, the wikipedia tells me that Julia Louis-Dreyfus' character Elaine Benes is supposedly from Towson, although I don't remember it ever coming up on the show. Also in Towson is Goucher College, a former all-women's school which would probably provide a considerably worse opponent in football.

When: Towson was founded in 1866, and has been called by many names, something the Wikipedia kindly sums up in a single image:

(apparently, this image goes wayyyyyyyyy off the right of the page. There are five logos.) Surprisingly, Wikipedia doesn't have an image of the seal from the University's brief period when it was called "Towson University Ochocinco."

Enrollment: 15,374.

Stadium Size?: Johnny Unitas Stadium seats 11,000, or about 4,000 less than there are attendees of the school. In other news, a Towson fan just heard you complaining about how difficult it is to fill a 50,000 seat stadium with only 8,000 students, and I'm pretty sure he just rolled his eyes and gave you the finger.

Public/Private?: Public.

Alums I've heard of: Quite frankly, the list of interesting people who have actually graduated from Towson is pretty short: I'd limit it to Braves GM John Schuerholz - who actually is the main person credited with the making Towson's mascot the tiger - and the guy who played the voice of Elmo, whose name I already forget despite the fact that I'm looking at the wikipedia page now. However, Towson does have some pretty cool almost-graduates: Stacy Keibler, a wrestler/actress mainly known for being unreasonably attractive, attended Towson before leaving to capitalize on her attractiveness, and Tamir Goodman, the Jewish Jordan, an orthodox Jew who was very briefly an inspiration to basketball-loving Jews like myself everywhere in the mid 1990's.

For those of you unfamiliar with Goodman's story, he was highly touted after averaging in the high 30's in his junior and senior years of high school playing for the Talmudical Acadamy of Baltimore. He was electric on the court, dunking a lot and whatnot, and accepted a scholarship to play at the University of Maryland. His insistence on wearing a tallis and yarmulke during games, and his refusal to play basketball on the Sabbath, caught a decent amount of press, but after he found out that Maryland wanted him to play and practice Fridays and Saturday's, Goodman left the Terps for Towson. His first year at Towson went off without a hitch, as he averaged a decent 6 points and 4 assists, not great numbers, but alright for a rookie, and he attracted decently sized crowds to go watch Towson play. Unfortunately for Tamir, Mike Jaskulski, the coach who brought Goodman in, left after the Tigers' 12-17 season, and he was replaced by Michael Hunt, a coach less sensitive to Goodman's religious tendencies. (This really skippy youtube video was filmed in the halcyon days of Goodman's time at Towson.)Tamir left the team a month into the 01-02 season, and has spent the past six years bouncing back between playing pro ball in Israel and playing minor league ball in the US. He's currently a player for the Maccabi Haifa Heat in Israel, so, good for Tamir. This clip sums the whole thing up pretty well, features some clips of Goodman in his Towson days, and also shows he's pretty happy with the way it's all turned out.

Current NFL Players: Only one, Jermon Bushrod, an offensive tackle for the Saints and therefore the platoon mate of NU grad Zach Strief. By far the most notable Towson grad to play pro football was punter Sean Landeta, who spent 24 seasons playing professionally, starting with the Philadelphia Stars of the USFL in 1983, picking up two Super Bowl rings with the Giants, and playing until 2006. He was the last active player to have played in the USFL, the last to have appeared in Tecmo Bowl, and among the last to wear the single-bar punter facemask, a uniform object that appears to be officially extinct due to Scott Player's apparently finished career.

Mascot: Doc, the Tiger. As noted, John Schuerholz is behind this baby. Before that, they were the Towson Golden Knights.

Mascot if I ran the school: Something related to either crabs or The Wire. Perhaps the Towson Cripplingly Realistic Commentaries on the Modern American City. Catchy, huh?

Difference between the amount of times this school has been to the Division I NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and the amount of times Northwestern has: (Yes, I plan on doing this with each team we face. Just to show how silly it is.)Two. Towson may be an FCS school, but they're still D-I, and therefore, they qualify for the NCAA Tournament. The Tigers went dancing in back to back seasons in 1990-91, losing to Oklahoma and Ohio State, respectively. They actually kept it close in both games, losing by 9 to the Sooners and 11 to the Buckeyes.

Elsewhere in Towson sports: Towson's most popular sport is lacrosse, because Maryland is a weird, weird place. The men's squad won the DII championship in 1974, made the DI finals in 1991, and the DI final four in 2001, and the women's team, of course, has won five consecutive national championships. (Oh, wait, that's Northwestern with the five straight national championships. Silly mistake.)

Tidbits:

Might I suggest "Go U Towson-stern"?: Here's how much Towson's football program is in flux this year: in addition to the new head coach and still as-of-yet undetermined starting QB, the Tigers will be taking the field this fall to an all-new fight song. The marching band's musical director, John Miliauskas, was growing tired of the old song which was played to the tune of the University of Arizona's fight song, and commissioned a new one. The theme was written by recent music graduate John Hosier, and the lyrics... well, a contest was held, with the winner receiving $500, but the results haven't been revealed yet. They better hurry, what with the team playing a game in five days and whatnot.

Can we play them on the road?: NU sports teams are undefeated at Towson's Johnny Unitas Stadium the past two years, with the women's lacrosse teams winning their fourth and fifth consecutive national championship at the Tigers' home football field, Johnny Unitas Stadium. I like to imagine that some of NU's championship athletes snuck through a series of grates in the Towson locker room to find Towson's top secret football game plan book to bring back to Evanston to help out their fellow athletes, dispatching security guards with fast-paced lacrosse balls to the face. But it doesn't seem likely.

Just dance. It'll be okay: The Tigers dance squad has won 11 straight Division I national championships. In case you're wondering what an 11-time national champ looks like, the answer is this:

You're probably thinking "hey, that looked a lot like every other dance team I've ever seen." But then again, if Michael Phelps was swimming laps by himself, would you know he was the best swimmer of all time? In other words, you can't understand how great the Towson dance team's rendition of the stanky leg is until you see the other school's renditions of the stanky leg.

Johnny U U: Towson's home football stadium is called Johnny Unitas Stadium. It's a brand spankin new facility built in 2002.You'd probably assume Johnny was a large donor or alumni, like John Schuerholz (after whom the team's baseball facilities are named) but that's not the case.

Unitas, as you probably know, was the quarterback for the Baltimore Colts in the 1950's, 60's, and early 70's, back before the team moved to Indianapolis, and is considered one of the all-time greats. He wasn't a Towson grad - he went to Louisville. He retired and lived out the rest of his life in Baltimore. In 2002, Towson asked him to be the "community liason" between Towson sports and Baltimore at large, and Unitas accepted. I assume the major aspects of the job were showing up at fundraising events and making other public appearances, but one of the listed aspects of his job was helping find a corporate sponsor for the brand new stadium. Anyway, soon after Towson opened the stadium, then called "Towson Stadium", and Unitas showed up at the grand opening, threw some passes, and probably signed some autographs. A week later, Unitas died of a heart attack, and rather than continue searching for a corporate sponsor, the team named the stadium after Unitas, and started a scholarship fund in his name to raise money. You could argue that the stadium is named Unitas Stadium because of how beloved he is in the Baltimore community, but on the flip side, you could just as easily argue that it's named that because of the few months he held a puff position at the university.

Long story short, don't be surprised if Ryan Field is renamed Scottie Pippen Field in the year 2033.

So that's it for Towson. I'll have an in-depth analysis of the, you know, football aspect of the matchup tomorrow.

Four Days.

2009-09-01T11:47:00.003-04:00

A different Youtube video every day, just to get you sufficiently pumped.

This countdown post sort of breaks the template of the others, but, whatever. It's got a long preface and whatnot. Just read it.

You see, I'm a hip-hop nerd. You probably figured this out from my first post, and all the other ones, too. Anyway, I've noticed a trend: behind every successful sports team is a team-specific hip-hop song.

As a New Yorker, this was evident to me from a young age. The Knicks had a song called "Go New York Go New York Go", and they made a new edition of it every time they made the playoffs. It's pretty much the best song of all time. On Youtube, I can find the '94 version (they made the finals), the '99 version (they made the finals again) and the '04 version (the last year they made the playoffs, also the last time the team made the song. (It also should be noted that Q-Tip freestyled about the team when the Knicks made the finals.)

Also, when the Yankees had a dynasty in the late 90's, every year, local radio stations like Z100, which I unabashedly listened to when I was 8, hired random people to make songs about the team every year. I distinctly remember one rapper who had to do it completely copping out and just saying "Hideki Irabu" at the end of a verse, because nothing rhymes with it very well. I can't find any on the internet, besides this song which is less rap than two fake Italian guys talking to each other, but you get the gist.

Chicago fans also should be familiar with this concept, courtesy of the '85 Bears.But this is something that's universally true. I mean, the Lakers even had their own mixtape this past year.

And nowhere is this truer than in Northwestern sports. To my knowledge, there are three rap songs about Northwestern football. I present to you: the complete, unabridged glossary of Northwestern football-related rap music.

1) The song from the beginning of the "Purple to Pasadena" video on Youtube.

Year made: 1995.

Wildcats Record that year: 10-2.

They had to make some promotional video about the Wildcats making it to the Rose Bowl, and the producers of the VHS were like, "hey, what do the kids listen to nowadays?" and they ended up with this terrible song. I imagine the questionnaire they used to hire the rapper guy contained questions such as "Have you heard of music before?" and "On a scale of 1-10, how bad are you at pronouncing the word 'Wildcats?'" Anyway, the guy comes on, raps two verses and proves to me that he's vaguely familiar with the concept of words that rhyme with one another, has heard of Northwestern (he kind of rhymes it with "best") and that he's also vaguely familiar with football. Anyway, it's like a how-to of how not to rap. He ends two bars with "running back", and he says awkward things like "the Wildcats uniforms roar when they hit the field," which doesn't make any sense, and he says our offense "has more power than an Amtrak derail", which is bad, because you try not to compare your offense to a horrific tragedy, or something which is terribly misguided, both of which are ways you can describe Amtrak trains derailing. Also, there's the aforementioned fact that he pronounces the word "Wildcats" "waaaaolcats", which wouldn't be annoying, but he does it 14 times, and therefore, I feel it bears repeating that it's really annoying.

2) Mo Greene's "Go U NU" and "Go U NU Alamo Bowl Remix".

Year produced: 2008.

Wildcats record that year: 9-4.

I'm not quite sure who Mo Greene is. I know he's a rapper who went to Northwestern, and that he showed up at the Purdue game last year, was sort of just chilling outside the students entrance while everybody was entering the stadium while music is playing, and that later, he walked through the stands, and stood near me and my friends for a few seconds, and we couldn't decide what to say to him, finally someone was like "hey, Mo, what's up" and he said "Making music, you know how it is" and then answered his cell phone and walked away.

What I do know is that he made two great songs last year about Northwestern football. The songs are catchy, and good game day/stadium listening music. Greene is clever and has lyrical talent, and it shows.

Mo's namechecking skills are off the charts. He manages to mention pretty much everybody involved with NU football, and he manages to make each namedrop relevant, and stays inventive with how he incorporates the names into his flow. In the Alamo Bowl remix (hear it here) he manages to reference Jeff Yarbrough (who didn't record any catches last year) Ramon Diaz (a backup offensive lineman who never played at NU) Stefan Demos (our punter), Finnish football star David Oredugba, our entire offensive line (yeah, seriously) and, as far as I can tell, every single starter at every single position. And none of them seem forced. (Actually, the "go far with O-mar Conteh" sounds forced, but other than that, it's pretty good.) It's actually really impressive. It's like "Fame" by GZA except it's a little bit more of a cut-and-paste job, since he had so much less material to work with.

My only complaints about the song are the weird "CHAAAAA!" fake laughing things he does all the time that actually scare me.

Anyway, Greene pretty much sets the bar for team-related hype songs.

You'll notice that of the three rap songs, they were written in two years, and in those years, the Wildcats combined for 19 wins, whereas in the rest of Northwestern history, in years the Wildcats don't have rap songs, the team averages well below 9.5 wins a season. Therefore, I hypothesize that the Wildcats need a rap song written about their season to be successful.

However, the season starts in four days, and we don't have a song yet. I nominate Mo Greene to write one, but, if he doesn't step up, I might just have to. And I think it's in the best interests of everybody around us that that doesn't happen, because although I'm undeniably nice with it, there's a reason I'm a rap nerd and not a rapper, because I'm better at writing about rap, than I am at rapping it, and as you can see, I'm pretty bad at writing about it. But if I have to step into the studio to save NU's season, I might have to take that chance. I'm not afraid, but you should be.

Tyrell Sutton is The Real Deal.

2009-08-31T15:47:00.002-04:00

Yes, much of NU history is before my time, but I'm still familiar with this photo:Anyway, another NU running back made his way into the pages of America's favorite sorta outdated sports mag (which will hopefully ignore that thing I said about them being outdated if I ever apply for a job there), as Tyrell Sutton managed to work his way into the vaunted Pop Culture Grid in last week's issue. Check it out here.

The lower gas prices comment was confusing at best, and the John Mayer thing is a little bit embarrassing. Other than that, Tyrell's responses were your run-of-the-mill pop culture grid answers, and the real confusing thing in the grid was Juan Diaz picking The Joker as his example of a mad man, with the reasoning being "for trying to mess with Batman." Because, I mean, that movie was out like, a year ago, and because he seems to be ignoring the whole thing about the Joker being a psychopathic killing machine who enjoys diabolically laughing, pathologically lying about his past, and forcing people to discover the darker sides of human morality by subjecting them to sadistic tests. Because I'd consider that the #1 reason he's a mad man, and the whole "messing with Batman" thing would be secondary to me. But Tyrell managed to get out of the whole process relatively unblemished.

Anyway, it's good to see that Tyrell is becoming a legit enough NFL player that he's getting into SI. He keeps on doing good things for the Packers - he didn't have as many rushing yards this week, but got into the receiving game and was the Packers' primary kickoff returner. He's definitely having the best preseason of any ex-Wildcat, so, good for Tyrell.

And by the way, the comments section has been rocking recently. I like that. Keep it up.

Trifecta of Doom: Towson, the Big Ten Network, and Northwestern being Northwestern.

2009-08-31T13:23:00.003-04:00

Title ominous enough for you?

Anyway, I know it's messed up to complain about Northwestern's television situation: I'd think I lost the right to do so after watching the NU-UC Riverside game on an airplane. (I also once watched an inning of NU softball on a plane.) But today, I gotta gripe.

Basically, a perfect storm of Northwestern being Northwestern events are conspiring to make it really, really difficult for me to watch Saturday's game vs. Towson.

The first, and simplest reason, is that college football starts September 5th, and Northwestern, unlike most schools in the country, is on the quarter system, meaning we start about 3-4 weeks after every other school in the country, and well into the swing of the football season. The problem here is that I live about 800 miles away in New York City, meaning I won't be going to this game or the EMU game. This is just one of those sort of annoying things about NU football: we get 2-3 games every year with essentially no student section, which means our attendence isa bout 3-4000 lower than it should be.

But how to watch the game in New York? If you're not living in the states that contain Big Ten schools, it's already sort of hard to get the Big Ten Network - you have to pay to get that station, plus a bunch of other channels you don't particularly care about - and the cost of this and the fact that it will come in handy for maybe two games a year make this an unappealing option.

However, even if I did have the network, a quick glance at the TV schedule for next Saturday on Time Warner Cable shows that with a ridiculous 7 Big Ten games beginning at noon ET, NU gets the short end of the stick: Ohio State and Minnesota will be getting the ESPN and ESPN2 slots, while MSU, Purdue, Iowa, and Penn State get the Big Ten Network and three overflow channels, while the Towson vs. Northwestern game doesn't air live, instead getting shown at 6 PM the next day. If this information is incorrect, somebody tell me, but my cable box and the Time Warner website appear to verify this. I wouldn't be surprised: last year, NU vs. Duke was the only football game containing a Big Ten team that didn't get televised. I presume watching the game is easier in Big Ten country, but that's the problem with going to a school 800 miles from home.

It certainly doesn't help that a) we're Northwestern, the school with the smallest fanbase and the least regionally centered one, thus making airing the game anywhere unappealing and b) the fact that we're playing Towson, a team that struggles against FCS opponents, thus making the game completely unwatchable for anyone who isn't an NU fan.

Also, the fact that NU's fanbase is so diluted makes it difficult to make a large gathering of NU fans anywhere. Therefore, while the Buckeyes and every other college in the world has a well-established NYC bar, I've only heard rumors that there's a place like that in New York, and I've never actually met anybody who's been there. (If any of you can give word on whether that place is, in fact, an actual place, please, I'm desperate over here.)

Personally, I plan on gathering the NYC NU crew together at a sports bar where I watched the SIU game last year, but any suggestions about places to watch the game in New York are appreciated.

Long story short, the fact that we're Northwestern and we're playing Towson makes it sort of difficult to find Saturday's game for a large percentage of our already small fanbase. And that's not good for anybody.

There won't be any game thread - first off, if you live within two hours of the school or so, you should be at the game. Second off, I see no way I can bring a computer to wherever I watch the game, and third, blogger isn't to conducive to game threads.

However, hypothetically, if, let's say, I don't know, my blog gets picked up by a large sports blog network that currently has a blog for every Big Ten team besides Northwestern about 2-3 weeks from now (COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH), I'll post a game thread for every game, and I'll need you guys to help make them actually interesting. So, hypothetically, be prepared. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Five Days.

2009-08-31T12:15:00.001-04:00

A different Youtube video every day, just to get you sufficiently pumped.

Not NU-related, but, as someone who followed the NBA in the 90's that song instinctively causes some combination of goosebumps, spine chills, and loss of bowel control.

Expect at least two more posts today. What can I say, I'm bored, excited for football season, and wishing everybody else hadn't left for college already.

Six Days.

2009-08-30T13:28:00.000-04:00

A different Youtube video every day, just to get you sufficiently pumped.

My favorite part of this video - and there's a lot of good parts - is how Jordan Mabin and I had the exact same reaction, which is a sort of jumpy fist-pump thing. The difference is that I was still lying in bed, not having left my room all morning, and Mabin laid a hardcore block on a wide receiver less than four seconds later.

The ESPN call findable in other youtube clips is louder, but you can't beat the atonal yelling of "WE OWN THIS BUILDING, DAVE". It doesn't get any better than that.

The Two-Deep is out.

2009-08-29T17:19:00.004-04:00

Well, for those of you who read my "One Less Day Till Football Season" posts all summer long, now's your opportunity to see how wrong my predictions were. The two-deep is out.

I'd say the main things to note are Arby Fields being our backup running back, which now seems like a foregone conclusion but would've been very surprising to hear back at the beginning of camp, and Scott Concannon, who has yet to touch the ball in a game, being our starting kick returner in a job that seeme destined for either Stephan Simmons or Jeravin Matthews.

Other discrepancies between this two deep and my 1LDTFS posts - at the time I did the posts, I didn't know anything about Zeke Markshausen, but he's really emerged since then as a guy destined to be a part of the rotation. The backup wide receivers I didn't even attempt to predict, so, no surprises there.

I predicted Keegan Grant would be our starting left guard, but it'll be Desmond Taylor with Patrick Ward backing him up - although I'd still be sort of surprised to see us de-redshirt him just for mop-up situations as a backup guard. He's a top-notch left tackle, so we'll want him to play there for four years if possible.

Stefan Demos appears to be kicking everything, no ifs, ands, or buts. I guess Budzien will sit out the year.

I was surprised to see Ricky Weina listed as backup corner instead of Mike Bolden, but, like, not blown out of my seat, because, come on, it's backup cornerbacks. (update: according to an anonymous commenter, Bolden's apparently injured, making me nerdy enough to have written a post predicting he would play but not nerdy enough to actually check up on his health frequently. Either way, I just outed my way of writing this post as reading all my previous posts and checking them against the two-deep for any differences whatsoever. Anyway, good for Weina, who is a walk-on.)

Personal favorite players Stone Pinckney and David Nwabuisi made the two-deep, which is awesome, but not something I had predicted, but it makes sense, because guys I did discuss - Aaron Nagel and Chris Jeske - are not in playing condition. Nagel is injured, and Jeske has called college football quits, and will be coaching this year.

But other than that, pretty run-of-the-mill stuff. It looks like all them second-stringers might get significant tick vs. Towson, so, maybe the whole two-deep isn't just for show this times.

7 Days.

2009-08-29T12:03:00.000-04:00

A different Youtube video every day, just to get you sufficiently pumped.

If you'll excuse me, I have a brick wall to go and run through now.

Get Rich or Play Towson

2009-08-28T11:44:00.001-04:00

I'm not a betting man. (Medill folk: are sports journalists even allowed to? Seems like that would be sorta unethical, right?) My last foray into betting was a monthlong NBA centsports addiction that saw my worth rocket to $1.38, then collapse, ending with my betting my last 16 cents on the national soccer team of the extremely tiny nation of San Marino, hoping they could beat a six-goal spread against Poland. (They ended up losing 10-0. SAN MARINOOOO!!!!!!)

But I was tempted to check out NU's line for the Towson game. How much, I wondered, are we expected to win by?

I looked everywhere, found nothing. No spreads, no odds.

I jumped to three separate conclusions.

1) Vegas oddsmakers don't deem the game as likely to draw much betting, since NU and Towson don't have big fanbases, therefore, there are no lines.

2) The game will be a blowout. There's no money line big enough to be worth the casino's time, since NU will clearly win, and a spread that big would be pointless.

3) There probably aren't any spreads for any games featuring I-AA opponents.

Turns out, the correct answer was #3: there's no betting on games between FBS and FCS opponents, generally, although the guy from USA Today had a little bit of fun predicting that Florida should have a 63 point spread against Charleston Southern, and people went around reporting that he actually had said they'd win by 73.

But still, all this should give us pause about our game against Towson. Playing I-AA opponents is a definite lose-lose situation. First off, it's a lose-lose because there's actually no way to win money off it if you're the betting type. But think about it: Towson shouldn't be able to compete with us. We were in the Top 25 last year, they probably weren't in the top 3/4 of I-AA teams. If we win, it's expected. We should win. If we lose, chaos ensues. If we win only by a little bit, people will start wondering if we're not legit. As Joshua astutely put in the comments section a few posts back, pretty much anything besides a blowout isn't good. And when you think about it, a blowout is kind of bad, because it means we're those guys who pay schools too much money to hammer them senseless.

It's reasons like this I've started viewing our September 5th game less as something I need to be worried about and more as an organized practice and a chance to see how we run our offense and to gauge the skills of our players. Yes, score will be kept, unlike the spring game, and yes, if we do cool things, I'll gloat about it. I'll probably watch the highlight reel of the game multiple times. But when the game is so lopsided that Vegas is essentially pretending it doesn't exist, there's really no positives.

Yo.

2009-08-27T20:58:00.002-04:00

Just got back after two days out of town, felt like it would be a good time to remind you that there are only nine days left until college football season.

I also feel like pointing out that Craig Moore has a blog, and that it's better than mine. Dude could probably be an observational stand-up comic. For some reason, I always picture guys who are really, really good shooters as being devoid of personality, due to the inherent practice it takes to become that good at shooting, but, Craig proves me wrong, because he's really, really funny. (On the other hand, Kyle Korver is still a farmboy from Nebraska who enjoys playing in Utah, so, I guess I'm half-right.)

In Northwestern news, Will Hampton, a Texan defensive tackle, decommitted from Stanford to choose between Northwestern and Notre Dame, and chose Northwestern because we have a better football team. That immense crushing sound is either the oncoming apocalypse or the toilet flushing in Jim Harbaugh's $50,000 bathroom. (Fifty g's can buy you some serious water pressure.)

(And, yes, I know, you read this at LTP already. But man, I was out of town. Cut me some slack. I'll have new, interesting posts from now til the season opener, plus maybe one later to make up for not having one yesterday.)

Explain yourselves.

2009-08-25T13:45:00.001-04:00

So, 42 of you sick people have voted in the poll over on the right. If you haven't yet, go.

But here's the point of this post: 26 of those people, like me, think Syracuse is the team to fear off the out of conference bunch. I can see why. They're a Big East team, they've got a top recruit, if you can call him that, starting under center, and we'll be on the road.

Four other people voted for that last choice, the "I'm not scared of anybody" choice.

But the other 12 of y'all? Two each for Towson and Eastern Michigan, and a whopping eight for Miami (OH). I'm confused. I could see the "we lost to them in 1995" thing affecting some of your thought processes re: Miami, and if that's true, say so, but, still, folks, I want explanations, because I'm not quite sure why those schools might seem frightening.

Folks, we have a comments section below. Use it. If I don't get a comment from anybody, I'll assume the 12 people who voted for those schools are operatives sent from MAC athletic departments to destroy us.

I'm Thinking RB's.

2009-08-24T18:16:00.002-04:00

So NU had its annual fall scrimmage Saturday, which means there's only twelve more days left until football season. I, as someone who lives in New York, didn't make the trek to Kenosha, Wisconsin, so my main sources of information were an article on NUsports.com (with the headline "NU holds successful scrimmage" which makes me wonder if they would've called it an "unsuccessful scrimmage" if everybody had been really bad), various rivals.com posts (is it a bad sign that this blog has forced me to start routinely checking that site?) and a highlight video also on NUsports.com.

The consensus I'm getting is thus: Mike Kafka really, really, really, really needs to stop throwing into the flat without at least pump-faking the guy who is right there out of the way, John Placensia actually is the world's greatest, and our running back situation is now officially up for grabs.

I've tried my hand at predicting our RB situation before on this blog. And every time I try, it gets more and more confusing.

When last year ended, I assumed this year would feature Stephen Simmons as a feature back. When I covered spring football, I asked coach Fitz and various other coaches, and they each gave me variants on "well, it's spring ball, and nothing's certain... but Stephen's the most experienced." I started to see Simmons as the more prominent back in a field which would have a lot of specialization with guys coming in on different downs. After the spring game, I became convinced that we would be looking at a RB by committee approach with Simmons, Jeravin Matthews, and Alex Daniel.

Now, I don't know what to think. In the spring game, Simmons and Matthews rushed a combined six times for two yards. Meanwhile, Arby Fields is the toast of the online Northwestern community, and looks like he'll play this season, whereas in my running backs post linked to above, I pictured him redshirting and didn't discuss him until I'd already discussed every other NU running back.

Fields is sentimental being painted as Tyrell Sutton's predecessor due to his similar build and his being assigned the same number. Now, who knows if he'll be that great - he certainly doesn't have the high school pedigree Sutton had - but NU definitely appears to be counting on Arby in some role this fall.

To complicate matters, people are also saying good things about Scott Concannon, and Jacob Schmidt led all rushers in the scrimmage with 45 yards and a touchdown. So every running back on the roster is getting some sort of praise.

I officially would not be surprised if any combination of Simmons, Fields, Matthews, and Daniel play this fall. They all have different skill sets, and none of them is clearly a better solution than the others. If I had to guess, I'd say they'd get carries in the order I listed directly above - I think it would be silly to make Arby lose his redshirt so he can be our third-string running back, although I guess Matthews did it last year - but, to be honest, I have no idea, and neither does anybody who isn't a member of the Northwestern coaching staff. We'll have to wait and see how they get used against Towson, which, in my head quickly turning into less of a game and more of an opportunity to find out about who's actually going to play.

Others Receiving.... a single vote.

2009-08-24T10:48:00.002-04:00

So the other day I had a diatribe about how silly it was that we were ranked so low in the AP poll.

Well, guess what folks - it gets worse!

There's a site called pollspeak.com that allows you to track all the ballots in all the AP polls. You can see who voted for who, and you can sort by either team or voter.

Anyway, NU had five votes in the AP poll, which led me to assume that somewhere in the range of 3-5 people placed us on their poll in the 23-25 spots or so. A conspiracy theory, of sorts.

However, pollspeak allows us to see that our ranking isn't based on some cabal of multiple people thinking NU is a good team: we've got ourselves a lone gunman.

Kevin Gorman, who, some research shows, is the recruiting columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, is the one voter out of the 60 in the AP poll who thought it would be a good idea to put us in the top 25. And he put us 21st. Which is crazy. Because, I mean, really? Of course we're not the 21st best team in the country.

However, Gorman has a little bit of an iffy ballot. First off, he's one of the two human beings in the poll who thinks Florida isn't the #1 team in the country, which, quite frankly, is bonkers. He also has Tennessee ranked 16th, which is seven spots higher than anybody else. His ballot is ranked as the third most extreme in the poll, and in a sort of meta-poll on the site, asking whether Gorman's ballot was good or bad, only 27 responders thought it was good, with a whopping 113 saying it was bad.

So basically, the conventional wisdom is that we're not very good. 59 of 60 voters think that, and the 60th guy has some issues. Which basically leaves just us NU fans on the Wildcat bandwagon. Do well this year... maybe next year we'll get, like, actual votes in these polls that people can take seriously.

Others Receiving Votes

2009-08-23T12:22:00.001-04:00

ERRRRRRRRRRRRRR?

Look, I know we ain't top 25, and we shouldn't be top 25, and we shouldn't be top 25 even if we go 6-1 or something against the Magnolia Bakery portion of our schedule.

I wouldn't say we should be.

And I know last year's team that ended up 9-4 started the season not even being an other receiving votes, and that progress is progress.

But yo! Let's be real here! We're probably better than Arizona and NC State. And we are definitely not 100 votes worse than Illinois.

And Central Michigan? Central Michigan? Really, Central Michigan?

Wow.

Summer's Over.

2009-08-21T11:56:00.001-04:00

It doesn't seem like it. It's 90 degrees outside, will be for some more time. And while essentially every other college in the country is starting in the coming week or so, it's still about three weeks until new freshmen arrive in Evanston for the time-honored tradition of assembling in packs of 20 or 30 kids and awkwardly wandering around town trying to find Noyes St.

But on the NU sports calendar, summer ends today. A women's soccer game wouldn't normally be the cause for much hype around here, but, today, there's a women's soccer game against Milwaukee. And that, my friends, signifies that the fall sports schedule has officially commenced. According to sports schedules, it's fall, and fall means college, and college means college sports, and college sports means college football.

So to all the NU students out there, saying goodbye to their friends leaving town for their colleges, reading college-related facebook status updates, and the like - well, we're one day closer, people.

Quick Hits

2009-08-20T12:14:00.001-04:00

New poll, new opportunity to make it look like I have readers. I voted for Syracuse. I'm a little concerned about winning in the dome, to be honest. In our last poll, as you can still see, Patty Fitz won 25-16 over Bill Carmody. An astute, anonymous commenter brought up the very good point that if Fitz coached basketball at NU, the football team would probably drop in quality as he'd have to split his time. As someone who cares more about basketball than many other things in life, I could live with that, if it attracted a higher level of recruit - I could see Fitz as a Calipari-esque coach without the skeeziness and abandoned wins, someone who might know less about basketball than Carmody forgot yesterday but could get higher-caliber recruits, and keep someone who actually knows how to coach on the payroll, and win a few more games than under Carmody. Obviously, the poll was sarcastic - but think about it: The program might actually be better off.
Kyle Rowley's enormous left foot is fractured. Feet aren't meant to support seven-footers, regardless of their size, and Kyle is big, even for someone his height. I hope this isn't the type of thing which nags at him throughout his career, because he could turn out nicely. I've said this once, I'll say it a thousand times, Rowley needs work on his basic fundamentals. Give him a red tee, let him fully recuperate, practice with the team when he's ready, and just focus on school and basketball without the extra worry of being a Big Ten center. I'm sure the work ethic is there, but he needs time, and even if next year is now for NU basketball, Rowley will contribute to the team more in three years than he will this year, so, hand Mirkovic the starting spot and let Rowley recover. The worst thing would be for Rowley to think he's okay and then refracture the thing and need whatever surgery Yao got this offseason while he's still under 20 years old, costing NU a potential prospect.
Football's 16 days away. I checked up on Coach Fitz's twitter again, to see how his usage of the exclamation point is going, and in doing so, gain valuable insight into the mindframe of the world's most intense human. It turns out, it's actually decreased: over his last 20 posts, he's used 20 exclamation points, a perfect one !pp (exclamation point per post) thanks to my apple+f research abilities. I credit the slight downslide to two different reasons:

First, Fitz has learned to lean on the caps lock much more than he used to. I theorize that this has led to a decrease in exclamation point usage without signifying a decrease in Coach Fitz's actual intensity, as he's just using a different method of portraying the same intensity. Where that post might have read "Just had an extremely productive team meeting" it now reads "Just had an EXTREMELY productive staff meeting".

Next, it's important to note that Fitz's exclamation point usage has become limited to fewer posts. Of his last 20, only 11 feature exclamation points. This means that Fitz's use of the single exclamation point has virtually died out - when he's using exclamation points, he's using multiple.

My psychological analysis of this evidence is this: With football season fast approaching, Coach Fitz's intensity has given way to to a calmer, focused state. However, when he receives stimuli from the outside world that prompt his intensity to surface, it surfaces in a higher magnitude than when Fitz is at his normal state.

So that's it for now. Vote in the poll, and give a reason if you're voting for a team other than Syracuse in the comments section - I'm genuinely curious as to why you'd pick, let's say, Eastern Michigan.

Some Out-of-Conference Tidbits

2009-08-19T13:37:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I touched on how bad our out-of-conference opponents this year are. I mentioned how none had winning records last year, and how all have new head coaches, who have never been college head coaches before.

That doesn't even capture how bad they are. I didn't really realize how horrible the teams we play this year are, as a group, and I gathered some stats here, just so we can get this straight: all four games are must win. We have to win them. If we can't beat them, I'm not sure who we can beat.

It was noted that none of our opponents had winning records. But these teams didn't just go 5-7 - every team on our out-of-conference schedule finished last in their respective division. Towson's 1-7 record was last in the CAA Southern division, EMU's 2-6 was tied for last in the MAC West with Toledo, Syracuse's 1-7 record was good for last in the Big East, and Miami (OH) 1-7 was last in the MAC East. That's some shameful stuff right there.
NU, with our no returning starting skill players, is a beacon of stability compared to these guys Each school, as noted, has a new head coach with no head coaching experience. To add to that, Towson and Syracuse each have new starting quarterbacks, one of whom, as you may have heard, is good at basketball.
NU won nine games last year. Our four out-of-conference opponents last year won 11, combined, an average of 2.75 per team. Sound horrible? It gets worse when you add context. Let's recap every victory one of those four schools had last year.

August 28: Eastern Michigan, 52, Indiana State, 0. Indiana State's team is apparently quarterbacked by a 52-year old Larry Bird.

September 6: Towson, 21, Morgan State, 16.

September 13: Miami (OH) 38, Charleston Southern, 27. Unlike the College of Charleston or, um, Coastal Carolina, I have never heard of Charleston Southern, and, like Morgan State, I have no jokes about it.

September 20: Syracuse, 30, Northeastern, 21. You might remember Northeastern from that Tyrell Sutton highlight video I posted, a 27-0 victory two years back, and when people ask you "oh, Northwestern, that's in Boston, right?"

September 27: Towson, 31, Columbia, 24. Little known fact: back when PS2 was still popular, I tried to make Columbia national champions on NCAA Football. They had a perfect conference slate and road wins at USC, Texas, Ohio State, and Florida, but, if I remember correctly, they ended the season ranked, like, 23rd in the country. It was a waste of two days of my video game playing life.)

October 4: Eastern Michigan, 24, Bowling Green, 21. And with a squeaker on the road against Bowling Green, NU's 2009 out-of-conference opponents scored their first victory against a FBS opponent. Previously, they had been 0-12.

October 11: Towson, 37, Rhode Island, 32. The Fighting Cuttino Mobleys provided Towson with their only conference victory of the season, and, sadly, their last victory of the season.

October 18: Miami (OH) 27, Bowling Green, 20. Miami's second and final victory on the year came on the road against BGSU, and it's good to see NU's future opponents taking out vengeance on the Falcons for the 2003 Motor City Bowl. Surprisingly, Bowling Green wasn't too bad, finishing 6-6 on the season. I'd guess they'd like one of these two games back and a trip to a sub-par bowl.

November 1: Syracuse, 28, Louisville, 21. Hey, respectable. Sure, Louisville was 1-7 in conference, but you take what you can get.

November 22: Syracuse, 24, Notre Dame, 23. The Orange beat some school in Indiana by scoring two fourth-quarter touchdowns, on the road. In 1963, this would have been on some sort of predecessor to ESPN Classic.

November 29: Eastern Michigan, 56, Central Michigan, 52: A directional school shootout to end the season ended up with EMU taking home their third W of the year.

So let's sort out the carnage: the teams we will play were 11-37 last year. Unfortunately, six of those wins were against Division I-AA, so against I-A opponents, they were 5-29. (The flipside of this reveals a 6-9 record against I-AA opponents, but all nine losses came from Towson.) Against Division I-A teams that aren't Bowling Green, they were 3-29. Against BCS opponents, they were 1-13, with the sole win Syracuse's victory over Louisville.
The three teams we'll play at home, Towson, EMU, and Miami (OH), combined to go 2-17 on the road last season, with both victories coming against Bowling Green. To take that stat to its obvious conclusion, the three teams were a combined 0-17 at road games not in the Greater Bowling Green Metropolitan Area.
Towson hasn't played a BCS school in so long I can't find it in ESPN's schedule database, and their loss against Navy last season was the only game against an FBS opponent I could find. Miami hasn't beaten a BCS opponent since beating Cincinnati in 2005, and EMU hasn't beaten one since beating UCF in 2003.
The last one of these schools to boast a winning record was Towson, who went 7-4 in 2006.
Northwestern is good at football, and these schools aren't.

So look: we all know we're Northwestern, the school with the terrible football history, and who really shouldn't be taking any game for granted. That being said, these are four games which we have every right to believe we should win. We'll even be favored by the oddsmakers, most likely. Now: if we lose one of these games, don't hit the panic button. I hate panic buttons, and, what's more, I hate sports fans who hit them. (I also hate jinxing things, so, I'm not saying WE'RE DEFINITELY GOING TO WIN.) We could still salvage the season and make a bowl.

But here's my point: we shouldn't have to. We're too good. We should win all four games, and anything other than that would be, well, surprising.

BRRRR!

2009-08-18T22:11:00.001-04:00

My blog is called "The Purple Drank" cuz of my affinity for hip-hop. I gotta write about it sometimes. If you like reading about Northwestern sports, but don't like when I occasionally tangentially link NU sports to hip-hop, even when they do collide as they do in here, I wouldn't blame you if you skip this post.

My excuse for writing about it this time is that I got a theory: sports success is nearly entirely due to music. I'll be explaining this theory more fully in a few weeks, in what will be the best post in the history of this site. But I saw something today that caught my attention.

The lesser part of my theory states that how well you do in part is attributable to the music you listen to. You know how great closers always have great entrance music? You know how that one middle reliever who enters to Creed always has a 5.70 E.R.A.?

This theory is, as of yet, infallible. For example, I've been informed by insider sources I have that Indiana has been blasting the soundtrack to the upcoming Hannah Montana movie in their preseason drills, and I've recently discovered that the reason for NU's 34-game winless streak was in part because several walk-on offensive linemen that were engineering students developed a working time machine, went to the year 2004, and stole a mixtape off an angsty 13-year old's desk containing, but not limited to, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Fall Out Boy, and, for some reason, the song "Doo Doo Head" by Soulja Boi, which is sort of an outlier if you ask me.

Long story short, I've developed an algorithm that allows me to calculate how good a college football team will be based on their practice listening music. And the reason I bring this up is simple: this video, posted by palestra.net.

WE'RE LISTENING TO GUCCI MANE IN PRACTICE?

Yes! At the 51 second mark, Gucci Mane, my favorite current rapper is blaring in the background. (I'm pretty sure those are two separate songs, too.) I wouldn't make a post just based on a 3 second snippet of Gucci though, what prompted this post is the reaction of my new favorite player on the team, senior DT Marshall Thomas, whose urge to yell "I KNOW I LOVE HER" is so strong that he removes his helmet, and then he spends like three seconds Mutombo-wagging at the camera and shaking his head. (Also, for a couple seconds, I thought the dude playing at :12 and :24 was Gucci as well, but, no, that's these jokers, who I've never heard of and after a few listens have decided I never want to hear again.) (Re: the jokers who made that other song who sounded like Gucci Mane a little: Was the "pause" era so short that you can say "swag super cool blowing like a fan" and nobody cares?)

Gucci, for those of you who don't know - most of you, right? - is pretty much the best rapper out there right now, and one of his lyrics provided the inspiration for this sites URL. The song in question is "I Think I Love Her", which, all told, is pretty bad, mainly because it features some girl with a really annoying voice prominently, but Gucci still shines.

Anyway, my point is, I got a theory that states that the music you listen to can determine how well your team will play. Point being: WE'RE GOING TO WIN SEVENTEEN GAMES THIS SEASON. Count em. The algorithm never lies, folks.

The OOC

2009-08-18T16:33:00.002-04:00

Remember sunday, when I said I'd post every single day until football season? I meant it, but I probably should've put a caveat saying "except days when I inexplicably don't have internet access." Anyway, crisis resolved, there'll be two today and one every day from here on out.

So I was on a Jetblue plane today, watching a mixture of a four month old Barca-Madrid game that I already knew the final outcome to and Animal Planet. (What happened to the Big Ten Network! I DEMAND TO WATCH INDIANA WOMEN'S VOLLEYBALL DURING MY FLIGHTS) There was a horrible, horrible point during the flight where both these events managed to be on commercial, and I had to watch SportsCenter, where I saw that Greg Paulus will be Syracuse's starter this season. Which got me thinking about how winnable the Syracuse game is. Which got me realizing that of our four out-of-conference games this year, quite possibly our most difficult one could be against a team we handily beat last season with a new head coach, a quarterback who met his receivers three months ago for the first time and is more used to running away from dunkers than running an offense.

Last year, NU won swept its out-of-conference schedule for the first time since 1962, and this year, we face four opponents who we should beat handily. None had winning records last season, and all four have brand new head coaches who have never been D-I head coaches before. For the first time in a long time, even dropping a single out-of-conference game will be a major disappointment for the Wildcats.

This isn't necessarily the best way this year's schedule could've turned out. First of all, there's the fact that no matter how well we do this year, people will point to our 4-0 out-of-conference schedule and say that we didn't beat any real competition. Next, there's the fact that this year, we don't really need the cupcakes - we have a plus defensive unit with players with NFL talent and a lightning-rod quarterback who can make legit D-I teams look silly. Next year, our squad might be a drop-off from this year, and we'll have to play an SEC troublemaker in Vanderbilt and an improving Rice squad. Without a clear heir to Kafka's job and with guys like Wooton, McManis, Phillips, and Smith leaving Evanston, we might need four out-of-conference wins to be bowl eligible, and we might not be able to get them.

This year, our bowl eligibility shouldn't be an issue. We should get four wins out of Towson at home, EMU at home, 'Cuse on the road, and Miami (OH) at home, leaving us to only need two (realistically three) to go someplace warm for the winter. And to be honest, if we don't get four wins out of those four games, we probably don't deserve the vacation.

1LDTFS, Post 13: The Punter.

2009-08-16T14:30:00.002-04:00

I bring you: the most boring post you will ever read. First off, it's a preview post about a position which will not undergo any changes, most likely. If you're not bored yet, it's about punting, which is the most inherently boring position in any sport, besides maybe first-base coaches.

But, look: there's college football in 20 days. When I first started doing these posts, there were 72 days left. If you're not excited, even if it's to read about punters, you're not a friend of mine.

Days Til Football: 20. (Can you read, son? Look, like, two lines above here.)

Sad Demos face.

Who did it last year?: Wildcat #1, Stefan Demos. As far as I can tell, everybody's favorite rugby-style punter made three mistakes last year: twice, he punted the ball into the end zone, and one time, he punted a low-lying ball directly down the middle of the field to a guy who was probably the best kick returner not being paid large sums of money to return kicks. Like Amado Villarreal, he made a big boo-boo at the worst time possible, and like Villarreal, his blunder ended up being one of the contributing factors in our Alamo Bowl loss, ruining what was a pretty good season for Demos.

Demos downed 26 punts - 40 percent of his total punts - inside the 20 with only 2 touchbacks, and averaged 39 yards a punt. That's pretty good. The year before, he was arguably better, with 40.1 yards per punt with 42.5 percent of them landing inside the 20. This, folks, is a good punter.

Who's got next?: Same bat punter, same bat channel. Stefan will probably be punting again, in addition to his field goal and kickoff duties. A pretty steep load, but he'll have to handle it: although Jeff Budzien could be competing with Demos for the role of placekicker, nobody else on the NU roster is listed as a punter, although Brandon Williams has punting experience.

Song this unit reminds me of: "Frontin'" - Pharrell.

Never mind that I'm show-owin off, I was just puntin? A bit of a stretch, but I was out of ideas.

I hope this makes up for the fact that I didn't last long enough to show up at Pharrell's performance on Dillo Day.

Is that an improvement: This segment of these posts... kinda pointless in this one, right? Demos will return, so, no improvement or dropoff, here.

Welp. There it is. I've covered every position on the football field, from the QB to the holder. That being said, we still have 20 days till kickoff vs. Towson, and I plan on posting every one of them, twice or more some days, so keep checking back every day. I've got some surprises in store for you, so, seriously, keep coming back.

THIS MEANS WAR MCCORMICK

2009-08-15T12:46:00.002-04:00

WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT WAIT

WAIT

I go on vacation for a few days - A FEW DAYS - and I turn around, and next thing you know, I go online to Deadspin, and find out that MY VERY OWN CLASSMATES ARE SPENDING THEIR SUMMERS BEHIND MY BACK FINDING WAYS TO PUT ME OUT OF WORK FOREVER.

Yes. McCormick students - and some backstabbing Medill people - have developed a system to take box scores from sporting events and make a rudimentary game story. As someone who is trying to become a sportswriter, the fact that my fellow students are developing sportswriting machines is worrisome.

I might've expected this from those UChicago punks, but I dunno, I guess I was lulled into a false sense of security by the fact that I hadn't met any NU students named Judas yet.

I probably could have sensed something was up when I noticed that most engineering students were considerably smarter than me, could do basic math such as multiplication and division with little trouble, and talked about how engineering was a higher-paying field than journalism. But I didn't expect anything them to go ahead and invent some evil sportswriting cyborg that understands basic grammar and doesn't make spelling mistakes and can use inverted pyramid paragraphs and describe the crisp, cool smell of the freshly cut infield grass on a warm summer night when the sun is just setting over the grandstand and can probably Stump the Schwab if it had to. But you know what, engineering students? THIS MEANS WAR.

Yeah, this isn't over. Two can play at this "putting other students out of their future professions" game. Expect articles to be published in sports sections around the world with headlines like "Engineering: Necessary, or a Huge Waste of Time?" or "Engineers Suspected in Every Killing Ever". We'll see who has the last laugh then.

In other news, later today, there will be a post on the difficulty of being an NU fan despite being unable to display or comprehend emotions by my new bloggin co-partner, the PurpleBot3000. He will also have a post on the Top Ten historical Wildcats sporting events that most remind him of the struggle to resist his urge to overthrow his human overlords. Should be good.

(Of course, uh, satire. Congrats to the computer science kids who did this, but... couldn't you put, like, some other business out of work? All will be forgiven if you invent a robot that can drive up voting numbers in the poll on the right side of the screen.)

(Oh, and I just reread this, and it wasn't that funny, but I'm posting it anyway, because it's rainy in Miami and I just spent like 20 minutes hammering this out, and I'm not letting it go to waste.)

(also, it's in a different font, and I have no idea why.)

1LDTFS, Post 12: Returners

2009-08-10T11:58:00.002-04:00

So football practice starts today. Which means I've gotten through the brunt of the newsless summer, and we're fast approaching, well, the part of the year we enjoy. Long story short, I'm excited.

Quick site note - one of the perks of being half-Cuban is that I get to go visit Miami as frequently as I want with the excuse that I need to see my family. I'm taking advantage of that this week, as I'll be down there, so don't expect posts every day, because, let's face it, there's more interesting things to do in Miami. I might put up one or two, but don't hold your breath.

Days Left Til Football: 25.

Who did it last year?: Stephen Simmons returned kicks last year, and was nothing to write home about, but wasn't too bad either. He busted out some 30+-yard returns, but his reputation as a return man rightfully rests on one play, his 99-yard return for a touchdown against Ohio State in 2007. When Simmons was injured for a few games, a platoon of Jeremy Ebert, Jordan Mabin, Jeravin Matthews and Sherrick McManis took over, and Matthews' speed made him look pretty good at it.

Punt returns were handled by Brendan Smith, with a few cameo appearances by Eric Peterman. Smith's best return was obviously his pick-six against Minnesota, but he had a 51-yard punt return against Illinois that wasn't too bad either.

Who's got next?: Except for Peterman, we return (ughhhhhhhhhh) everybody mentioned above, meaning Smith pretty much has a lock on the punt-returning gig.

As for kicks, I'd assume Simmons will be deep pretty much every time, but with him as a likely candidate starting running back, I assume he won't be taking every single kickoff just to give his legs some time off before taking the field, although he did return kicks in his few starts last year. Look for a big role for Jeravin Matthews here, and lesser roles for the other guys mentioned. Also, if Fitz is to break in a true freshman, the kicking game is where the least mental adjustments are needed. As evidenced by the contributions of Ebert and Matthews, last year's only two true freshman, in the return game, Fitz won't be afraid to set some freshman loose here, so don't be surprised.

Is that an improvement?: Truth be told, last year's kick returning game was pretty bland. I mean, they got the job done, no Iowa-esque catch-and-coughs, nobody ran backwards, but there wasn't anything that truly put the offense on the brink of scoring. Pretty much, I'd be satisfied with just one good play. Other than Smith, I can't remember any electrifying returns, although Matthews and Simmons each had 40-yarders. If either unit can bust out one return that either puts six on the board or puts the offense in a position to do so quickly, I'd call this unit an improvement.

Oh, and, I added a new poll - listen to Diddy!

NU Fan's Guide To Watching: NFL Training Camps.

2009-08-09T12:56:00.000-04:00

From time to time, there are non-Northwestern sporting events. But some of the truer NU heads - you know, the ones who wouldn't shut up about how we beat MSU while watching the championship game with friends... until halftime, at which point they started talking about how we beat FSU, who beat UNC, making us transitive property national champions once removed, the ones who made Youtube highlight reels of Super Bowl 42, except the only play featured is Barry Cofield's one unassisted tackle* - might have trouble sitting through non-Wildcat sports related events.

Well, that's what I'm here for. I'll be guiding you through seminal sporting events and providing them with a purple tint. Today, NFL training camps.

* - these fans do not actually exist

So, NFL training camps are underway. Some view it as a more awesome version of spring training, with people getting into fights while wearing helmets. I view it a lot like, well, any other NFL event that isn't actually a game. (sorry)

However, as a Northwestern fan, you've gotta take notice. We've got 14 guys on NFL rosters, which, compared to every school in the country, isn't half-bad. Compared to other Big Ten schools, it makes us... wait for it... tenth in the conference, ahead of Indiana. (Who didn't see that coming?) Of those 14, I'd say about nine or ten are locks to make their respective rosters, which is a pretty good ratio. John Gill and Tyrell Sutton seem to have pretty good chances of sticking, and, well, if I was Marquice Cole, Eric Peterman, or Noah Herron, I'd try not to get too attached to any of my new teammates. (As a Jets fan, I'm pullin for ya, Marquice.)

So, just like I did with the NBA draft, I'm here to provide a guide to watching your favorite team's NFL training camp, but with a purple tint. And no, I've never actually been to one (unless you consider the Wildcats open-to-media spring practices an NFL training camp) but as an NU blogger, this is how I would approach attending one of these things.

First off, you're going to want to go to the training camp facility of the team of your choosing. Sadly, only 12 teams have NU grads on their training camp rosters. If you're not a fan of one of these 12 teams, either a) pick a new favorite or b) sit outside your local GM's office both night and day with a sign making it clear that you won't eat or drink until he signs CJ Bachér.
Good. Now you're a fan of a team with an NU alum on the training camp field. For the NBA draft, I advised you buy a jersey of all 30 teams with Craig Moore's name and number on the back, just to be safe, but for this, it's easier: you only need one jersey, and you already know the name and number, unless you're a Bears fan, in which case you need to go buy three jerseys and bring two friends with you to training camp. Unfortunately, friends are not sold at the Bears team store, so you'll have to bring your own.
As previously noted, some of our ex-Wildcats don't have great chances of making their rosters. If you're unlucky enough to go to practice on the day your Wildcat gets cut, make sure to console them. Then, go to the office of the highest ranking team official you can find, rip your jersey off - preferably Hulk-style, but any violent removing of the jersey should do - and throw it at the ground, stare the guy in the face, and say "I THOUGHT I KNEW YOU". Pause for dramatic effect, and as you're leaving, spit at his feet before turning your back on him.
Make sure the recently cut player hasn't spent all his per diem already, because you'll need him for bail money.
In all his years playing football, nobody has ever started an Ike Ndukwe-specific chant. And although he doesn't let on, especially with his hulking physical demeanor, sometimes, it hurts, to see all the legions of fans showing up, but never even bothering once to cheer his name. "Always the bridesmaid," he sometimes mutters under his breath as he leaves the huddle, and sullenly decides that deep inside, he really doesn't want to block for Chad Pennington if nobody's ever going to even remember who he is. What I'm saying is, be the first.
If you're at Bears training camp, and Brett Basanez completes a pass to Eric Peterman, who then gets tackled by Nick Roach, you're morally obligated to make out with the closest person to you, regardless of gender or any other mitigating factor. They'll understand.
If you see John Gill or Tyrell Sutton, ask them how they did in Geography last quarter. As someone who was in that class, I genuinely want to know what grades someone can get if they're under contract with a professional football team.
Also, try to recreate this photo I found google image searching "noah herron" with Tyrell Sutton, since Tyrell is also #23 for the Packers:
I imagine the difficult parts will be: a) finding a bike small enough to make the smaller Tyrell look that comically big and b) getting a Wisconsonian child to don a Brett Favre jersey.
But most importantly, remember that you're not trying to out yourself as an NU-only fan. Engage some random guy in conversation about last season. Heckle a starting quarterback. Know everybody's uniform number. (No, #96 is not Amado Villarreal.)

Welcome Tony Jones!

2009-08-07T13:10:00.002-04:00

I don't write about recruiting much, because it's sort of creepy talking about how 16 year olds feel about colleges - I can't imagine how sucky it must have been to see websites with headlines saying "Sherman chooses to apply early" when I was doing that whole process - but since it's Friday, I'm lazy, and there's relevant news, I'm running with it.

Tony Jones, a highly-touted 3-star wide out from Grand Blanc, Michigan, will be NU's 8th class of 2010 recruit. He called a press conference today - something I wish more NU recruits would do, it's cool - to announce he'd choose the Wildcats over MSU and Stanford. (Eat it, Harbaugh!) So, I've fulfilled my posting obligations for today - this is great news for the Cats, so have a good one.

And the winner is....

2009-08-06T14:48:00.001-04:00

Bill Carmody!

Carmody wins a 30-27 thriller, coming from behind in dramatic fashion.

Wet Paper Bag coughed up a seemingly secure 24-21 lead, meaning you'd rather have Bill Carmody as the head coach of NU basketball than an inanimate object.

And, look, I know the expression is "Bill Carmody couldn't coach his way out of a wet paper bag", but I thought putting him head to head against the bag would be more interesting. First off, I think we all know Carmody could coach his way out of any sort of bag - with the amount of hilarious overdramatic arm motions he uses to signify various zone defenses, I have a funny feeling he'd penetrate the bag interior and claw his way to freedom.

But as someone who generally truly loves NU sports, I have difficulty comprehending why Bill Carmody is still our coach. If you do anything for eight years, and in your eighth year, you are 6% successful at that thing, you have no upside. You have failed, and there's no logical way to believe that you will someday be successful. Bill Carmody did that by going 1-17 two presidential terms into his administration. I don't care if he can out-coach John Wooden while blindfolded. Change has gotta come.

The fact that Pat Fitzgerald is universally respected, and won his poll (which asked if the best coach in the nation was "Pat Fitzgerald" or "other") something like 13-2 and Carmody barely beat out Wet Paper Bag is meaningful insight into the way NU fans feel about each guy respectively even if we were overexaggerating a bit with each poll.

There's gonna be another poll up soon - vote or die!

Since I wanna make this joint as reader-friendly as possible, I'm going to take my time to respond to things people comment every once in a while, and now's one of those times.

First off, for those of you wondering how to use the comments section, NorthwesternHighlights has got it down. I giggled at his comment on the Craig Moore post. Giggled.

Two people sufficiently deaded me in my safeties post, and I feel compelled to respond.

First off, Closso, who contends that Brad Phillips didn't go helmet-to-helmet on Shonn Greene. Now, Closso, you're without a doubt the runaway leader in the "Rodger's favorite commenter" award, mainly for posting a link to this site in LTP's comment section, but, trust me, I've seen that video my fair share of times. Either that was helmet-to-helmet or Brad Phillip's chest is made out of some sort of graphite-titanium composite that they make golf clubs out of, which isn't totally out of the question, but it sure looks like he's leading with his head while Greene is already off-balance a bit and falling head-first. Then again, I thought our fight song went "hit em high" instead of "hit em hard" for about two months, and kept asking people why our fight song condoned things that would likely get 15-yard personal foul penalties, so I'm probably not the guy to trust when it comes to matters of tackling people above the waist.

There was also a guy saying that Brendan Smith isn't as good in pass coverage as I portrayed him to be, citing the OSU game. Well, you're probably right, anonymous guy. To be honest, I remember very little of the OSU game after we tied it up at seven, other than the inability to feel my lower legs and the fact that my mom kept complaining about how cold it was. I was a little hesitant to include a sentence describing Smith as good at pass coverage, but I remembered his two interceptions for touchdowns this past year and decided to throw it in, one of those was a deflection, and one of those was a terrible throw into double coverage where he was just waiting to run it back against Syracuse, both were probably more indicative that he's a good return man than he is a lockdown defender.

I already called out run-on sentence guy, and the rest of the comments were like "hey, nice blog" or on posts too far back for me to mention here, so, basically, in summary, thanks for reading, thanks for commenting, and thanks for voting in the polls. Ask about my reader-friendliness policies, folks.

1LDTFS, Post 11: Field Goals and the people associated with them.

2009-08-05T12:47:00.004-04:00

Today's post is oddly titled, because it's really 1.5 posts. You see, we didn't just lose Amado Villarreal this year. We lost every possible human being associated with kicking field goals: the kicker, the backup kicker, the holder, and the long snapper. It's very similar to what the Mayans predict will happen in 2012. Since I wasn't sure where to place a post about the more marginal positions, I'm lumping them in at the end of my Amado post. Enjoy.

Days left til football: 31. (This number is guaranteed accurate: I'm no longer going off math, but off of HailtoPurple's countdown to kickoff counter and this site, which alternates playing a different song every time I go to the page, luckily, the songs it picks are pretty much the only songs I could ever want to hear: Young Jeezy's Put On, Kanye's Homecoming, Zombie Nation, Mo Greene's Go U NU bowl game remix (why haven't I ever heard this song before? He name drops EVERY SINGLE OFFENSIVE LINEMAN!), and other classics.

Who did it last year?: Surely you remember Amado Villarreal. I've been deading Villarreal since this site's very first sentence, but, truth be told, he was a pretty servicable kicker for his two-year career, even briefly earning nickname "Amado-matic."

Don't get me wrong: Amado Villarreal was far from a great kicker. A great kicker wouldn't miss any PAT's, and would be able to hit 40+ yard field goals, which Amado essentially couldn't. But he was, without a doubt, an alright or better kicker. He gets a pretty bad rap for a few reasons: first off, kickers ALWAYS get bad raps. People remember even the great kickers for the one time they missed one that could've won a game. Just hitting a field goal or extra point doesn't seem that impressive - it's expected, so fans get mad whenever a kicker misses one. Secondly, Amado didn't have any positive defining moments - no game winning field goals or anything, his only game-winning attempt came at the end of the 2007 Michigan State game, and he missed from 36 yards.

And third, Amado's failures couldn't have come at worse times. Villarreal missed three extra points this year, four in his two year career. The first came in the aforementioned MSU game, which ended up being a 48-41 NU victory in overtime, but could have had a final in regulation of Amado hadn't missed an extra point attempt. The second came in last year's Iowa game, when NU scored a touchdown after being down seven and had to watch Amado shank one to leave the score 17-16. (We won eventually, in case you forgot.) The next came in last year's Indiana game. The final score was 21-19, but if Amado had hit all his PAT's, NU would've had the opportunity to tie it up at 21 with a two-point conversion. The most painful, of course, was a shank job in last year's overtime Alamo Bowl lost, which prompted people to get very angry at our kicker, because another point would've won NU the game.

But until the PAT - a really, really, really outdated aspect of football - is eliminated, very good kickers will always miss them once in a while. They'll plant their foot wrong, the snap will be high, or the hold will be an inch too far to the left, and it'll get shanked, and there's nothing you can do about it. Long story short, Amado worked hard for five years, kicked relatively well for two of them, and it's sad that he'll be remembered for his propensity to shank.

(Oh, and, what a bad idea to write 500 boring words about PAT's a few days after I get linked to because I'm "witty." I think I just lost all my readers.)

Song this position reminds me of: Posting "Can I Kick It" would be too cliche, so until somebody writes a song about Amado Villarreal, this section of this post goes barren.

Who's got next?: It's a toss-up between our good friend/punter Stefan Demos and incoming recruit Jeff Budzien, who's like an All-American or something. There's two options here: we could let Budzien and his golden leg get to work right away nailing 50-yarders, or we could let Demos swing double-duty as a punter and a kicker at the risk of his leg falling off but with the reward of keeping Budzien around the program another year. Chances are Demos would be servicable as a placekicker, but to be honest, I the upcoming year is one of the more important ones in franchise history. Kicker isn't a position which requires an adjustment period. If Budzien is a better kicker, just shove him in the starting lineup. We've got more to lose this year than we do in 2013, when he'd be a senior if we redshirt him, so I say set him loose.

It should also be noted that Brandon Williams, a freshman kicker on our roster, played quarterback and wide receiver in high school. For some reason, that reminds me of that one Bugs Bunny cartoon where he was playing baseball, although odds are Williams' method of getting in the end zone probably wasn't unfurling posters of 1930's pin-up girls to defenders about to tackle him.

We also have Steve Flaherty, a walk-on kicker who played wide receiver in high school, and Mark Ison and Tim Weak, who were listed as kickers on last year's roster but have moved to wide receiver and cornerback, respectively. Point is, our kicking corps could totally demolish any other kicking corps in the Big Ten in a footrace. Not sure why our kickers need such great hands, though.

Is that an improvement? With Demos, maybe, with Budzien, probably. Dude's a high school All-American. What more can I say?

THE OTHER POSITIONS

We also lose a long snapper and a holder. These are two positions that you forget about, but, which, well, you need somebody to do. I remember the first game I saw at Ryan Field, against Ohio. I had read something about how Ohio's long snapper was suspended or injured or something silly like that, and as a joke, I said to a friend that this would totally change the course of the game.

Three hours later, NU had blocked two field goals and Ohio had missed it's only other opportunity, because the backup long snapper kept bouncing it back to the holder, and Ohio couldn't get off a good punt because everything back to the punter was a two-hopper. It totally ruined what could have been a winnable game for them.

Kyle Daley had been holding for two years and Phil Brunner had been long snapping for three. And they were pretty consistent, I guess, I don't remember them ever messing up. Replacing Brunner will be a guy named John Henry Pace, who transferred from The U (slang name used here to avoid confusion with Miami (OH), who we're more familiar with, for some reason), and replacing Daley, we don't know yet, although several wide recievers and safeties have "might be a holder this season" on their player profiles.

If you read these last few paragraphs, you're a trooper. Sorry this post was so long.

Craig Moore: Dutch Masta Killa

2009-08-04T17:04:00.010-04:00

Hey, it's all the people who clicked links over from Lake The Posts! Nice to see you. I urge you to go over to the side of this post, and vote in the poll, which was a boring 10-5 Carmody lead before LTP readers started coming in, and has turned into an Alamo Bowl-esque thing with Wet Paper Bag taking leads and giving them right back to Carmody, including an 18-18 deadlock heading into last night. Now stands with a 24-21 lead for the Bag. Remember folks, the Wet Paper Bag might not be human, but he's known as a player's coach, something Carmody has never been. I'm actually going to extend the poll a little bit so we can see its thrilling conclusion.

So, since I know there's nothing you peeps love more than news of ex-NU players playing overseas, today's a good day: Craig Moore is on the move to Holland, where he'll be playing with DeFriesland Aris Leeuwarden of the Dutch Eredivisie. (Eredivisie, of course, is Dutch for "the Rik Smits Memorial Dutch Basketball Association.") DeFriesland Aris placed seventh in the Eredivisie last year, and their Eurobasket page features this picture of their home court, which appears to be some sort of futuristic lazer tag arena where there's lines for 40,000 different sports on the court in order to make officiating impossible. (How's that for a run-on, guy who commented on my last post?)

The team is located in Leeuwarden, which is a city in the region of Friesland, which is a part of the Netherlands which speaks Frisian, the language most similar to English of any language in the world. There was once a joke about this fact in this post, but it was so bad that I grew guilty about how unhumorous it was and retroactively removed it. Moving on.

You probably know Holland best as one of the cooler countries in Europe and as the filming site for large amounts of Deuce Bigalow 2: European Gigolo. When it comes to sports, if you know them at all, you probably just know their soccer team which rivals the T&T in coolness. Off the top of your head, the Netherlands probably seems like some sort of basketball backwaters, but, off the top of my head, I can think of the aforementioned Smits, Francisco Elson, Dan Gadzuric, and recent NBA draftee Henk Norel hailing from the Netherlands. So there's that.

Here's wishing Craig luck abroad. Although Craig was a great player at a Big Ten level, there's really not much hope for a player of his caliber outside of college: people from across the world have great jumpers, and although he was a surprisingly tenacious defender, his lack of height and speed made that not really mean much. He turned the ball over at least twice that I can think of simply because he doesn't know how to dribble with his left hand, and other times, looked really silly because his lack of a left meant that the only way he could turn left would be by doing a 270-degree right handed spin move, which was hilarious to watch. But he was perfect for the college level, and even more for Carmody's system: he provided a player who could pretty much get off a shot whenever he wanted against college defenders, no matter how closely he was being guarded, and who could stretch the floor and keep opposing teams from packing the paint. There were times last year when I thought the best, most efficient play our offense could run at this point would just be to dribble the ball across half-court, give it to Craig Moore, wherever he is, and have him shoot it. I could see him having some success abroad, so, here's to Craig.

The post-college whereabouts of Pat Houlihan and Marlon Day are still unknown, but I'm working on taking a higher-res picture of my guitar.

BREAKING: 87% of all NU Graduates now professional football players in Finland

2009-08-03T13:12:00.003-04:00

Because I'm a journalism student, and therefore, someone who is trained and specializes in finding and reporting the information which I decide you, the readers, need to know, I mentioned in the the cornerbacks post that David Oredugba is playing professionally in Finland. Just Oredugba alone made Finland the world's largest importer of ex-NU defenders. (They had previously been in a 195-way tie for last.)

This important information dinked and dunked around the internets, and eventually, somehow word who got to LTP, who brought us this post with the news that Deante Battle, who was a starting cornerback round Evanston way for 3 years, is also playing in Finland.

Because I'm a journalism student, and therefore, adept at finding information which I discern will interest my readers, I'm here to break yet another story: Demetrius Eaton, the ex-NU linebacker, is a teammate of Battle's on the Kouvola Indians.

Dear rest of the world: you've been scooped. Deal with it.

As you probably were able to tell by my borderline obsessive coverage of Kyle Rowley's exploits for the T and T national basketball team, I've got a bit of a thing for fledgling American sports in countries that aren't America. So here's my really long post about Finnish American football, plus, I found the evidence that all this is actually true that I was looking for in my last post. No help from all of you, though, so nobody wins the prizes I promised. Unfortunately, figuring things out with this has been a little difficult, considering Finnish is a language most closely related to Hungarian, and therefore, is like the bottom 5 least decipherable things possible.

So: David Oredugba is, as noted, a cornerback for the Helsinki Roosters, the 14-time winners of the American Football Association of Finland. Because everything in Finland makes sense, this league is abbreviated as the SABJ. In the last post, I was dying for evidence that this is true, and here it is: an interview Oredugba did with some guy with a thick Finnish accent, just after playing his first game.

So, yeah: good to see our ex-fourth-string cornerbacks are enjoying themselves. Also, sweet high-top fade. If I knew he was rockin that thing under his helmet at NU, I would've had a new favorite player.

Meanwhile, onto Battle and Eaton: unlike Oredugba, these guys don't seem to be living the good life. Battle and Eaton, as noted, are signed with the Kouvola Indians. Unlike Oredugba's team, the Indians aren't in the Finnish American football big leagues. They're in the I-Divisioona, which, because everything in Finland makes sense, is the second level of Finnish American football, the AAA of Finland's thriving gridiron scene. To add insult to injury, while Helsinki is a capital city and has over 500,000 inhabitants, Kouvola's wikipedia page describes it thusly: "Kouvola has a reputation of being a dull and uninteresting place." So pity Deante and Demetrius a little.

When it comes to football, the two are doing pretty well as far as I can tell. I would assume this is because these are ex-Big Ten players, and they're playing in the second-best league in Finland, a league where Stefan Demos could probably pass for a right tackle. Both are playing both ways, and have various articles written about them in Finnish newspapers. Of course, I don't know what these articles say, because Finnish ain't my strong suit, but the inordinate amount of times each name pops up both in these newspaper articles and on team websites makes me assume they're doing well, unless the authors are sadistic and love ragging on people excessively.

Deante has even gone so far as to post a highlight reel of himself on youtube, playing in Finland, which I'm thrilled about, because it provides my much needed visual evidence that there's Finnish dudes playing football.

I like Deante's choice of Young Dro as highlight reel music, and really like the clips of him absolutely levelling various hapless Finns who have probably never been tackled by an actual football player before, then standing up and yelling various things at their possibly lifeless bodies.

However, judging from this thing he wrote (on a site that only appears to feature ex-NU athletes - anybody know the deal with that? Gotta be NU-grad founded or something), Deante doesn't seem to be enjoying himself too much in Finland. That's among the more depressing things I've ever read, so, Deante, cheer up.

Because they're Americans playing American football in Finland, there are numerous photos of Deante and Demetrius doing dramatic things. Demetrius is #3, Deante is #2:

Is he looking at the kid in the grey's badonk?

My favorite part of this photo is the startled ref.

Anyway, that's that. However, I'm still hungry for more information, as this whole Finnish football thing raises more questions than answers: how well are these guys actually doing, outside of photos? Who put them in touch with random Finnish football teams? Do they ever have little NU reunions in Finland? Considering I haven't seen one image with fans in the background, how do these guys get paid? Is Finland scouting NU games, and if not, how come the ranks of Finland's football finest are populated by so many NU grads? And most importantly, why in the name of all that is holy are they playing professional football in Finland?

Anybody with answers to any of these questions: come forth. First person to get me in touch with an actual Finnish football player, NU grad or not, wins my undying love.

It's Been Fun

2009-08-01T12:20:00.001-04:00

I watched a few innings of the Yanks-White Sox game last night, and about four minutes after I turned it on, in the third inning, Al Leiter was talking about his college choices, how he was going to go to Stanford, and, because he was in Chicago, Michael Kay brought up NU as a good school in the area, followed by an obligatory shot of Joe Girardi, and the revelation that Leiter toured NU whiel Girardi was still a player, and that Girardi's coach came to visit for the first game of the Yanks-Sox series.

Leiter said, "Northwestern's not Fordham, but it's a good school."

Kay retorted thus: "Oh, yeah, it's outstanding. It's like an Ivy League school."

In 19 years on this earth, I've discovered two constants in life:

1. White people with dreads are terrifying.

2. If Michael Kay thinks it's good, it's actually bad.

It is with this that I announce my intention to transfer from Northwestern to another institution of higher learning, and to cease blogging. Peace. It's been real.

(Dear readers/NU administration: satire. Please, keep reading/PLEASE ALLOW ME TO CONTINUE ATTENDING YOUR UNIVERSITY IT WAS A JOKE I SWEAR)

1LDTFS, Post 10: Safeties.

2009-07-31T14:19:00.000-04:00

Woah, comments on my last three posts? I know that's pretty run-of-the-mill for any normal blog, but, yo, I just started this joint less than a month ago. Three comments on three posts from three different people makes me all warm and gooey inside. Keep it up, everybody.

Oh, and re: Think Blue Crew, who suggests we play someone who isn't Illinois, therefore making the Wrigley game less of a spectacle in which NU happens to be a part and more NU-centric: that's the pipe dream. That would definitely be better for NU, if we could actually get people to make us the focus of the game. But Northwestern just doesn't have the brand recognition to be able to book Wrigley Field just for us, and Illinois has the upper hand here: they want to play at Wrigley, Wrigley wants them, therefore, they're not going to be the one giving up a home game. We have to take what we can get, and what we can get is a home game at Wrigley Field against Illinois. So let's do it.

On to safeties, yo!

Days til Football: 35.

(The Daily had a ridiculously good photo of Brendan Smith about three seconds after this photo was taking wherein he is lifting his hands victoriously, but I couldn't figure out how to actually get it on here. So, you get this photo with a sullen Eric Decker in the background instead.)

Who did it last year?: NU had two star safeties: free safety Brendan Smith, was great in pass coverage and was a huge asset in the returning game, and strong safety Brad Phillips, who became NU's biggest hitter and had three interceptions. Each had plays that won conference games: Smith won the Minnesota game with his last-minute pick six to give NU the 24-17 victory, and Phillips' hit on Shonn Greene, despite being completely illegal, cuz of the whole "helmet-to-helmet" thing, forced Greene to put the ball on the ground, giving NU a chance to score, and took Greene out of the game. Which we won.

When Phillips played nickelback or moved up a few yards to play a sort of hybrid linebacker, Brian Peters came in as an extra defensive back in the strong safety position. Peters is a big hitter too - he knocked Arrelious Benn out of the Illinois game. (By the way, the reason Arrelious goes by "Rejus" in sports columns isn't because it's a nickname of his, but because "Arrelious" causes more spelling errors from lazy sportswriters than Dwyane Wade and Jarrod Saltalamacchia combined. This is what's known as a "Coach K nickname" in the biz.) (I just made that up.) (But it works. Even though I can totally spell K-R-Z-Y-Z-E-W-S-K-I with my eyes closed.)

Who's got next?: Brad and Brendan are seniors this year, and both made it onto the cover of the media guide, so, yeah, they'll be starting. And Brian Peters will also be doing his thing in those aforementioned nickelback situations. I nominate we call this unit "The Killer B's". Here's to not getting sued by an overzealous Brad Ausmus and Lance Berkman.

Song this unit reminds me of: Killa Beez, by... the Wu-Tang Killa Beez, a very uncreative rap group affiliated with the Wu-Tang Clan. Although you probably just thought it was the Wu-Tang because everybody with a verse on this song is, well, also a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. It's for the better: the rapping by the other members of the Wu-Tang Killa Beez on the rest of this album is historically bad.

Not to tell U-God what's ghetto, but, dude, I have a Chad Pennington jersey in my closet. I don't wear it for a reason.

And, yes, I'm running with calling this unit the Killer B's. I'm so uncool.

Is this year's unit an improvement? Well, it's the same unit, a year older, a year wiser, and a year better at game-winning interceptions and the not safe for work Chris Tucker quote in Friday-ing of opposing running backs. I like it.

So, yeah, have a good weekend. Special teams is next. Football season isn't close yet, but it's close to close.

The Football at Wrigley Question

2009-07-29T14:29:00.002-04:00

Every once in a while, there's a topic that takes the tiny NU blogosphere by storm, and, because I'm primarily interested in boring the doo-doo out of y'all, I always feel compelled to comment on it. Nowadays, it's the question of playing a home game at Wrigley Field against Illinois.

There's arguments against having a home game at Wrigley. I'll list them as obnoxiously as possible.

"But we're giving up a home game! What about the money from the gates! We need that money!"

"But the game will be filled with Illinois fans! If we're trying to promote our team, it won't even matter because only Illinois fans will come and they'll never become NU fans as long as they live so it doesn't even help to market to them!"

"But most football teams don't throw away home games like that! We'd have so few home games!"

"But what if a player is running really fast and hits into the wall in center field and gets hurt?"

"But if there's only Illinois fans, who's even going to remember NU was there?"

"But waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!"

Let me put it this way: I can't see eye to eye with anyone who sees this game as a potential negative for NU sports. I see these negatives, and if you're seriously concerned about this, live a little.

First off, NU will play a home game against Illinois every other year until they're building skating rinks in hell. Those games aren't going anywhere. And the only difference between those games will be the players and the final scores. You'll attend hundreds of games at Ryan Field, and some day, they'll all start to blend together, if they haven't already.

However, a game at Wrigley is a once-in-a-lifetime deal. And what's more, just like the Winter Classic actually got people to think about the Blackhawks and Red Wings for an afternoon who never would've done so beforehand, NU can take a little time in the spotlight, and that's definitely not a bad thing.

Let's be real. Right now, NU can win 8 games a year and play six home games from 2009 to infinity, and you know what? Status quo won't get us more than 30,000 fans in seats and won't get us sellouts in non OSU/Penn State games. That's just being realistic. Status quo won't get us anywhere. We have to try new things just to get people to notice us. I'm not saying a game at Wrigley will change all this, I'm not even saying it'll help. I'm just saying you have to keep trying, or else nothing will ever happen. And if nothing does happen, at the very least we'll have a fun day in somebody else's dilapidated stadium for once.

Variety is the spice of life. And a game at Wrigley can easily add a little bit of variety into our yearly game with the folks from downstate.

Oh, and, re: player safety with the outfield wall being about two feet outside the endzone: good call, they should get cracking on this. I think we can all agree that we need to be more worried about post-touchdown hits from the ivy than we do about in-game hits from Illini linebackers. (Zing!)

1LDTFS, Post 9: Cornerbacks.

2009-07-28T13:54:00.001-04:00

Sorry for the four or so day posting break - me and some of the boys went camping, no internet access out in the woods. Hopefully, the new poll on the right makes up for my time away. (Seriously, folks, give Wet Paper Bag his due.)

Days Left Til Football: 38. (Please, nobody actually do the math to figure this out. I'm probably so far off at this point - I keep subtracting from the last time I did this post, but I'm probably losing like 4 days each time I do that.)

Yeah, that's pass interference.

Who did it last year?: The purple-clad fella above is Sherrick McManis, who started every game last year and did a downright fantastic job. McManis was in his third year starting games at cornerback, his second year full-time, and he's improved every year. He was originally joined by Justan Vaughn, who jumped some people on the depth chart to earn the starting job, but after the Syracuse and Duke games, Vaughn suffered a season-ending injury, and in came Jordan Mabin, who was pretty much as good as McManis, and earned hisself a Freshman All-American honor.

In the tradition of naming graduated players who sorta contributed in these posts, NU loses David Oredugba, who played a decent amount of corner when we needed three or four on the field, and will forever go down in NU history as the guy whose poor hands led to Brendan Smith's game-winning pick six against Minnesota. Because I'm a journalism student, and I therefore specialize in reporting to you, the reader, the most important and relevant information I can find, I am here to tell you the following information: Oredugba is now gainfully employed playing football for the Helsinki Roosters in Finland. For all of you who were wondering about ex-NU occasional nickelback David Oredugba's post-collegiate football whereabouts, you're welcome, and donations are accepted in the form of cash, checks, or credit cards sent to my dorm room. Here are some money quotes from an interview with David from the Roosters' website.

"I understand that during the summer Helsinki is a great place to
be, because of the nice weather, festivals, midnight sunsets. While in
Finland I hope to forge many lifelong friendships."

" I hope to do whatever it takes for the Roosters to win the Maple Title."

The Purple Drank: providing the information you need since June 2009.

Who's Got Next?: McManis and Mabin ensured their starters roles with great performances last year, and with Vaughn back from injury, we've basically got three cornerbacks who we'd be pleased with in a starting role. If needs be, Mike Bolden seems to be the most likely candidate to play in a dime set, although we'd probably end up putting in safety Bryan Peters and having Brad Phillips playing a nickelback role with Vaughn also in the game.

Is that an improvement? Oh yeah. Essentially, the difference from last year to this year is that we know we have two lock-down corners in McManis and Mabin, plus, our third CB - a pretty necessary position - changes from Oredugba to Vaughn. Don't tell the Helsinki Roosters, but Vaughn was higher than Oredugba on the roster last year, so that's a good thing. Our secondary should be pretty sweet this year, and by now, you've probably noticed that all of the defensive posts since DT have been really complimentary, and the DT one was pretty complimentary too. Long story short, we're going to have a nice defense this year.

And, yes, consider the hunt on for any further evidence related to David Oredugba's Finnish American football career. First person to find anything wins a prize.

Coach Fitz!!!

2009-07-23T16:03:00.000-04:00

I wrote last week a little bit about how excitable Coach Pat Fitzgerald is. I think there's no better display of this than his twitter feed, which is handily linked to in the links column on the right side, but which, to be honest, I hadn't really analyzed, or checked, that much, until I got curious today.

As Twitters go, it's a pretty decent one - few spelling mistakes, clearly done by Fitz himself, and extremely Fitz-like. It's filled with all-caps, and most of all, exclamation points.

In his last 20 posts, the man has 24 exclamation points. (!) That's 1.2 per post. Although it drops off a bit as the posts get older - he only has 91 in his last 100 posts, then again, maybe that's because most of his recent posts are about his induction to the hall of fame, which would get me pretty hyped and exclamation point-y - he's still a freakin' prolific exclaimer.

Considering one of the main reasons Fitz is an NU folk hero is his preposterous intensity quotient, it's good to see his online persona punctuates things exactly the way I picture him talking.

1LDTFS, Post 8: Linebackers.

2009-07-22T15:51:00.000-04:00

Coming down the stretch of this series, which is a shame, because I clearly have nothing else to write about.

Days Left Til Football: 44.Who did it last year?: On the outside, senior Prince Kwateng, the dude doing something in the photo above, and Quentin Davie started every game. Kwateng was the team captain, and had a pretty solid season, with four games with more than ten tackles, including 13 in the Alamo Bowl. Davie was relatively nice with it as well as a sophomore.

In the middle, Malcolm Arrington seemed like an invaluable part of the defense for the first half of the season. However, he turned out to be just regular old valuable, because Nate Williams came in and replaced him effortlessly, doing as good a job as Arrington had been.

We also graduate a senior named Mike Dinard, who was a backup OLB who started games in 2006 and 2007 before entering a backup role last year. Sadly, my only recollection of him was a particularly egregious late hit in the Indiana game, but then again, I have a knack for only noticing bad things.

According to the record books, Brad Phillips started two games at outside linebacker, but I see him as a safety first with the ability to play up a few yards if need be to allow Mike Hankwitz to get creative with his defensive setups.

Who's gonna do it this year? Williams and Davie will reprise their roles from last year. Replacing Prince Kwateng will be TPD favorite and NU folk hero, Ben Johnson, who played a smattering of backup linebacker and struck fear into the hearts of opposing special teamers, and, all things told, should be a pretty good player.

There's a few other guys who I can't guarantee won't play, so, for the sake of completeness, I'll mention them: Chris Jeske has been injured in a variety of ways for his entire NU career, and is a senior now, and played a bunch of reps with the first team in spring ball, so don't expect his career to end with only blocks to his name. Aaron Nagel transferred from Notre Dame and sat out last year due to NCAA rules, but being a Notre Dame recruit doesn't mean as much as it used to. And as we all know by know, they have a bit of a knack of messing up their LB recruiting priorities anyways. Bryce McNaul was a backup last year, and thus got into the games a little bit, but I don't know much about him.

Is that an improvement from last year? It easily can be. We know Davie and Williams can play from their roles last year, and if you're not a Ben Johnson fan yet, you will be. He's 6'4 and his player profile tells you he was a great high school receiver and set multiple records in track. To sum it up, we have a young unit with two juniors who have proven themselves with starting experience and a sophomore who looks primed to break out.

All said and told, linebacker should be one of many solid units on the defensive side of the ball this next year, and in 2010 for that matter.

Revisionist History

2009-07-21T14:21:00.001-04:00

There's been a lot of hubbub in the tiny NU blogosphere about sprucing up NU's historical records for a bit. Before I get into the thick of this post, I'd like to commend the guys gettin dirty doing the research: the guys from HailToPurple are obviously amazing with their historical knowledge and actually got Northwestern athletics to acknowledge that the football team won ten games in 1903 as opposed to the nine previously believed, and Ryan from Welsh-Ryan Ramblings has been bloggin up a storm about how NU was voted the 1931 national basketball champions in 1931 by the Helms foundation, which many schools consider the equivalent the same as a national championship from the tourney era, but which NU does not acknowledge.

So, how to feel about this? Well, on the one hand, you always gotta respect your elders, and although I doubt any of the members of either squad are still with us (and if you are... well, I'm impressed you lived long enough to see yourself assumed dead on the internet), you still have to acknowledge their achievements in their memory.

But on the other hand, I think there's a lot to be said about being true to what we are. And historically, winning is not what we are. If you're a Northwestern fan, you have to embrace our history of losing, sucking, and generally being terrible. It makes the fact that we're decent today so much better.

There's a reason every hip-hop fan I know knows all the lyrics to Juicy. Rags-to-riches stories, to be honest, are cooler than just being good all the time.

And as a Yankees fan, and not a douche (we exist!) I have to put up with my fellow Yankee fans. When we win, they expect it, because they think the Yankees should always win. And when we lose, there's the whole "HEY, YOU, HOW MANY RINGS DOES YOUR TEAM HAVE? 26? OH, WAIT, WE HAVE 26, HAHAHAHA, GO BACK TO TORONTO, PUNK" spiel. The Yankees' historical success completely dilutes any enjoyment of the current team that many Yankees fans have.

Meanwhile, at NU, we have the opposite dilemma. Our teams have been historically the bottom of the barrel. And now? Now, we know how to savor every win, because there were times when we didn't have any. So, yeah, maybe your team did win 7 times in a row against us, or whatever. Maybe you do have a 135-25 record against us. But today? You're probably going to lose. And when you look back at all those historical successes you had against us, you know what? It's going to sting. (Trust me: I'm a Yankees fan. The whole "Red Sox being good now" thing STINGS.)

So when we do win ten games in a season, or when we do qualify for a NCAA Tourney, I'd rather not hear about our 1931 national championship or our 10 wins in 1903. There's a first time for everything, and I'd like to be around for NU's first, rather than hear about how it happened way back in aught six.

1LDTFS, Post 7: Defensive End

2009-07-20T14:32:00.001-04:00

Why did I do two seperate posts about the defensive line, but only one about the offensive? I wish I knew. Sorry bout the double standard, offensive linemen.

Days Left Til Football: 46. (Woah, under 50?)

Who did it last year?: Primarily, three dudes.

The one above is senior defensive end/beast/2008 team MVP/2008 first team All-Big Ten/2009 Preseason All-American candidate/2009 Playboy All-American/baby-eater Corey Wootton. Corey Wootton is the truth. Corey Wootton is so good, the Northwestern athletics department embedded a highlight clip in his player profile, which I'm pretty sure is a first for any Wildcat athlete in any sport. You may remember him from doing these things.

On the other end, most of the time, was Kevin Mims, who notched 38 starts as a Wildcat. Mims had been a starter since freshman year, when he recorded a 30 yard pick six in the Sun Bowl, and was Big Ten defensive player of the week once last year, but despite all the achievements, the youtube video he'll be defined by isn't a highlight reel like Wootton, but this:

Mims was also NU's most talented sideline celebrator, besides Pat Fitzgerald, of course.

When those guys took a breather, in came Vince Browne. Vince was a revelation as a RS Freshman, sometimes racking up more tackles or sacks than Wootton or Mims in less playing time. He even managed a Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week nod against Ohio. His year was cut short by injury, but he somehow made it back for the bowl game.

Who's doing it this year?: We return Wootton and Browne, which is great. Wootton was a prospect to go pro until his knee went one way and the rest of his leg went the other while pursuing the QB in the Alamo Bowl, and decided to rehab and return to college after getting surgery in January, a good choice for Corey, because the injury probably would've lowered his draft stock some. Corey will know the decision was worth it ~~when he gets his NU degree~~

~~when he has to walk to Tech in February with four inches of slushy gross stuff on the ground~~

~~when NFL DE Luis Castillo comes over to his tiny Evanston crib to visit and lights a cigar with a stack of crisp, clean $100 dollar bills, and flies away in his personal hot air balloon~~

when he gets selected highly in April's NFL Draft.

Song/songs this unit reminds me of:

From Kevin Mims...

To Corey Wootton. Errr, Victor Wooten. Who played a solo show at NU last year. It was awesome.

I'm close to 100% sure that what he does in that video isn't humanly possible. But hey, same goes for Corey.

Is that an improvement? Oh yeah. Corey Wootton has probably steadily improved, as he has his whole career, and Browne was arguably as good as Mims last year, and is still a sophomore. No offense to our secondary, but Browne and Wootton are probably the best unit we have on defense, and should put an absolute world of hurt on opposing quarterbacks next season.

Who else we got? For those of you who are big fans of when I say stupid things about players deep on depth charts I've never heard of, sorry, this feature is done. The way I see it, if you don't actually have a history of playing for us, you don't deserve getting slandered by some dude online, so, no more. I apologize to all the fans of slander out there.

Here's to Coach Fitz.

2009-07-18T14:50:00.000-04:00

Today, as you probably done heard, is Pat Fitzgerald's big day. Our coach is getting inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame for his service to NU as a linebacker back in 1995-96, when, as you also probably know, he led NU's defense to two of the best seasons in NU history, and certainly the best two defensive seasons.

Unfortunately, I'm only 19. I barely understood football when Fitz was domineering opposing running backs, and didn't pay attention to NU football for at least ten years after his days in purple were over. I know him as a coach. I've already offered my views on Fitz the coach in picture form, so allow me to do so in words.

Even if Pat Fitzgerald was Carmody bad at running a program, I'd still probably like him a lot. He's young, extremely passionate, easily excitable, friendly and likable, he stands up for his players and they love him back for it, and it genuinely seems like he loves Northwestern.

Luckily for us, that's not a problem. Fitz might be the best recruiter in NU history, and we've seen steady improvements each year he's coached, and, small sample size be damned, the man actually has a winning record as an NU football coach. He probably has close to a 100% approval rating among NU students, as evidenced by his close to mythical status among us and by the extraordinarily high percentage of people who kept those disembodied PTI Pat Fitzgerald heads on sticks they gave out at the Purdue game and put them somewhere in their room.

Some people talk about Coach Fitz becoming NU's personal Joe Paterno, others talk about him being lured away to some other school by a few extra million. To be honest, as much as other schools are probably willing to shell out for him, I'd be surprised (and betrayed) if he went anywhere else. Fitz is genuinely in love with Northwestern, and is still grateful for getting recruited by NU and for the fact that we gave him a chance as a coach. And I think we'll see him here for decades to come. Hopefully, he'll age more gracefully than Joe Pa.

So, Coach Fitz, congratulations, and thanks.

Sorry, no big post today

2009-07-16T18:35:00.005-04:00

Instead - enjoy The Purple Drank Best Of: John Shurna Making Silly Faces Edition.Silly Face Basketball Photos happen to everybody. (shouldn't take you more than ten photos to find a good one) It's a fact of life. But some people, notably Anthony Johnson and Mike Dunleavy, Jr. just have a knack for getting into situations that give rise to Silly Face Basketball Photo opportunities.

I think it's safe to say John Shurna is one of those people.

1LDTFS, Post 6: Defensive Tackle

2009-07-15T14:43:00.002-04:00

Yeah, onto the D. Much less interesting to write/read about, so, sorry about that, but, hey, if you want me to write something about NU sports every day in the middle of the friggin summer, which you clearly do, well, this is what you get.

Since there's no clear order of where to start on defense, like there is on offense with the QB, I'm going from the inside out, or something like that.

Days Left Til Football: 51.

Who did it last year?: Most notably, the guy in the photo above, John Gill, who, judging from his excitement and the relative depression on the faces of Hawkeyes fans, is pictured immediately after recording a game-saving pass deflection on fourth down against Iowa this year. Anyway, Gill was a pretty dominant DT who started over 40 games at NU. Unfortunately for us, he's now trying to wiggle his way onto the Detroit Lions roster, and you can go ahead and insert your joke about how that's unfortunate for him too, but I'm too classy for that.

Gill was joined by now-junior Corbin Bryant, who started most of the year as the second DT in our 4-3 defense before an injury at Michigan, and now-senior Adam Hahn, who had started the two years before, started the rest of the year.

Marshall Thomas also played in every game at DT, although quite frankly, I don't remember him, and Jack DiNardo appeared in eight games, but, again, no recollection of this.

Who will do it this year?: Bryant and Hahn, the two guys with starting experience, will start.

The aforementioned Marshall Thomas is a true senior, and should also get some serious snaps.

That was easy.

Is that an improvement?: Well, no. John Gill was a serious talent, the type who was clearly good enough to start four years ago and just got better as he went along. Bryant and Hahn are two guys who are pretty good, but, not football-on-Sundays good, and it might show a little in our ability to stop the run. Luckily for us, we have two grade-A beasts roaming the D-end positions, so our line won't be too bad. And, when it all comes down to it, these guys have played before, so it's not like newbies are going in for Gill. But it's a drop-off.