Guhhhhhhhhhhh: the recap.

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. 

2-0?: The Recap.

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.

W!

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. 

Four Days.

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.

The Two-Deep is out.

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.

1LDTFS, Post 13: The Punter.

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.  

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

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.