Northwestern Wildcats Football Season Preview

by user The Beast

With the death of Randy Walker, the season begins on a sour note. Rookie Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald, 31, takes over the Cats. He must do everything humanly possible to tighten up the defense, because the onslaught is coming. Northwestern should be able to get past a opening night Thursday game at Miami University and shouldn't have a problem with New Hampshire and Eastern Michigan, but those are followed by a parade of tough offenses that'll have their way with the Purple with three straight road games at Nevada, Penn State and Wisconsin before getting Purdue, Michigan State, at Michigan, at Iowa and Ohio State before facing Illinois.

At Quarterback, tt seems like Fitzgerald has pegged redshirt sophomore they C.J. Bacher to succeed the record setting Brett Basanez. However, redshirt freshman Mike Kafka and Andrew Brewer, are closing the gap.

There are plenty of candidates at wide receiver to fill the void left by Jonathan Fields and Mark Philmore. Luckily, the staff doesn't have to choose just one. Ross Lane put up more than 100 yards in the Sun Bowl and continued to impress this spring, along with fellow sophomore Rasheed Ward. The wild card might be Brandon Horn, who is expected to return after a year-long suspension. Then there's Shaun Herbert, who caught the fourth-most passes (79) in school history last year.

And did we mention Tyrell Sutton and Brandon Roberson. Sutton was a freshman All-American last year. In addition to pilling up rushing yards, Sutton was an outstanding receiving back. He and Roberson could be the best set of receiving running backs in the country?

All-American Zach Strief graduated, but Northwestern still has five starters back. That's because two-year starting center Trevor Rees, who sat out the 2005 season with academic reasons, returned to his spot in the middle. The development allowed the 6-5 Austin Matthews to shift to his more natural spot at right tackle.

That defense better be improving. Good thing that Fitzgerald was a hard nossed linebacker in his day. LB Nick Roach has spent his career nicked up, banged around and often unable to play. Even when he started last year, he was never really 100 percent. Well, he's not only a picture of health this spring, but he's also taken on the primary leadership role of the defense.

Eric Peterman made a smooth transition from wide receiver to cornerback and could break into the starting lineup. And in the muddled interior of the line, sophomore John Gill seems to be progressing a lot faster than all the others. In fact, he's even drawing comparisons to former Wildcat and current NFLer Luis Castillo.

Every young team can say they're "a year better." But until we see them perform against someone other than their teammates, we really don't know? It'll be tough for them to succeed with a rookie coach, with no coordinator experience. Hopefully, the guys can rally around the death of Walker, and make this a great season by winning it for the old ball coach. Unfortunately, they don't have the players to embark on such a season.

My prediction 5-7, 8th in the Big Ten

Date

Sat 08/26/06, 6:51 am EST