Quick Hits
By Lake The Posts on
It’s a light news day in Northwestern-ville, so a few quick hitters to keep you up to speed.
Busy, busy work week for the LTP staff equals tougher engaging content for you. Add to it the fact it’s rather slow in Wildcat news and the result is a quick-hitter post. Hopefully there are some nuggets for you of interest.
Smart, Very Smart
I’m a big fan of the blog SmartFootball and once again they have hoisted the 2000 NU-Michigan game as a plot point in college football history. I love the context and backstory to how Randy Walker visited RichRod when he was at Clemson and adopted the spread heading in to the 2000 season. Walker would then be a mentor for many programs, including a young Urban Meyer (who would use it against him a year later on the Bowling Green staff).
Many high school and college coaches point to this game as exhibit “A” of how a team with less talent could neutralize and exploit a better, on paper opponent. The 54-51 shootout win on ABC is still talked about by many as a catalyst for the proliferation of the spread. The interesting take here, is that a new plotpoint may be in order. A great read – click here.
Kain With The Reigns
A great feature on the development of Kain Colter and the offseason to-do list which has become an annual even for OC and QB developer, Mick McCall. Check out the piece here by Adam Rittenberg.
Signing Day Countdown
Next Wednesday marks national signing day for the 2012 college football recruits. Northwestern is teeing-up a full slate of events highlighted by a signing day party at Ditka’s in downtown Chicago. Check out all the planned coverage and day of to-do’s by clicking here.
JoePa & Fitz
I scanned WildcatReport.com and saw several posters from Penn State thanking Fitz for attending the service for Joe Paterno. The coverage is inescapable, but it is clear that many Penn State fans won’t forget Fitz’s attendance.
Weekend Closing Time?
Highly touted transfer, Kyle Prater is scheduled to visit Northwestern this weekend and then very shortly thereafter make his decision about pledging his future to the Wildcats. Northwestern is also hosting Stephen Buckley, a DE from Texas who WildcatReport.com reported we are hot after. It should be an interesting next week as far as wrapping up the 2012 class goes.
Very nice to see how highly regarded Fitz is on the PSU message boards. It’s worth your time to click:
http://mbd.scout.com/mb.aspx?s=157&f=1395&t=8616259
The general gist is that they view Fitz as the person who will carry JoePa’s torch. And although many commenters said they want Fitz at Penn State, most agreed that the Paterno-way would be to stay at NU.
@LTP
FYI – Rivals lists Stephen Buckley as an “Athlete”. He is 6′ and weighs 178lbs.
Thanks – indeed my bad. Corrected in next post.
Still time to pick over the carcass of Rutgers’ recruiting class with Schiano’s departure to Tampa Bay. Anyone know whether we were in on any of those recruits?
Weren’t we going after Quanzell Lambert at one point?
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/recruiting/player-Quanzell-Lambert-101820
We were one of his five campus visits, and he’s apparently now reconsidering his commitment: http://footballrecruiting.rivals.com/barrier_noentry.asp?ReturnTo=&sid=&script=content.asp&cid=1323686&fid=&tid=&mid=&rid=
Does anyone know how to obtain a recording of the 2000 NU vs Michigan game? I was at the game in Evanston with both husband Don and son Don III. Later I taped the ESPN Instant Classic of the game, but alas, someone in our household accidentally erased it! It is one game I really would like to have to relive the excitement and to share with family who were in the NU stadium that exciting, back in forth, exhausting but ever memorable 2000 victory of the Cats over the Wolverines. P.S. ESPN doesn’t have copies of the game or at least not ones fans can have.
Big Ten Network Feb 21 5:30PM Feb 22 3:00AM, says the network’s web site, Kathy. It pops up now again on the “Big Ten’s Greatest Games” series.
This may have been posted already (I’m behind on my LTP reading), but this is an interesting NYT blog post on the economics of major college athletics… http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/do-big-time-sports-mean-big-time-support-for-universities/
The article points out things most of us here probably already know but what isn’t pointed out is how sports success benefits certain universities even more than others. Northwestern for example. I think that the drive to respectability is having a major positive impact on everything to do with NU including fund raising and probably improving academic quality. Standards were very high when I was there but I wager that they are higher now.
It started with Gary Barnett who set the bar higher and some success followed and we are hoping that NU will reach ever higher levels. Most now think that we have the right head coach and AD and even president of the university. What we need now is for the same thing to happen for men’s basketball and women’s BB as well. And then a hard and fast plan to improve the facilities and NU will finally get on the map where we would like to be.
I think it would be different if NU was just another high quality private university that had no interest in athletics. NU is in the B1G and it is even unique in the conference. It is one of a handful of academically outstanding educational institutions in the country that offers the total collegiate experience.
Let’s proceed with that in mind. We want NU to be the best it can be including in athletics.
@Henry near UCONN…
If I had not read your comments for the last 1.5 years, I’d think you were having Kool Aid for Happy Hour… I’ll give you the positives from the Times’ blog post and related study are applicable to NU… I’ll give you that Barnett set the bar high and those who are NU Fans and boosters hope that the program will reach even higher levels…
That said, let’s work on getting the program BACK to levels where it was under Barnett and has not been seen since first… Moreover, not sure what your take on the 53% of folks (via the LTP poll) who voted they were livid with the direction of the football program was, but, certainly does not support your theory that “most now think we have the right head coach, AD and even University President”… All three of those functions certainly have something to do with the direction of the football team including the selection of coaching and support personnel. Further to imply the level of success established by the football team should be the goal of both the Men’s and Women’s basketball team is truly some uncharacteristic rhetoric for a man who has preached the need for quality on-field/court performance on a regular basis here, more often than not on a higher basis than achieved by the NU Football program…
Why the change of heart? A few weeks ago post Texas A&M and the mandate from Fitz that no coaching changes would take place, you were saying that if you lived in Chicago and had season tickets, you would not renew and find other actitvities on Saturdays! Heck, as disappointed/pissed off as I am about the whole scene, I’d never dump my tickets or stop going to games under any circumstances! Well, almost any… That said, you were at that point!
What gives, brother!
Yea, I think this article really spells out the true value of “big time” athletics for colleges and the affect is has on the larger university. I think after the rose bowl years, did we not get as high as 8th in the USNWR rankings or something? This can work against you as well – look what happened to Rice. When I went to NU in the early 90s, Rice was perceived as the better school. Even some of my friends tried to transfer there (following “transfermania” in our BB program…) but where rejected by their admissions. Now, the roles have clearly reversed with their athletic fortunes dropping (along with the relative “reputation”) while ours has increased. They really hurt themselves when they seriously considered going “D3″ in sports a while back as well….
@DT – What I said were positive things about NU and collegiate athletics in general. I said most think that we have the right head coach… which is a fair statement. I didn’t say that I necessarily think these things. This was more of a plea to keep the progress going because it is good for the university. I think that eventually we will have to recognize that there has to be some separation between athletics and academics if we are ever really going to compete but that we all know that day is not here yet.
And since you mentioned UConn, UConn football won the Big East (Beast) in 2010 and men’s BB was NC for 2010-11. Women’s BB is a perennial power house that was NC three years in a row before losing in the FF in 2011. Do you think that this success hasn’t don wonders for the university and for the state? You bet it has.
Go Cats!!!
@Henry-
Got it… Also, no doubt the athletic success at UCONN has provided huge benefit to that institution including the brand and profile..