High School football practice in Illinois starts tomorrow. For the first time in a decade I'll be off the sideline. But I will be in the broadcast booth. For fun since I'll miss going into the bag of tricks for play calls most all here are some of my favorite trick play calls 1/2

And here's more fun with the second set of trick plays (2/2)

I’m a Northwestern Football fan but I’ve gained a lot of affinity for K-State Football in recent years not just because of the similar colors/mascot/history but because of Chris Klieman. Reading about how he helped Coach Braun last year makes me like the guy even more. Great coach & great person.

I come from the baseball background where you’re always looking for a picturesque place to play. But I don’t care what sport you’re playing…you’d have to be crazy not to think this place isn’t as cool a site to play as it gets.

I am excited to join Doc on the broadcast for this game and a number of others throughout this season. This should be a good one with two perennial playoff teams. WCHS Panther Football won 33-27 in a close game between these two programs last season.

Actual data to support my long held theory that Northwestern could win the National Title and would be picked to finish 10th in the B1G by the experts in the next year’s preseason polls. Thanks Brett McMurphy for doing the research.

Northwestern seems to have had a lot of good candidates this time. So credit to the search committee. Jackson was probably the lowest profile of the three finalists. But might make the most sense given he’s worked at ‘Nova and USC two academic private schools and led successfully

Here’s my 2024 NU Football prediction. Last year I thought I was optimistic picking 4-8. Finish was 8-5. This year I might seem more pessimist but I’m saying 6-6. I really think this year is high floor, low ceiling. I think 5 wins is minimum but I struggle to see path to 8 max.

Happy Week 1! Updates as best I can from Morton Hogs Football at Mahomet and Metamora Football at Sterling! Plus, audio from Doc Watson / Ryan Lindley at Washington/Kaneland!

Gigantic shoutout to the Northwestern Athletics grounds crew who had this lined for a soccer game last night at 7PM and now has it set for football today. In the two years of this facility being used by four teams they might be the MVPs.

Since I'm no longer coaching football I'm not doing postgame film but want to offer some postgame breakdown. Here are my brief thoughts on Mike Wright's first start for Northwestern. I see a lot of encouraging things from him and also from how Zach Lujan called the game.

I love the script helmet and had a sneaking suspicion that NU would do the night game = black jersey thing. But this is so close to what I think is the best NU uniform combo of white helmet, purple jersey, white pants. Hopefully that combo reappears at some point this season.

and an incredible Northwestern stat that Jeff Legwold's story also brought to my attention: Trevor Siemian is the last QB to guide the Broncos to a winning record, going 13-11 in games he started. espn.com/nfl/story/_/id…

This is an awesome picture! It really shows what a special place Northwestern found in setting up Northwestern Medicine Field.