Northwestern University Athletics
Quick Hitters: The Myslenski Rice Preview
9/17/2010 12:00:00 AM | Football
Sept. 17, 2010
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
• It would certainly be an exaggeration to say that the 'Cats will have a home-away-from-home game when they face Rice in Houston on Saturday night. But it is one of the cities Pat Fitzgerald scoured as a recruiter before taking over as head coach and an area that, over the last decade, has sent a raft of talent north to play in Evanston. "We're going to start and end our recruiting here in the Midwest and in Chicagoland," he explains.
"But we hard target some cities outside the area where we have a footprint. Houston is one of those cities. . . You watch the young people on tape (from that area), the football down there is outstanding. The coaches are outstanding. The young men have great grades, they're a great fit for our program, they come from great families."
They, in turn, started coming north at the dawning of this decade and, since then, there has never been less than four Houstonians on the 'Cat roster. This season there are five of them anticipating a trip home and one of them, corner Justan Vaughn, said this when asked the reason behind the pipeline. "This is just a great school. . .(and) Fitz was actually my recruiting coach at the time before he was head coach. He was just a genuine dude that made me actually look into what the school was all about. I just liked coming up here. I guess that's why everybody else comes up here too."
"I really wasn't (aware of the pipeline)," says another of them, the freshman wide receiver Venric Mark. "I knew (sophomore linebacker David) Nwabuisi. He played in the same division. But when I got here I saw Doogie (corner Demetrius Dugar), Justan. I didn't know all these guys from Texas were here. I think the main thing is academics. That's why we all really came. Coach Fitz is building this program (and it's) on the up-rise. But to be honest, I didn't know anything about Northwestern until my junior year. That's when they came and talked to me. So I had to get on the website and I found out what Northwestern is about. They're in the top ten in the nation academically, so I don't think you can get any better than this."
• The tailgate party sponsored by 'Cat alumni in Houston is sold out. That's one reason they can expect a warm reception on Saturday. Then, says Mark (and he could be speaking for each in the quintet), "Of course I'm going to have family and friends there. I need to stay focused. I can't let that be a distraction. I can't get too high, too low. I have to play the game at the level it's supposed to be played at."
How much family will he have there?
"A lot. My mom's coming. My uncles, my aunts. I have friends from my high school coming. My coach from high school's coming."
Twenty, 30?
"Probably. Give or take."
Will that put extra pressure on him?
"I wouldn't say extra pressure. But I'm going to be pumped. Like I said, I've got to stay level headed. Don't do too much. Just go into the game focused, be prepared, then when the lights come on, that's when I need to just release."
• Vaughn's father played for Rice from '72 through '75 and he himself was recruited by the Owls. "It was actually a big deal when they were recruiting me," he remembers. "But my dad, he wanted me to make the decision and my big thing is I really didn't want to stay at home. I wanted the chance to go and develop in another city."
• On the flip side of this coin there is Owl sophomore safety Corey Frazier, whose dad Leslie played for the Bears, coached at Illinois and is currently the defensive coordinator of the Vikings. "I watched a lot of Big Ten football," he said this week. "Now I can't wait to experience playing against a Big Ten team instead of just watching them."
• He might indeed be looking forward to that, but Rice has had nothing but failure in its most-recent meetings with teams from Bowl Championship Series conferences. It has, in fact, lost 19 straight to BCS schools and its average margin of defeat in those games was 30.3 points. Its last victory over one was back in September of '01 when it topped Duke by two.
• The 'Cats are justifiably proud of their walk-on program, which last season produced the prolific wide receiver Zeke Markshausen. The Owls have a similar saga in safety Travis Bradshaw, who last season led the nation with 90 unassisted tackles. After receiving just a handful of Division II offers out of high school, he was promised a walk-on opportunity by then-Rice coach Todd Graham. But Graham soon left for Tulsa and, when Bradshaw approached current coach David Bailiff, he was told the team was no longer recruiting safeties. "I kept pursuing them," Bradshaw recently recalled and eventually he was given the opportunity he seized with both hands.
"Thank God we kept him here," Bailiff said last week. "He's paid his dues."
• Not only does Bradshaw have a story that's familiar to 'Cat fans. He also has that chip carried by any number of 'Cat players, which he proved when he said, "You always feel like you're the underrated guy, especially being here at Rice. We're always kind of underrated. We always have something to prove."
• Taylor McHargue, who opened the season as the Owl quarterback, suffered a mild shoulder separation in their game with North Texas last week and was replaced by Nick Fanuzzi, their starter a year ago. Earlier this week, Bailiff said Fanuzzi would be his starter against the 'Cats. . . Bradshaw has picked up where he left off and again leads his team in tackles with 19, 10 of them unassisted. . . The Owls' leading rusher is junior Tyler Smith, who's averaging an impressive 5.7 ypc. But they can also unleash sophomore Sam McGuffie, a transfer from Michigan who started six games for the Wolverines back in '08. "He's explosive. He's a dynamic athlete. We looked at him out of high school," Fitzgerald says of him.
• And finally, on a lighter note, here's Venric Mark, when asked if he has ever seen snow: "I've seen a little bit. It snowed in Houston before. Uh. Once in a blue moon."
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