Northwestern University Athletics
The Skip Report: Hungry Wildcats Open Camp
8/13/2015 10:30:00 AM | Football
NUsports.com special contributor Skip Myslenski was on hand for Northwestern Football Media Day Wednesday. His takeaway? The #B1GCats are ready to eat.
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Offensive linemen Geoff Mogus and Matt Frazier sat down early in the off-season, pulled out a calendar and drew up a series of outings for their position room. There would be an afternoon whacking baseballs at a batting cage and another tilting with the windmills at a miniature golf course. There would be any number of evenings spent sharing dinners. "We built chemistry there," Mogus recalled Wednesday. "Then we all had to grind in the offseason. We stuck together and built more chemistry. You build it during camp too. So it's pretty good already, but it can always be built more."
The 'Cats, as a group, built it too on that rainy day they scoured Chicago on a scavenger hunt ("That made it even more fun," cornerback Matthew Harris says of the inclement conditions), and the defensive backs did it as well by watching games together and going to movies together and working on their footwork together . The defensive linemen spent their weekends together at the beach and regularly invaded a local restaurant together for a feast large enough to feed an army. "When times get tough, it comes down to the relationships you've formed with your teammates," senior defensive end Dean Lowry will say, explaining the practical importance of all this bro-bonding. "You have to keep those strong in order to be the great team we think we can be."
Lowry was a part of the 2012 edition that won nine games in the regular season and then opened the new year with a victory over Mississippi State in the 2013 Gator Bowl. So he well knows the ingredients of success, which give weight to what comes after he is asked to describe the attitude of the latest edition. "We're hungry. We're a very hungry team," he says. "We're also talented too. It's been too long since we competed for a championship. We're an experienced team. We have guys who have been there. It's our job now to bring the younger guys who have talent along and get them to play at a high level."
Been there in what sense, he is asked.
"Competing at a high level," Lowry said. "Freshman year, the Gator Bowl year, I think guys really understood what team continuity meant then and we're trying to bring it back to this year's team."
Where'd that understanding go?
"I can't say it was lost," he finally says. "But I do think this team is closer than it was the last two years. I do think this team has a great sense of leadership among the older guys and also young guys wanting to learn and wanting to be great. My freshman year, we had older guys (Brian Arnfelt, Quentin Williams, Tyler Scott) who really helped bring the younger guys along. I was one of those younger guys at the time. Seeing how they helped me to become a player, a contributor, as a freshman, us older guys now are doing the same thing for the freshman coming in, and even for the sophomores."
The 'Cats held that annual ritual known as Media Day late Wednesday morning, and swirling about them were questions that could not be answered here. They, in fact, would practice in pads for just the first time that afternoon, so still unsolved was the quarterback competition among senior Zack Oliver, sophomore Matt Alviti and redshirt freshman Clayton Thorson.
How the 'Cats will employ the speedsters Solomon Vault and Auston Anderson; how they will meld that pair with the brilliant Justin Jackson, who dazzled last season as a freshman; how whole is the talented wide receiver Christian Jones coming off knee surgery-- those issues and others will not be resolved until the 'Cats endure the rigors of Camp Kenosha.
But even this early there is no missing their mentality, whose tendrils reach back to that Gator Bowl season. "I'd say it's a lot of hunger," Jones says when asked about that. "A lot of us want to prove ourselves, a lot of us want to get back to what we used to be doing. There's no need for us to feel that we can't do certain things. We haven't been at the level we should be at and we want to work to get back to where we were."
"I think that we have one of the most mature football teams we've had in the last couple of years," superback Dan Vitale will add later. "I think we have a lot of guys who are incredibly hungry to do great things, which is awesome. That's something we built throughout spring and throughout summer workouts, and now into fall camp. We've got guys who are hungry and competitive. That's something we really focused on over that period, the competitive aspect. We've got guys who want to go out and win, and have that fight I think we lost the last couple of years."
What was missing?
"I think it was just that love for football, and that hunger I talked about," Vitale says. "The leadership has really stepped up now, that's the big thing. Our Leadership Council, I've been on them in the past, and I'd say this group right now is one of the strongest, tight-knit groups that we've had probably since I've been here. If we can develop that type of hunger and competitive attitude among our teammates, and get everybody to come along with us, we can do great things."
"We gained talent and lost grind. A real urge to win," defensive end Deonte Gibson will finally say when that last question is repeated to him. "At times, personally, I took for granted what success looked like. It got to a point where you had to look in the mirror and say, 'You have to improve.' That's what we did."
And the team's attitude now?
"We're probably one of the hungriest teams," he says, echoing the theme. "We're ready to go. We're ready. At this point, we've been underperforming the last two seasons. So we're just hungry. Hungry to play somebody. Hungry to get better. Hungry to get great."
Head coach Pat Fitzgerald is asked what he must do to get his team to reach the maturity level it needs to succeed.
"We're down that road already," he says. "We're not starting down that road. I think that started in January. That's a credit to our Leadership Council. That's a credit to a bunch of those names that have been here awhile and have been a part of a lot of success and knocking on the door to competing for a championship in this league, and then have been a part of this team that has underachieved.
"They know what it takes and it starts in the locker room. It's inside out. If we get the attitude in the right spot, and the chemistry in the right spot-- and today we're where we've been in the past. Now comes the adversity, right? We get some guys banged up and bruised, and maybe that provides an opportunity for somebody to step up. Then comes the adversity in games. We'll put them through a bunch in camp, through as much as we can while being smart.
"But we're further down the road right now than we were last year at this time."
By Skip Myslenski
NUsports.com Special Contributor
Offensive linemen Geoff Mogus and Matt Frazier sat down early in the off-season, pulled out a calendar and drew up a series of outings for their position room. There would be an afternoon whacking baseballs at a batting cage and another tilting with the windmills at a miniature golf course. There would be any number of evenings spent sharing dinners. "We built chemistry there," Mogus recalled Wednesday. "Then we all had to grind in the offseason. We stuck together and built more chemistry. You build it during camp too. So it's pretty good already, but it can always be built more."
The 'Cats, as a group, built it too on that rainy day they scoured Chicago on a scavenger hunt ("That made it even more fun," cornerback Matthew Harris says of the inclement conditions), and the defensive backs did it as well by watching games together and going to movies together and working on their footwork together . The defensive linemen spent their weekends together at the beach and regularly invaded a local restaurant together for a feast large enough to feed an army. "When times get tough, it comes down to the relationships you've formed with your teammates," senior defensive end Dean Lowry will say, explaining the practical importance of all this bro-bonding. "You have to keep those strong in order to be the great team we think we can be."
Lowry was a part of the 2012 edition that won nine games in the regular season and then opened the new year with a victory over Mississippi State in the 2013 Gator Bowl. So he well knows the ingredients of success, which give weight to what comes after he is asked to describe the attitude of the latest edition. "We're hungry. We're a very hungry team," he says. "We're also talented too. It's been too long since we competed for a championship. We're an experienced team. We have guys who have been there. It's our job now to bring the younger guys who have talent along and get them to play at a high level."
Been there in what sense, he is asked.
"Competing at a high level," Lowry said. "Freshman year, the Gator Bowl year, I think guys really understood what team continuity meant then and we're trying to bring it back to this year's team."
Where'd that understanding go?
"I can't say it was lost," he finally says. "But I do think this team is closer than it was the last two years. I do think this team has a great sense of leadership among the older guys and also young guys wanting to learn and wanting to be great. My freshman year, we had older guys (Brian Arnfelt, Quentin Williams, Tyler Scott) who really helped bring the younger guys along. I was one of those younger guys at the time. Seeing how they helped me to become a player, a contributor, as a freshman, us older guys now are doing the same thing for the freshman coming in, and even for the sophomores."
The 'Cats held that annual ritual known as Media Day late Wednesday morning, and swirling about them were questions that could not be answered here. They, in fact, would practice in pads for just the first time that afternoon, so still unsolved was the quarterback competition among senior Zack Oliver, sophomore Matt Alviti and redshirt freshman Clayton Thorson.
How the 'Cats will employ the speedsters Solomon Vault and Auston Anderson; how they will meld that pair with the brilliant Justin Jackson, who dazzled last season as a freshman; how whole is the talented wide receiver Christian Jones coming off knee surgery-- those issues and others will not be resolved until the 'Cats endure the rigors of Camp Kenosha.
But even this early there is no missing their mentality, whose tendrils reach back to that Gator Bowl season. "I'd say it's a lot of hunger," Jones says when asked about that. "A lot of us want to prove ourselves, a lot of us want to get back to what we used to be doing. There's no need for us to feel that we can't do certain things. We haven't been at the level we should be at and we want to work to get back to where we were."
"I think that we have one of the most mature football teams we've had in the last couple of years," superback Dan Vitale will add later. "I think we have a lot of guys who are incredibly hungry to do great things, which is awesome. That's something we built throughout spring and throughout summer workouts, and now into fall camp. We've got guys who are hungry and competitive. That's something we really focused on over that period, the competitive aspect. We've got guys who want to go out and win, and have that fight I think we lost the last couple of years."
What was missing?
"I think it was just that love for football, and that hunger I talked about," Vitale says. "The leadership has really stepped up now, that's the big thing. Our Leadership Council, I've been on them in the past, and I'd say this group right now is one of the strongest, tight-knit groups that we've had probably since I've been here. If we can develop that type of hunger and competitive attitude among our teammates, and get everybody to come along with us, we can do great things."
"We gained talent and lost grind. A real urge to win," defensive end Deonte Gibson will finally say when that last question is repeated to him. "At times, personally, I took for granted what success looked like. It got to a point where you had to look in the mirror and say, 'You have to improve.' That's what we did."
And the team's attitude now?
"We're probably one of the hungriest teams," he says, echoing the theme. "We're ready to go. We're ready. At this point, we've been underperforming the last two seasons. So we're just hungry. Hungry to play somebody. Hungry to get better. Hungry to get great."
Head coach Pat Fitzgerald is asked what he must do to get his team to reach the maturity level it needs to succeed.
"We're down that road already," he says. "We're not starting down that road. I think that started in January. That's a credit to our Leadership Council. That's a credit to a bunch of those names that have been here awhile and have been a part of a lot of success and knocking on the door to competing for a championship in this league, and then have been a part of this team that has underachieved.
"They know what it takes and it starts in the locker room. It's inside out. If we get the attitude in the right spot, and the chemistry in the right spot-- and today we're where we've been in the past. Now comes the adversity, right? We get some guys banged up and bruised, and maybe that provides an opportunity for somebody to step up. Then comes the adversity in games. We'll put them through a bunch in camp, through as much as we can while being smart.
"But we're further down the road right now than we were last year at this time."
Players Mentioned
QB
/ Football
RB
/ Football
OL
/ Football
DL
/ Football
CB
/ Football
RB
/ Football
WR
/ Football
DL
/ Football
OL
/ Football
QB
/ Football
QB
/ Football
RB
/ Football
SB
/ FootballA Day in the Life with Marcus Romain | Northwestern Football
Friday, May 01
Football - Caleb Tiernan Draft Night Press Conference (4/24/26)
Saturday, April 25
Jerry Neuheisel MIC'D UP | Northwestern Football
Friday, April 10
Football - Players Pro Day Media Availability (Beerntsen, Stone, Tiernan)
Tuesday, March 17
