The Wildcats have struggled mightily in the past few weeks, but Braun hopes that can change.
Another week, another dismal offensive showing for Northwestern. The Wildcats fell 40-14 against Iowa on Saturday, with all 14 points coming from defense and special teams. Northwestern is now just 1-4 in Big Ten play, but this week should provide a bit of a respite. This Saturday, the Wildcats are taking on Purdue, who is currently the only Big Ten team that is winless in conference play. Here’s everything David Braun had to say about a game that will be crucial in closing the season strong,
Note: These quotes have been edited for brevity and clarity.
Opening Statement: “Looking forward to getting back to work with this group at practice this evening. Challenged our group, we’re gonna find out a lot about ourselves, individually and collectively. Who this group is, in terms of the way that we respond after a really tough performance on Saturday. Have to respond. Have to focus on things we can control in our process. It’s going to require a great week of practice. Going to West Lafayette against a Purdue team that is a much better football team than their record would indicate, very talented on both sides of the football. You know, have had some transition on the offensive side of the ball as in identity on offense. Purdue coming off the bye week, we’re gonna have to do a great job of identifying how they’re looking to attack us in game. Not sure who’s gonna be starting at quarterback for them, but it’s gonna require a great week of preparation. And, you know, I’m excited to see the way that this group is gonna respond in our preparation.”
On the team’s reaction to the loss: “I think after every loss, there’s there’s certainly a level of frustration and disappointment. But this week, you could tell there was a level of, ‘We didn’t play up to our standard, didn’t give ourselves a chance in the fourth quarter.’ And we really let things snowball on us in the third quarter, and I think we had a group that was quiet, humble and recognized that we can and need to play a lot better.”
On any potential change at quarterback: “Jack Lausch is our starting quarterback and will be our starting quarterback against Purdue. The things that make me confident in that decision are the way that Jack prepares, the way that he competes. And he needs to play better. But we also need to play better around him. Need to play better in the other two phases of the game as well. There are some critical mistakes, whether it be allowing our opponent to extend drives, penalties that lead to kicking off from the 20, you know. Any offense that has to start three straight drives from inside their own 10, that’s a difficult situation to put an offense and the quarterback in. And Jack knows he needs to play better, but very confident that he’ll do everything in his part make sure that that happens.”
On the team’s receiving core and depth: “I thought CJ [Calvin Johnson] had his best game of the year. Big third down conversion. Frank [Covey] opens up the game with a great catch and some yards after contact, doing a good job blocking. Hayden Eligon came in and did some really, really good things for us. Donnie Gray has a big catch late. Got to continue to find ways to get AJ [Henning] the football. Talk about a warrior, a competitor, a dude that just found a way to get himself back out on the field for Saturday. I know AJ didn’t start his career here, but, man, he’s the ultimate Wildcat. So much respect and appreciation for that guy. And we’re excited to get to get Bryce [Kirtz] back. Obviously, having Bryce back, he plays such a key role in our passing game. And there’s things that we can do to help Jack out when it comes to simplifying pictures for him, helping him in protection, giving him a little bit more time. And you could tell, you know, after that first interception. Jack the second he let it go, knew it was a poor decision. And I think that affected him the rest of the day. Jack will flush it. He’ll be better this week.”
On Bryce Kirtz’s injury: “Won’t go into detail other than the fact that it’s just been something that Bryce has been battling through it. It’s kind of been nagging and he tried to get himself to game day, and this week he just, you know, wasn’t able to. Hopeful that he’ll be back this week. We’ll know a lot more as we hit the midpoint. But this is something that Bryce has been dealing with here for a few weeks. He’s been battling, battling, battling and just couldn’t make a go of it this past Saturday.”
On Drew Wagner: “Yeah, gosh, he’s one of the first guys out to practice every single day, catching extra punts. He was our third string punt returner for Wisconsin, with AJ and Bryce both full go and just stayed ready. You know, all of a sudden, did not feel comfortable putting AJ back there catching punts coming off of what he had come off the previous week, and then Bryce isn’t available, and we’re having conversations of how we’re gonna manage as a staff. And, that young man doesn’t blink, and he doesn’t blink because of the way that he prepares. The confidence comes from incredible preparation. And early on, we were just telling him to fair catch it and possess the football and decided to, after a few catches, give him the opportunity to let it rip. Paul Creighton said, ‘I’ve never seen a look in a young man’s eyes as excited as Drew Wagner was for that opportunity.’ And man, did he capitalize on it. Drew Wagner, relatively local kid, from the Milwaukee area, walked on, and since the day he stepped on campus, he’s done nothing but all the right things and competed. I think that’s just a small glimpse of what we have to look forward to in the future.”
On offensive coordinator Zach Lujan: “Zach absolutely has met expectations. Our production on offense hasn’t met our expectations, and we’re working tirelessly to get that fixed, not only in the short term, but in the long term. But very confident in in the man that we have running our offense. All of us are very aware that the production is nowhere close to where it needs to be, and there’s a lot of components of that, but very confident that both short term and long term, Zach’s the guy to do that.” (On whether there would be a change in offensive coordinator if production doesn’t improve this year): “No, absolutely not.”
On Drew Wagner’s role moving forward: “Well, you know, we’ll see how the health of AJ and Bryce is, but certainly something to consider as we’re evaluating the health of those guys. And Drew’s proven that he can do it at the biggest stage, in the biggest arena. At the end of the day, we just got to continue to evaluate how we can get the best guys on the field to put us into situations to win football games. And as you get late into the year, injuries are part of college football, part of the Big Ten. But Drew will step up to play in whatever role, whether it’s running down on kickoff, returning punts, out at wide receiver. He’s someone that we have a lot of confidence in.”
On Purdue serving as a bounce-back game: “It’s critical that we bounce back in all three phases coming off the performance that we had on Saturday. Defensively, they’re going to play a lot of man coverage, a lot of single-high [safety] defense, and then they do a good job of disguising their big zone off of that. And we’re going to have to find ways to find efficiency in whatever way we can find it, and then make sure that as we’re creating first downs and efficiency, find some explosive plays that can lead to putting touchdowns on the board. I think one thing that we have to do a great job of as a staff and as a team and as a program is not allow stats or a record to lull us to sleep. This is a very talented football team. You know, Coach [Ryan] Walters and his staff have been going through some transition. Ryan’s a very defensive-minded, great defensive coach that has been calling the offense here for the last couple weeks, but they’re very capable on the defensive side of the ball. And we need to be at our best, and we need to bounce back on offense and in all three phases.”
On Xander Mueller and the linebacking core: “We’re hopeful that we’ll get Xander back here sooner than later. It does not look like we’ll have him this weekend. Greyson Metz, I thought did some really good things. He gets dinged up in the game and is out for a couple plays, or for a while. Kenny [Soares] ended up coming out. We’re kind of patching it together at linebacker. Very confident and hopeful that Greyson and Kenny will be back. But what we saw, we forced Iowa to punt eight times. Typically that would be an indication of a strong defensive performance. And I think what we saw is an inability to close out in a two minute drill at the end of the half, which carried over into the third quarter. And the third quarter is nowhere near our expectations on defense. Some guys pressing, sliding out of fits, missed tackles, not our brand of football. We need to do better.”
On the lack of rushing attempts for Jack Lausch: “Flow of the game. We want Jack to be decisive in his progression, and when he’s decisive, to pull the ball down and take off. That’s something that we want him to do. That’s one of the skill sets that he brings, that differentiates him from from others. His first carry of the game was a huge starter of the drive that resulted in a missed field goal. Jack at his best, getting the ball out on time, has proven that he can throw it from the pocket, but that doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t be utilizing his athleticism to keep the chains moving.”
On Purdue running back Devin Mockobee: “This is the Big Ten. Every week you’re facing one heck of a back. Really impressive. Going into to last year’s game, we anticipated seeing [Hudson] Card at quarterback until hours before game time. They definitely had a different plan of attack with playing two quarterbacks against us last year. Thought they did a good job with some of the quarterback running game that they utilized. And we’re have to be prepared for it all, especially with not being certain how we anticipate them utilizing the quarterback situation. But it does all start with slowing down those backs, specifically Devin. Talented, talented back.”
On Purdue’s uncertainty at starting quarterback: “You can look at it either way, but there’s some unique components to this plan this week, just in terms of the transition that they’ve had at offensive coordinator, and the uncertainty of what we’re going to see with their quarterback situation. What I do know is that Illinois has done some really good things this year, and you go back and watch the Illinois-Purdue game — Purdue continued to battle and fight, put themselves in a situation to win that football game. And you know, we’re gonna have to do a great job of identifying how they’re trying to attack us and adjust as needed in game.”
On Purdue QB Ryan Brown and his mobility: “Both [Purdue quarterbacks] are capable and athletic enough to carry the football and extend plays. But there’s definitely a certain level of game plan elements and designed quarterback run game that’s going to show up. That is something that we absolutely have to be aware of. Hudson [Card] does a nice job of extending plays and can be explosive in the passing game. At the end of the day, regardless of who’s playing, we’re gonna have to do a great job of building the pocket, keeping the quarterback in the pocket, applying pressure and making those guys uncomfortable.”
On the rushing attack: “It sounds super oversimplified and cliche, but, need to do a better job of moving the line of scrimmage, finishing blocks with good leverage. I showed a clip in today’s team meeting. It resulted in a nine yard gain, I believe it was in the fourth quarter, but every single guy that was involved in that play was straining for their leverage and making sure that they were on a block with the echo of the whistle. You know, this group, to run the ball at the rate that we need and expect, and to meet our standard, in some regards, is going to simply have to over-achieve and out-effort and out-strain people. And that’s, that’s not pointing fingers. That’s just calling this group, you know, collectively as a whole —offensive line, the offense, our entire team. ‘Let’s get in the foxhole. Let’s go attack this. Let’s go find a way to get this done.’ And all our eyes right now are on having a great Monday practice for Purdue. And from a solutions based standpoint, offensively, when it comes to play calling, any identity that we’ve had in the past here at Northwestern on offense in our first eight games, or that Zach carries over from his time at South Dakota State, those have to go out the window. What can we do to put this group in situations to have success this week? And that’s the lens we have to look at it through in all three phases. But I am excited to do it with this group, and I do have an abundant amount of confidence and belief that this group will respond the right way. And it’s not easy coming off a performance like that, but we have the right men in the room to do it.”
On the team’s third down offense: “Ineffective. And a lot of it comes down to being better on first and second down. I think we picked up a third and one backed up in one of those series. Against a team like Iowa, I know third and one isn’t something to write home about, but that was exciting to see an opportunity to move the chains. But we have to create more third and four, third and three, third and two, third and one scenarios that we have a great deal of confidence in our ability to convert. Move the chains and find ways to control and possess the football. And then we need to find some ways to create some explosive plays. It is really difficult to methodically, consistently throughout a game, to move the ball down the field at five yard, 10 yard, 11 yard, increments. You could see in the Maryland game, with a game that we look back on and had a lot of optimism of where things were going. Our ability to create some of those explosives was was critical to us scoring the amount of points that we did.”
On Nick Herzog: “Unfortunately, with what Nick has been dealing with, we won’t see Nick for the remainder of the season. You know, what was something that we thought was nagging and having the ability to come back from has turned into something that it’s in Nick’s best interest to get fully healthy, And to be honest with you, when it comes to the offensive line, Cooper [Lovelace] started at left guard this past week. We’re hopeful that we get Josh Thompson back next week. You know, we were very optimistic he’d be able to go Saturday. He wasn’t, but we just got to continue to evaluate who our core best five is. And right now, we’re not playing at the level that we want to. Everyone in this room knows this. But what makes the offensive line position so unique is four guys can be performing at a really high level on one play, but one guy out of sync, it’s a non starter for the play. And as much as it’s easy to talk about competition, and ‘we’re going to start this guy this week,’ one of the most powerful things you can create with an O-line is continuity and consistency. You know, I’m hoping we can find that. We need to find that. Really proud of Cooper’s effort. If there’s one thing that I’ll say about Cooper Lovelace and Anthony Birsa, who’s been playing the last couple weeks for us, those guys are going to to give everything they’ve got. But I am looking forward to that group finding some some continuity and consistency. Caleb Tiernan continues to do some really, really good things, and I’m excited for Caleb to be a vocal presence in that room, to get the best out of that group moving forward.”
On Jack Olsen’s injury and Luke Akers’ workload: “Jack, similar to Xander, optimistic that Jack will be available here sooner than later. But we will not see Jack against Purdue. And with monitoring Luke, I have so much confidence in his ability to execute in all phases of special teams. But it is something that we’re going to have to continue to track on. I think what you’ve seen is the load that we’re putting on him, you know, no one else in the country is being asked to do what Luke Akers is doing right now. Or if there is, it’s very few. You saw at the end of the game, Hunter Renner getting some some reps at punter. You know, we may have to find some ways to integrate Hunter and take some load off Luke so that he can really prioritize kickoffs and his opportunities to put points on the board as our field goal kicker.”
On the conservative play calling in the second quarter: “I’ll start off by saying we got to do a better job on defense and on special teams, of when we have field position, keeping it. We got into a situation that we’re getting stops on defense, but we’re literally just playing ping pong. I mean, it’s on one side of the 50, or just over the 50, but in our offense, it’s just repetitively inside the 10 yard line. We drop back, have a hitch into the boundary open. It’s the first play after Jack had thrown an interception. He doesn’t trust it, and it turns into a safety. Good play call. Should have been a six, seven yard gain. But at that point, you know, it was ‘How can we get out of the shadows of our own goalposts with the run game?’ to start to give ourselves an opportunity to flip that field position. It wasn’t that we wanted to just go into halftime, but we wanted to find a way to on the ground, start to advance the football and not expose ourselves to, you know, giving up any points, whether it be a safety or turnover.” (On whether the play calling was about a lack of trust in Lausch): “No, it was simply, a drop-back pass when your quarterback is in or near the end zone against the pass rush that we were seeing out of Iowa was not in our best interest considering the field position.”
On winning the turnover battle: “It’s the most critical element of our formula to winning football games. And it’s a trend that did not show up against Iowa, but it’s going to have to show up against Purdue. We got to find a way to take the ball away two to three times, and we’ve got to value it on offense and make sure we continue to possess it.”