The redshirt sophomore has been building towards the opportunity to start for several years.
Five years ago, Chicago’s Brother Rice High School had a very talented sophomore safety. At least, the team did have a talented safety — until he won the quarterback battle for good. While Jack Lausch hasn’t looked back since seizing those reins, he’s fully aware of how that time helped him handle his long road to the starting job at Northwestern.
“I’ve learned, like, be ready for your opportunity,” Lausch said on Tuesday morning. “Preparing like the starter. And I think I did a really good job of that in high school…preparing like I was gonna go play, so that if an opportunity did come out, I’d be comfortable and I wouldn’t have to change anything.”
And while Lausch did change which side of the ball he focused on, his time at safety remains a tremendous aid in his journey as a quarterback.
“Coverage is coverage, people play the same coverage in the NFL down through high school,” Lausch explained. “Being in that experience and understanding how defenses are structured and how they work…that helped me become a better football player.”
And by his senior season in 2021, Lausch was one of the best football players in the Chicagoland area. He threw for nearly 2,500 yards and 20 touchdowns that year, earning all-state honors and being named the Chicago Sun-Times Player of the Year. But football might not have been Lausch’s best sport. That was baseball, where he was a talented outfielder and an MLB draft prospect. While Lausch elected to continue throwing out routes rather than cutoffs, his time on the diamond (much like his time at safety) provided a great base for his quarterbacking.
“The best practice for the fourth quarter of a football game is hitting with two outs in the seventh inning with guys on base,” Lausch said. “I think it (baseball) teaches you that accuracy is really important, and to do your job, and to trust your teammates. It’s a game of inches, just like football.”
But over his first two years in Evanston, Lausch didn’t have much of an opportunity to trust his teammates in live game scenarios. Coach David Braun, who arrived on campus as the defensive coordinator shortly after Lausch’s redshirt season concluded, raved about his quarterback’s development in a Monday press conference.
“Jack, when he arrived on campus, was a great athlete, great competitor, had incredible intangibles that you look for in the quarterback position, but not a ready-made Big Ten quarterback,” Braun said. “And he’s done such a great job of just developing in so many different areas…and just being more consistent with those types of things, with his decision-making.”
Despite Lausch’s rapid improvement, he was unable to get the starting job as a redshirt first year. While Cincinnati transfer Ben Bryant took the reins for the 2023 team, Lausch used that experience to continue focusing on bettering himself.
“It’s just helped me grow a lot as a person, as a player. If you’re in a competition, your’e always looking for ways to get better,” Lausch elaborated. “It’s taught me how to respond to bad days really well and just stay even, not worry about the result, and just focus on my process.”
Of course, quarterback rooms are meant to be collaborative, and Northwestern’s was no different. Lausch’s time with more seasoned quarterbacks, such as Bryant, Ryan Hilinski and erstwhile starter Mike Wright, has given him a new perspective on quarterbacking and doing his job the right way.
“I think you really just learn how to be a professional, and how to watch film. How to be really intense but also not take everything way too seriously,” Lausch said. “If you make a mistake, just get the next play. So I think mindset-wise and routine-wise, those guys have been awesome.”
And with the new mindset, Lausch tore through offseason practice. Through spring practice, before Wright arrived on campus from Mississippi State, the quarterback battle was between Lausch and current Iowa quarterback Brendan Sullivan. Lausch was winning.
“The growth that we’ve seen out of Jack Lausch…specifically from January on, has been something that leads us to have a lot of optimism for not only this week, but for the future,” Braun said in his Monday presser.
But then on May 9, Wright committed to Northwestern out of the transfer portal. His SEC experience was a quality Lausch simply did not have at that point in his career, and Wright became the favorite to take the starting role. However, Lausch didn’t just meekly step aside. He pushed Wright down to the wire, so much so that the starting quarterback for Week 1’s contest against Miami (Ohio) wasn’t revealed publicly until the day of the game. While Lausch was disappointed, he didn’t let the news deter his enthusiasm for what looked to be another successful season.
“I think the biggest thing is just showing up and being a great teammate,” Lausch said. “You want to be someone that guys want to play with, and as a leader, you want to be someone that guys want to follow. I just want to continue to be a leader…and show those guys that no matter what happens, no matter the circumstance, I’m there for them and I’m here to win.”
Lausch’s reaction to the news tremendously impressed the coaching staff, especially Braun. Northwestern’s coach noted that the news was assuredly tough to hear, especially for a quarterback entering his third year in the program. Yet instead of reacting negatively to the news, Lausch simply got right back to work.
“The natural human tendency in a situation like that is to see regression before you see the build back up, just because it’s a hard thing to hear and it’s not the result that you were looking for,” Braun said. “We saw Jack Lausch immediately continue to improve after that. That’s a credit to his character as a young man.”
And that character, perseverance and fortitude have helped earned Lausch the starting job at a Big Ten school. A young man whose only other scholarship offer was from Indiana State is now at the controls of a power conference squad that made a bowl game last season. An odyssey lasting over two seasons has seemingly concluded with Lausch as the starter for the foreseeable future, and it’s something the redshirt sophomore is taking time to soak in.
“It’s a really great feeling. More than anything, it’s just awesome to understand that the coaches and the teammates trust me, respect me and are willing to play for me hard,” Lausch said. “I’m super happy, super excited, and I’m ready. I’m ready for the opportunity and excited to go compete with my teammates.”
Saturday evening will be a true full circle moment for Lausch, as he’ll be playing quarterback roughly an hour’s drive from where he achieved many of his high school heroics at Brother Rice. Lausch is the first Chicagoland quarterback to start for the Wildcats since Mike Kafka in 2009, and being so close to home is something that he’s not taking for granted.
“I got of a lot of texts from people from high school, and people who live close by, and I think a lot of them are coming Saturday,” Lausch said. “It’ll be cool to see a lot of people, see my family, just enjoy a great day with them.”
And it will indeed be a great day — the first collegiate start for the Chicagoland product, a vindication of the decisions to switch to quarterback, stick to football, stay at Northwestern and put years of work in. This is the culmination of a half-decade of work, and the view from the finish line only serves as more motivation to keep putting the work in.
“I just want to be the best player I can be…and I just want to command the offense to the best of my ability,” Lausch said. “I just want 11 playing as one, be as efficient as possible and I just want to win games for this team.”
If the next chapter in Lausch’s football journey is anything like the last few, those wins will start piling up very soon.