WildcatReport.com posted a headline on National Signing Day that read “‘Cats Go 21-for-21″ referring to the fact Northwestern indeed signed each of the 21 commitments that had given the school verbal offers. I remember it striking me as odd, at first, as to me it was a given. Why wouldn’t we get the official signatures of the commitments we’d read about all season long? Then, as you look around the country on signing day it starts to make more sense. Nearly half of new Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer’s class were originally committed to another B1G school as he grabbed nearly a handful of Penn State commits as well as plucking Michigan State and Wisconsin commits. The Badgers in particular got crushed in recruiting – by their standards- netting only 12 players (it was intended to be a small class, but not that small) likely a casualty to the six assistant coaching changes that ocurred this off-season in Madtown.  The Badgers finished near the bottom in recruiting rankings in the Big Ten.

Notre Dame got jilted on signing day by a star recruit they thought they had. In SEC country it happened to several teams. When you start playing with the top-recruited talent in the country, last second eyebrow raising events occur and your mind goes to that unsavory stereotype of the underbelly of recruiting.

Wisconsin grabbed headlines this week, however, by acknowledging that Badger AD Barry Alvarez was going to have a sitdown with Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany to discuss the situation. Bielema had a chat with ESPN.com’s B1G blogger, Brian Bennett, which you can see here, and acknowledged that he had reached out to Urban Meyer. Wrapping himself in honoring legends, building leaders rhetoric, Bielema really made headlines by claiming “ “We at the Big Ten don’t want to be like the SEC — in any way, shape or form.”  Of course, this is like raw meat in an hungry lion’s cage for SEC fans who are chiming in with “what, and win six consecutive national titles?”.  

Fitz alluded to the fact that it’s never done until it is done when referring to Joliet Catholic star RB Malin Jones, who was the earliest commit in school history (nearly a year and a half before 2012 signing day).  Fitz said that he would’ve loved to report that no one else had gone after Malin after he committed, but that wasn’t true. A standout, instant impact RB pledging his future to NU and the ‘Cats need to keep on recruiting him even though he was already committed. It must be an infuriating task to stave off the vultures even when you HAVE the commitment.

One thing Fitz and his staff have done brilliantly is begin to build pipelines with specific schools, coaches and even the buddy system. It’s not a coincidence that we’re getting players from high schools this year, who have predecessors already on the team. Additionally, we’re continuing to get at least one pair of players from the same standout football factory schools to commit. Last year, Geoff Mogus and Deonte Gibson from St. Edward HS in the Cleveland area came together. In 2010, Trevor Siemian and Rashad Lawrence came in from the Orlando area as a pair. This year, Ian Park and Jack Schwaba continued the pair strategy as the Pittsburgh-area duo pledged to the purple.

You look at four-star Greg Kuhar and wonder how we got him? Well, his fellow high school teammates – Mogus and Gibson helped to recruit him. The relationships that Fitz and the staff have built in certain areas with certain teams helps. Fitz is very well regarded in Penn State country as well as Ohio. When you land elite players from elite Ohio schools, every one of the teams in your conference know where you are going. Their parents and media do as well. It’s not “Greg Kuhar”, it’s “Greg Kuhar, he’s going to Northwestern”.  That being said we do have our fair share of players that have little connection to NU other than the fact they a)may have camped at NU for football or b)they are from areas where we have decent name recognition. Our ability to continue to grab kids from Texas is one of the more underrated accomplishments by our staff. But it’s getting more and more cutthroat as coaches all realize their multi-million dollar jobs are made or broken with recruiting pipelines. Where there is bigtime money, there is usually impropriety. Recruiting impressionable teenagers, many of whom come from families that are getting by financially, well, just watch any episode of HBO Real Sports to see how blatantly bad it can be.

Northwestern has done a fantastic job of targeting proper fit kind of players as I referenced yesterday. Granted, we’re not winning near to the level of fan’s expectations, but you get the sense we’ve raised the talent bar. I’m really proud of our coaching staff in the recruiting circles as we manage to seemingly stay out of the cesspool factor and align with the right kind of guy. It will be interesting to see how this progresses now that we’ve started to land the four-star caliber player. Most will tell you that current players are the best recruiters and fellow star players seeing their kind go to a place like NU makes it easier to follow in their footsteps.

However, the talent is only a part of the equation. We need the coaching of said talent to translate in to “w’s” to get to the next level of talent. While we’re really impressing on the recruiting trails and managing to secure and protect our commitments, we’ve yet to get the program to a place that has the on-field product become the primary recruiting too.

I’ve been clinging to the water cooler talk of landing a 2010 five star recruit as the happy thoughts from the weekend. Former Proviso West superstar WR, Kyle Prater, committed to Northwestern this weekend. Since he is a transfer from USC, NU is not held to the lack of comment standards that are set for incoming recruits. The press release was positive and professional. The fan reaction was an exclamation point. However, even when an unprecedented “recruiting” win happens in January it can be muted by men’s basketball. You know by now that the ‘Cats lost another heartbreaker, this time a 58-56 loss at home to Purdue, who managed to muster up a shot-clock beating baseline jumper to seal the deal. Northwestern’s final play left Wildcat fans despondent as a possession with :08 left turned in to a 30+-foot heave at the buzzer.

The loss likely flatlines Northwestern’s faint hopes of an NCAA Tournament run as we’d need to go 7-3 the rest of the way to really have a legitimate shot. The reality is we’ve gone from tourney buzz two weeks ago after the Michigan State win to having lost seven of our last nine. The Wildcat depth, normally an issue to begin with, is at incredibly thin status. Luka Mirkovic sat out Saturday with an injury and joined fellow MASH residents JerShon Cobb and Tre Demps on the bench. The Wildcats had Alex Marcotullio and Nick Fruendt as the pair of remaining scholarship players (Michael Turner is redshirting) and Fruendt barely played on Saturday. I was there, surrounded by about 2,000 Purdue fans in the upper levels of Welsh-Ryan Arena.  I just felt bad. I felt bad for John Shurna who is likely going to become the all-time leading scorer in school history. I felt bad that Drew Crawford, the most talented, all-around player with legit NBA potential  I’ve seen in a long time at NU. I felt bad for freshman warrior David Sobolewski who plays wire to wire in B1G play and does so without ever seeming to take a breather.   You simply can’t expect to win in the best basketball conference this year with six players getting minutes.

The playing time issue ends up becoming cannon fodder for fans who have had enough with Bill Carmody. “How can you only have ten guys on scholarship?” fans will say. I don’t think you’ll find many fans who have much to say about the effort of our team – on most nights. From a talent perspective, depth is where even during healthy times we run in to issues in conference play. We’re playing handcuffed and each heartbreaking loss seems to compound the team and fans’ psyche in to a state of “why us?”. Well, it’s time we dropped the mope and do something about it.

It’s a foregone conclusion for some, and possibly wishful thinking for others, that Coach Carmody’s days a the head coach are numbered in the two digit range.  Should Northwestern fail to make even the NIT, a distinct possibility at this point, you’d be hard-pressed to find many fans willing to say “one more year” for one of the longest tenured coaches in the BCS. I’m going against my own self-imposed edict of not adding fuel to the “time for a change” fire. I was pretty direct last year after the Penn State loss, but this year I’ve lost the fire. I’m in a general basketball fan malaise at this point. I was pretty emotionless on the inside, while cheering heartily on the outside with my family at the game on Saturday.

The comment section is filled with readers asking for me to take a stand. With several, the direct ask for me to be vocal about voicing the need for change is increasing in frequency. Speculation about whether or not Jim Phillips should fire Carmody in season in hopes of giving Tavaras Hardy an in-season trial run is being tossed around. It’s not a fun time to be a Wildcat hoops fan right now. Candidly, when I started this blog, this was not what I had envisioned. Admittedly, I was Mr. Positive, hoping to get other fans to jump on the Northwestern football (and basketball) bandwagon. It’s been fascinating to see how the expectations have morphed and changed during this four year plus span. I really do respect what Bill Carmody has done. The precipitous fall in 2007 not withstanding, he’s brought the program to a respectable night-in, night-out basis, yet the bottom-line is that Coach Carmody has had 12 seasons to try and do what the laundry list of coaches that combined to take the post for 31 years his prior could not do – post a winning record in the Big Ten. The writing seems to be clearly marked on the wall, but I’m going to watch the rest of the season play out. Personally, I’m not a fan of making moves within the season.

It sounds like sour grapes and/or excuse-riddled rationalization, but the level of injuries in hoops in recent years really makes me feel like we’ve become the Purdue football of basketball. You’d think we’d catch a break once in awhile. As winners will tell you, you’ve got to make your breaks.

WildcatReport.com served up a great piece today on the final weekend of 2012 recruiting and the good spot Northwestern is in.  The ‘Cats are enjoying their highest rated recruiting class in the era of rating services. Several recruiting services have Northwestern third in the Big Ten which is unprecedented for not only a Fitz team, but any Northwestern team. There are 20 commitments to date and with a few slots remaining the ‘Cats have zeroed in on five star 2010 WR USC transfer, Kyle Prater, who is visiting this weekend and expected to commit to the Wildcats. Additionally, “athlete”/RB Stephen Buckley from Forney, Texas is on the visit list. The final week always nets some surprises and NU has a good track record of scooping up a last minute gem due to a confluence of circumstances. Last year, we plucked Jordan Perkins from Stanford as he was held in academic purgatory which many felt was a soft way of Stanford pushing him out for a more highly touted RB.

Speculation is running rampant in the sport of Signing Day as four star LB Quanzell Lambert finds himself committed to Rutgers and Greg Schiano is no longer there. Northwestern fans are wishful thinking that perhaps Lambert reconsiders the Wildcats who were in his final list.

The good news is it feels like March around Chicago. It’s a near 50-degree day which never hurts when you’re bringing in a Texan who has the preconceived notion of Evanston in January. The ‘Cats have three four stars – Ifeadi Odenigbo, Greg Kuhar and Adam DiPietro – more than doubling the entire total of the history of four-stars (Patrick Ward, Loren Howard) to commit to NU. When Prater commits it will mark the school’s first ever five star recruit, albeit a circuitous route.

I love this time of year as every commit feels like an injection of optimism for the future. Boy, do we need it. The glow of good news is a little bit of air cover for the massive holes we have to address on the field in 2012, especially on the defensive side of the ball. The secondary is enough to keep you up at night and we’ve got more question marks than answers on both lines. But, that’s for later. This kind of recruiting momentum is what gets me through the doldrums of the winter as it relates to NU football.

The ‘Cats -Purdue game is very close to soldout and will hopefully provide a fun diversion for our potential recruits. I’m somewhat expecting a student section serenade of “Prater, Prater…come here”.  I actually witnessed it once in 1986 when then Indiana guard Delray Brooks was visiting Providence and Rick Pitino. A packed Civic Center started yelling “Del-ray…Del-ray” spontaneously and it was one of the coolest things I’d witnessed. He transferred and helped the Friars on their Final Four run in ’87. Ahh, but I digress to childhood memories.

What really has my attention in the recruiting challenges going on at Wisconsin. The Badgers have lost six assistant coaches this off-season and the disruption is clearly impacting recruiting. As of today, Wisconsin has only 11 scholarship slots filled, although, in fairness, I’m uncertain of how many they have available. Nebraska has 13. While quantity doesn’t trump quality, there is a base of players you need each year to build depth. It’s really quite phenomenal what Fitz has done during a poor season on the field and with the promise of new facilities down the road and of course, a stadium that doesn’t hold a candle to other Big Ten teams not named Indiana in terms of fans in the stands.

It should be an interesting week. Buckle up.

Busy, busy work week for the LTP staff equals tougher engaging content for you. Add to it the fact it’s rather slow in Wildcat news and the result is a quick-hitter post. Hopefully there are some nuggets for you of interest.

Smart, Very Smart

I’m a big fan of the blog SmartFootball and once again they have hoisted the 2000 NU-Michigan game as a plot point in college football history. I love the context and backstory to how Randy Walker visited RichRod when he was at Clemson and adopted the spread heading in to the 2000 season. Walker would then be a mentor for many programs, including a young Urban Meyer (who would use it against him a year later on the Bowling Green staff). 

Many high school and college coaches point to this game as exhibit “A” of how a team with less talent could neutralize and exploit a better, on paper opponent. The 54-51 shootout win on ABC is still talked about by many as a catalyst for the proliferation of the spread. The interesting take here, is that a new plotpoint may be in order.  A great read – click here.

Kain With The Reigns

A great feature on the development of Kain Colter and the offseason to-do list which has become an annual even for OC and QB developer, Mick McCall. Check out the piece here by Adam Rittenberg.

Signing Day Countdown

Next Wednesday marks national signing day for the 2012 college football recruits. Northwestern is teeing-up a full slate of events highlighted by a signing day party at Ditka’s in downtown Chicago. Check out all the planned coverage and day of to-do’s by clicking here.

JoePa & Fitz

I scanned WildcatReport.com and saw several posters from Penn State thanking Fitz for attending the service for Joe Paterno.  The coverage is inescapable, but it is clear that many Penn State fans won’t forget Fitz’s attendance.

Weekend Closing Time?

Highly touted transfer, Kyle Prater is scheduled to visit Northwestern this weekend and then very shortly thereafter make his decision about pledging his future to the Wildcats. Northwestern is also hosting Stephen Buckley, a DE from Texas who WildcatReport.com reported we are hot after. It should be an interesting next week as far as wrapping up the 2012 class goes.