The 2026 Northwestern Essay #4--Actual Football Analysis

Northwestern is 2-0 having comprehensively defeated Colorado 41-7 last Saturday.  Truthfully, it wasn't that close---a 75 yard touchdown run for NU was called back on a holding penalty, and another sure TD was dropped.  

This week, Northwestern plays the defending National Champion and #5 ranked Indiana Hoosiers (3-0) in Bloomington on Friday night.  The most likely outcome is Northwestern will lose badly.  In spite of this, and in a way because of this, I think it is time to actually talk about the team and what we have seen so far this year.

Offense:  The big news in the offseason was that Northwestern hired Chip Kelly as offensive coordinator. For those not familiar, Chip Kelly came into prominence in the late aughts when he made Oregon a consistent national powerhouse, winning three straight Pac 12 championships from 2009 to 2011 and playing in the National Championship game in 2011 (losing to the unstoppable force that was Cam Newton at Auburn, for my money the greatest single season performance by a college player).  He then coached in the NFL with the Eagles (somewhat successfully, at least in the beginning) and the 49ers (not  successfully at all).  He went back to college and coached at UCLA, before becoming the offensive coordinator for the 2024 Ohio State team that won a National Championship.

And, now, he is the offensive coordinator at Northwestern.  What is exciting about this move, other than the fact that he is an excellent play caller, is the boldness of the choice and what it says about head coach David Braun.  I will have much more to say about this when we discuss the Michigan State game, but Pat Fitzgerald would never in a million years have hired Kelly.  The official reason would be that Fitzgerald valued continuity, and I think it is unlikely that Kelly is going to be here for 15+ years like Fitzgerald's coordinators.  But the real reason is that Fitzgerald would never hire someone who was a bigger name than he was, and Kelly is a bigger name than Fitzgerald.  And he is certainly a bigger name than Braun, but that apparently did not deter Braun from bringing in a guy with far, far more head coaching experience than he has.  All football coaches have egos, but this is a surprisingly ego-less move from Braun, and I think that is very encouraging for the future of the program.

Kelly has also made an immediate impact on the field.  The offense during the three previous Braun seasons (and before that as well) was very staid and boring.  In a couple of the games last year, and I am thinking particularly of the Michigan game, if we had been able to generate even a couple of explosive plays I think we might have won.  Kelly's offense is much more dynamic, using lots of Kelly type things (lots of screens and motion plans).  Right now, Northwestern is 20th in yards per play (7.2 yards/play); in 2025, they were 91st (5.4 yards/play).  So, that's very encouraging.

Much of this improvement is a product of the upgrade at quarterback.  Aidan Chiles seems to be a good fit for the Kelly offense.  The rap against him at Michigan State, especially in 2024, was that he would try to make spectacular plays and often get into trouble and throw interceptions.  So far, we haven't seen anything like that.  He is playing within the offense and using his legs to extend plays without doing crazy things.  This is despite the fact that NU doesn't have anything resembling a big-play wide receiver  

Based on what we have seen so far, I think Northwestern is going to move the ball and score a lot of points, except against the top defenses in the Big Ten--Iowa is currently #1 in yard/play against, Ohio State is #3, Penn State is #5, Indiana is #6.  Moreover, as I will discuss in more detail at the end, I think this is going to be a fun team to watch on offense.

Defense:  The Defense has given up a lot of yards so far--we are 76th in yard/play (5.2 yard/play) against right now.  Last year, Northwestern was 80th at 5.6 yard/play, so this is a slight improvement but still not great.  On the flip side, the defense has made a series of big stops on 3rd and 4th down, as well as forcing 4 turnovers against Colorado.  So, it is definitely a "bend don't break" situation here.

The strength of the defense in the last two seasons has been our defensive line.  So far, it looks like we don't have nearly the firepower up front and that has shown itself primary in the rushing stats (104th, 4.5 yard/rush) and lack of sacks (only 3 so far).  

Realistically, I have seen no indication that we are going to be able to slow down the high octane offenses like Indiana, Ohio State, and Oregon. I could see a game where we give up a lot of yards but also force a bunch of turnovers, in which case we might be able to stay in the game.  But I think we are going to see some big numbers on the other side in some of these games, and I am preparing myself for that (including tonight!)

Special Teams:  Punting has been a personal source of frustration for me with Northwestern.  It seems like NU should be able to find a decent punter but it this has proven illusory.  The punting in the South Dakota State game was very bad; the punting in the Colorado game was OK. Hopefully this will be better, or at least not terrible.  The rest of the special teams seem fine.

Vibes: Looking at the total time I have been following Northwestern football, you can divide it up into eras.  There was the Gary Barnett era (1992 to 1998, but I started following the team with the Rose Bowl year of 1995), the Randy Walker era (1999-2005), Early Fitzgerald (2006-2011), Middle Fitzgerald (2012-2018), Late Fitzgerald (2019-2022), and the Braun era (2023 to the Present).

One of the big differences between the eras is what kind of product you got when the team was bad.  In the Walker era and the Early Fitzgerald era, even when the team was bad they often were very fun to watch--they often scores lots of points and did interesting things of offense even when they would get beaten soundly.  Beginning in the Middle Fitzgerald period, and in particular the two somewhat inexplicable 5-7 seasons in the middle of that period (2012 and 2013), when Northwestern was bad they were often also very boring to watch.  This went into turbo mode in the Late Fitzgerald period--if you take away the weird 2020 COVID season, watching Northwestern became kind of a bummer.  The offense was bad and uninteresting and no one seemed like they were having a good time.

My secret hope for this team was that, win or lose, it was going to be fun to watch.  And I think what we have seen so far suggests that the 2026 NU team will deliver that.  If we go to Indiana tonight and lose 56-28 but have some fun plays I will be far happier than losing 35-7 with no meaningful offense, and I think the former is way more likely than the later.  That really helps the vibes, at least from where I sit.  And the vibes matter because, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, this is a really tough schedule in which we are going to eat some losses, a couple of them probably ugly.      

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