Northwestern Football 2014 – Better, Worse or about the Same?

OFFENSE

It’s going to be tough for the offense to be worse than last year’s. At one point, Northwestern ran out of scholarship running backs for a few plays, and quarterbacks Kain Colter and Trevor Siemian both missed games or played hurt for much of the year. Star running back Venric Mark also missed most of the season. However, with Siemian, the top three running backs (including Mark) and the entire offensive line back, as well as possibly the Big Ten’s best receiving corps, the Wildcats should be able to score points this year. 

It will be interesting to see how the offense develops. With Colter gone, the offense will feature a lot less of the option. The running backs are great, and they’ll get plenty of use, but expect more passing with Siemian at quarterback and Christian Jones, Tony Jones, Cameron Dickerson, Miles Shuler and Kyle Prater (to name a few) at receiver. The offense should look a bit more like it did under CJ Bacher and Mike Kafka than it has the past few years.

Northwestern QB Trevor Siemian

DEFENSE 

Northwestern’s defense has slowly, but surely made strides in recent years. The first few years of this decade, the unit was really, really bad — especially the secondary. But this could be the year they fix that. NU basically has three starting defensive ends in Ifeadi Odenigbo, Deonte Gibson and Dean Lowry. The safety duo of Traveon Henry and Ibraheim Campbell will be among the best in the league, and the safeties are deep and have some good young talent. The linebackers also return two starters and three starting-caliber players, though returning SAM linebacker Collin Ellis will need to learn MIKE. 

The biggest issue is still at defensive tackle. The Wildcats have built some depth there in the past year, but beyond Sean McEvilly and Chance Carter, there isn’t much experience. If the tackles don’t hold up, the defense might not take a step forward.

Northwestern 2014 – Better, worse or about the same as last year?  

Like I said, there’s pretty much no way this team can be worse than last year. In 2012, NU was incredibly lucky when it came to injuries. In 2013, they were incredibly unlucky. We shouldn’t see either extreme in 2014, and on paper, this team is probably better than either one from 2012 or 2013. 

The schedule is manageable. NU will probably be picked to finish fourth in the division, behind Iowa, Wisconsin and Nebraska, though they could sneak into the top three. I think 8-4 is a reasonable expectation, with a couple bounces maybe turning it into a 9-3 or 6-6/7-5 season.

Kevin Trahan of Inside Northwestern provided the information for our Northwestern Football 2014 Spring Wrap Up. For more Northwestern football information, commentary and analysis, you can follow Kevin on Twitter @k_trahan.