Hey, did anybody see last night when I was accumulating some links for this and accidentally hit "publish" and there was a post saying "Monday Sips" on the site for like 45 seconds? I hope not. That sucked. On to the next one:
- Obviously, the most important thing happening right now is the now-ongoing crusade to get Pat Fitzgerald to grow a mustache. (It's a movement, thanks to the people at Spread Far the Fame.) Basically, we need this to happen, and we will not rest until it does. Even better, Coach Fitz is aware of the whole shebang. Look, people, some fights are meant to be fought, and this is one of them. Our coach needs some upper-lip padding. You see, great facial hair is about more than just well-placed follicles and trace amounts of creepiness: it's about pride, confidence, and cojones. We know coach Fitz has the first two, and judging from the fact that he has kids, we can speculate that he also has the third. Now let's make this happen.
- Two important things in the Northwestern practices you can't see world: the football team is headed up to Kenosha to start camp there, and, in weird news, the basketball team starts practice today so they can head to Italy next week. We know this is true because there is a blurry photo of Ivan Peljusic dunking. (The real question about that photo: is that a blurry person in a No. 44 jersey jogging back on defense? Is Northwestern resurrecting Kevin Coble's jersey so fast, and blurrily?) Also, Lindsay Willhite reports that Luka Mirkovic is wearing a Rip Hamilton/Lucious Harris style facemask. That's fantastic news: tall Serbian men with facemasks are intimidating.
- NFL preseason kicked off, and I kept an eye on recent NU grads. The biggest impact anybody had was Mike Kafka, who led the Eagles to preseason triumph. Kafka replaced Mike Vick at the end of the third quarter with the Eagles down 27-19. Aided by a pass interference call that gained them 46 yards - Kafka, so wiley, always drawing pass interference calls for his receivers! - Philly scored on their first possession, but failed the two-point conversion. Then, Jacksonville went three-and-out, and Kafka completed a 57-yard pass to Chad Hall on the first play from scrimmage that set up a David Akers field goal that gave them the lead, and they'd hold on. Philadelphia, you have a preseason hero.
- Elsewhere, Tyrell Sutton had 32 yards rushing (on four carries), 22 yards receiving, and lost a fumble on the one-yard line. Sherrick McManis played some corner and broke up a pass for the Texans. Of the four NU grads on the Bears, the only statistical evidence any of them exist is a five-yard sack from Nick Roach. And that's about it.
- Northwestern's women's soccer team had an exhibition game against Loyola-Chicago Friday, meaning... the fall athletic season is officially underway! Or at least kind of underway, since it was an exhibition game, I guess. But hey, that's cool too.
- Less fantastic news: NU is chockful of injuries after the first week in pads. Four guys are reported to be injured until at least past the season opener against Vandy, but most likely for more time - possibly even missing the whole season. Let's run them down:
- David Arnold (foot). This is a bummer. Arnold was great last year at linebacker, and I thought really could've been a factor at one of the safety positions this year. We don't know what role the coaching staff had planned for Arnold, but that's what makes this injury more difficult: he seemed like he had a decent amount of potential and I thought could been a surprise star on our defense. If it's a serious injury, that essentially straps in Jared Carpenter at that position as the starter instead.
- Roderick Goodlow (knee). Goodlow was definitely going to compete for the third linebacker spot, and looked good when he took the field last year as a true freshman. Luckily, he was a true freshman last year, so he still has his redshirt year in pocket: if he misses a large part of this season with injury, it wouldn't hurt too badly to just slap the redshirt on him and keep his eligibility nice and safe. Goodlow only had an outside chance at getting the job from behind Ben Johnson and Bryce McNaul - this setback will give those two a lock on that position.
- Tony Jones (shoulder): he's a true freshman and probably wasn't going to see much of the field at wide receiver.
- Tim Riley (shoulder). Not fully sure who he is, and it appears he'll be ready to play shortly after the opener - he just had surgery on the shoulder and is recovering as planned.
- Reminder for future: never end links posts with depressing injury summaries.