Tuesday Sips

It's getting kinda hard to keep up with all the other Northwestern news in the world. That's weird, right?

• One of the more overlooked things - well, not in the grand scheme of things, but at least for us - was NFL roster cuts, a lot of which were handed out Saturday while we were otherwise occupied. NU had a pretty decent day: all four relatively new players - Mike Kafka, Tyrell Sutton, Sherrick McManis, andCorey Wootton - made their rosters. The only NU cuttees since the last update were Zeke Markshausen (obviously) Eric Peterman (he fumbled a punt into the end zone for a touchdown a few weeks back) and Ike Ndukwe (who was hanging on to a backup right tackle spot with the Chiefs). I wasn't expecting Jason Wright and Marquice Cole to make their rosters, and it even looks like Cole might hang on with the Jets after the addition of Darrelle Revis. (By the way, THE JETS HAVE DARRELLE REVIS. SUPER BOWL.) The Colts opted not to cut John Gill after his run-in with the law, but rather to put him on the non-football illness reserve, hoping he takes some time to cope with his apparent alcohol issues - he doesn't count against their roster. It's a nice gesture from the Colts considering he wasn't a lock for their team anyway - not sure if he still receives paychecks from them.
  
• Northwestern basketball went 4-0 in Italy, with one scare, an overtime 112-105 victory over the well named Fastweb Casale Monferrato, with Juice Thompson scoring 38 points as well as 26 from John Shurna and 22 from Drew Crawford. Point being, who needs Kevin Coble? We can beat Fastweb by ourselves!
• The pick'em league: technically, still not too late to sign up. For some reason, the first week didn't count against the standings, so, sorry to Wisco, Demos4Groza, SwissCheese, and xycat, as well as resident degenerate gambler Loretta8, all of whom guessed 4 out of the 6 matchups that didn't end up as pushes. (By the way, Vegas is disturbingly good at setting lines - 2 pushes, and three matchups within two points of the line. Not fair.)
• If there's one thing I'm good at, it's regurgitating news from the depth chart that nobody cares about and which I'm not knowledgable enough to analyze even though it probably won't make a difference anyway. The biggest is that Niko Mafuli - who played and got injured last week - will not play next week, but it's not an overwhelmingly serious injury. Will Hampton, a true freshman, took his depth chart spot. Bryce McNaul still isn't back from his injury, which means Ben Johnson is the starter with Stone Pinckney moving in to the two-deep for I believe the first time.Some players jostled around, but the only true bump-off was Rashad Lawrence taking Drew Moulton's spot as the backup to Sidney Stewart at one wide out position. With Lawrence and Hampton, NU has a three true froshes in the two-deep - only Venric Mark burned their shirt last week, though. (CORRECTION: Rashad Lawrence did play last week - I missed him going over the participation log. no balls thrown his way, though.) Backup guard Keegan Grant was sick and missed the Vandy game and is now replaced by Evan Luxenburg on the two-deep. None of these moves will have any significance, except Hampton if he has to play - I'd assume they won't burn his shirt just to be a backup for a week before Mafuli returns, I'd assume the majority of the spell defensive tackle play will go to sophomore Brian Arnfelt, who was on there as a backup last week but hasn't played yet in any significant role at NU.
• Actually, the biggest news from the two-deep is that we still have three "this person OR this person" co-starters at running back, meaning you can expect somebody to go backwards next week.
• In truly nobody-cares news, I noted that there was A LONG-SNAPPER CONTROVERSY IN EVANSTON because two guys are listed as "this person OR this person" at the least noticed position on the field. Turns out, one guy handles field goals and the other handles punts. All this and more in this week's game notes. Read them while they're hot.
• The Big Ten Network sends me a crapload of emails, and one of them was about Pat Fitzgerald being No. 41 on their list of "Big Ten Icons". Really? No. 41? I know NU isn't a highlight school, but, who are they going to have higher than the best defensive player in school history and also current head coach? Have the decency to put him in the top 25. Tools.
• I like wins, but we dropped from No. 40 to No. 45 on the CBSSports 120 ranking of college football teams. No word on how far we are off the AP poll/USA Today poll, but I'll get it to you when I can.