What to Look for in Northwestern's Spring Game

Spring football!

It's cold! It's pointless because they don't keep score! It causes me to write ridiculous things based on one meaningless performance like saying Evan Watkins is the better quarterback than Dan Persa or that Jeravin Matthews and Alex Daniel were the answer to NU's post-Tyrell Sutton running back vacuum. And for the third straight year, I'm covering it for the Daily.(Have fun getting rained on, suckers!)

Anyway, here's a list of things I'll be looking at, post el jump:

Running back: Right now, the clear-cut choice is Mike Trumpy: but NU always likes to go committee, and NU is also always super-super indecisive about its running backs. We've been hearing good stuff about Tyris Jones, and I'm interested to see whether that's an actual thing or whether it's just like every spring where they give one guy a lot of reps randomly and people act as if he'll contribute but then he goes back to being nonexistent. We'll see if he actually gives Jacob Schmidt a run for his slow-running money as a short-yardage back.

Jeravin Matthews: Yes, the former answer to NU's questions at running back is now a potential starting corner. I'm a rising senior; so is Jeravin. I've been waiting my entire college career for a very good athlete to actually contribute on the field, we'll see if he can finally pull through.

Paul Jorgensen: NU only loses one offensive lineman. We'll see if Jorgensen, a right guard, can supplant Doug Bartels to fill the hole on the o-line left by sorta Keegan Grant.

As a matter of fact, the whole secondary: They'll be playing against an offense missing its quarterback and best wide receiver. We saw that Evan Watkins isn't that great against real competition last year, we saw that Kain Colter can't throw. I'd be pretty disappointed if NU's secondary allows NU's passing game to look like an actual passing game, because without Dan Persa and Jeremy Ebert, it's not. (Like, seriously, did you see us play Illinois/Wisconsin/Texas Tech WITH Ebert?) If NU moves the ball through the air, I'll have serious concerns about NU's passing defense.

NU's linebacker corps: From the ashes of Quentin Davie and Nate Williams... well, we might have problems. NU's best spot defensively was linebacker last season, and now that's going to change with a whole lot of new faces looking to spring up to take those spots, such as Damien Proby, Ben Johnson, David Nwabuisi, and Roderick Goodlow.

Not Evan Watkins, Kain Colter, and Trevor Siemian: I'm sure every article about the game will be about how these three potential No. 2's played. But they're potential No. 2's. I'm not intrigued.