West Lot Pirates

With the football early signing period a week away and both Men's and Women's basketball starting a little bit of conference play, we had to check in on some of the big news items coming out of Evanston including Joe Spivak getting an opportunity to join the WWE and potentially become a professional wrestler.

After another disappointing outing, Northwestern can finally wrap up the 2021 campaign. As we start to turn our attention to the 2022 season, there are still many things left to figure out. What activity will we see in the Transfer Portal? What kind of coaching changes will we see? How will this season affect the recruiting class? We also check in with Men's and Women's Hoops as they really get into the thick of the non-conference slate.

Congratulations to the Northwestern Field Hockey team for winning their first National Championship in program history! The Cats finished off their magical run through the NCAA Tournament with a 2-1 win over Harvard in the Final 4 and a 2-0 blanking of Liberty in the title game! Elsewhere, at Wrigley Field, the football team lost their 5th straight game. The season comes down to the final game this weekend as the Cats hope to keep the LOLHat in Evanston as they travel downstate to take on the Illini. We've also got some news from the hardcourt in both Men's and Women's Hoops.

The season continues to disappoint with yet another rough loss, this time to Wisconsin, instead of breaking down the game, we start to look ahead to where the program is going. It's thoughtful, it's insightful and there are metaphors referring to Disney kingdoms. Plus, the game at Wrigley Field is this weekend. All is not doom and gloom however as Field Hockey is in the Final 4 and both Men's and Women's hoops are off to undefeated starts.

With all the ways Northwestern has lost this year, the one we've been missing is that late game gut punch. Well, not anymore. Tonight, Sam and John go over the game with Scuzz calling in poolside from his family vacation.

Well, we knew that the Minnesota OL was amazing and that it really didn't matter who was running the ball for them. Already down their top 2 RBs for the season and their 3rd RB going out early, they still had 2 backs go for over 100 yards as they controlled the ball and the clock, wearing out the NU defense. The Cats' season seems to be circling down the drain, but with Iowa coming into Ryan Field this weekend, we will get to see another offense just as lost as NU's is. 

It was a tale of two halves in Ann Arbor last week. While the Cats hung in there for the first half, the second half was a different story as Michigan took their decisive time of possession advantage and wore the NU defense down. Now we enter the heart of the western division schedule as we take on the Gophers this Saturday afternoon. For the first time in several years, all three of us will be in attendance!

It's amazing how much one win can change the mindset of a fan base. Northwestern came off their bye week and did pretty much whatever they wanted against Rutgers. This weekend's matchup against Michigan, however, is going to be a totally different beast. But there is a path to victory there. Join us as we trace that path out for you.

With a week off to regroup, we reset our expectations for the back half of the season. Rutgers is coming to town this weekend and we outline a path to victory. We also discuss the announcement of the next President of Northwestern, Dr. Rebecca Blank.

There's really not much we can say about this game. It was awful in every sense of the word. With Northwestern's bye week upon us, this is an opportunity to take stock and see what kind of changes the Cats can make as we get into the back half of the schedule. 

A lot of things went right in Northwestern's big win over Ohio, but there are definitely still some things to work on and questions to be answered. This week, the Cats head west to Lincoln to take on Nebraska under the lights. Nebraska's Defense is much improved, but is there a blueprint to moving the ball against them? Can Adrian Martinez be stopped by anyone other than himself?

To call that first half against Duke a miserable time would be too generous. There are a lot of adjectives that we could use to describe it, but fundamentally, it was just embarrassing. The second half was a different story, but the Cats just ran out of time. We feel your pain as we try to figure out what the hell is going on with this team and how we can mentally re-adjust our expectations for the rest of the season. 

While Indiana State was certainly what the doctor ordered to get the bad taste of the opener out of our mouths, there is still some rumblings of discontent amongst Wildcat faithful. We had to bring in Jay Sharman (aka Lake the Posts) to help us take the temperature of the fanbase, get our heads around the annual "September Swoon" and prepare us all mentally for this weekend's game against Duke.

Well, that is certainly not how we wanted to start the season. Things went south for the Cats starting from the very first play of the game. However, instead of giving our knee-jerk reactions, we took some time, broke down the film and really dissected what went wrong last Friday in Evanston.

It's Game Week! As we all get set for Friday night's opener, we take you deep into the trenches with everything you need to know about Northwestern and as much as we can figure out about Michigan State. We're ready to kick this season off with a bang!

At long last, we come to the finish line of our summer previews. Today we preview our very own Northwestern Wildcats. However, there is so much to say about this team, we would be hard pressed to cover the entire team in one episode. Last episode, we took a deep dive into the NU Defense and tonight we wrap it all up with a look at the O. It's the second season of the Mike Bajakian experience and we hand the keys to Hunter Johnson. While there are quite a few new faces, you might find that there is a lot to be excited about.

At long last, we come to the finish line of our summer previews. Today we preview our very own Northwestern Wildcats. However, there is so much to say about this team, we would be hard pressed to cover the entire team in one episode. So tonight, we take a deep dive into the NU Defense. There is a lot of speculation with what we might see from Jim O'Neil's D, but one thing that we all know is that we have an All-American roaming the secondary.

It's a new era in Champaign as Bret Bielema takes over from Lovie Smith. He does have his work cut out for him as there was not a ton in the cupboard. Does Bret have the wherewithal to get the Illini back to respectability? Will our streak of LOLHat ownership continue?

While they have had flashes of excitement, generally Purdue has not lived up to expectations in the Jeff Brohm era. Now with another change at Defensive Coordinator and the graduation of Rondale Moore coupled with a brutal schedule, will the Boilers be able to show some improvement?

Fly the red pirate flag for an emergency podcast. When news broke that Cam Porter was done for the year and Hunter Johnson was named starting QB, we had to jump right on with our thoughts. Take a breath folks, this is not the end of the world.