The past year has not been kind to Northwestern football. The Wildcats opened up the 2022 season with a huge upset win against Nebraska football in Dublin, Ireland as big underdogs. However, things quickly went downhill from there. Northwestern did not win another game after that and finished the 2022 season with a 1-11 record. The Wildcats didn’t see things get any better in the offseason as Pat Fitzgerald was recently fired as head coach after a hazing scandal began. Now, defensive coordinator David Braun will be the interim coach, and he has his work cut out for him.

When it comes to college football rankings, there is one poll you don’t want to see your team show up in, and that’s ESPN’s bottom 1o rankings. The first poll of the season was recently released, and Northwestern football was the only power five school on the list, coming in as the fourth worst team in college football. That’s certainly not where they want to be, but the good news is, things can pretty much only go up from here. The full bottom 1o (from worst to best) is as follows: UMass, Kent State, ULM, Northwestern, Sam Houston State, Jacksonville State, Charlotte, New Mexico and FIU (one spot doesn’t go to an actual team, so there are technically only nine).

Northwestern opens up the season with another unique game this season. The Wildcats kick things off on Sunday September 3rd and will once again start with a conference matchup, this time against Rutgers football on the road. Rutgers vs. Northwestern on a Sunday on CBS. Doesn’t get much better than that.