The latest from NU practice...
- Venric Mark, still day-to-day, did not practice today. It's not looking likely that we'll see him against Western Michigan, though it's also not likely that he'll be needed.
- And more on the running backs... I was off interviewing people for another story, but Nick Medline of Purple Wildcats talked to Warren Long and it appears his redshirt could come off, making him the second player to lose his redshirt. Yesterday, Long was practicing with the first team and Pat Fitzgerald said he's a "flight deck" guy, who could potentially lose his redshirt. This is somewhat surprising, considering NU's depth at running back and the fact that the Wildcats have been just fine in Mark's absence, but given what we've seen this week at practice, it's not all that shocking.
- Don't take anything from this, I just thought it was a funny note: Matt Alviti completed a deep pass to Macan Wilson for the scout team offense, despite the fact that Wilson was triple-covered by Dwight White, Ibraheim Campbell and Traveon Henry. That wasn't exactly a banner moment for the secondary, but the scout team offense got a nice cheer from the rest of the team.
- One thing Fitz noted is that most of the team is made up of players who were captains before they came to NU.
- Fitz had this to say about his meeting with the leadership council: "They're not in a very good mood right now. They don't feel like they've played a complete game yet. They don't feel like we've put together four quarters of the way we want to play. And that attitude, and I think hunger to improve, showed up this week in our two work days of practice. And to me, that would be why."
- Fitz on this team: "We haven't played very well. We've played well enough to win, but we haven't played four quarters of our style of football yet, and that's the pursuit that we're on right now."