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Northwestern at Big Ten Media Days: What Pat Fitzgerald, Kain Colter, Venric Mark, and Tyler Scott had to say

We rounded up what Northwestern's head coach and three players had to say at Big Ten Media Days, Day 1. Coach Fitz wowed, Kain Colter said some fun stuff and also some serious stuff, and... Tim Beckman?

By Rodger Sherman
USA TODAY Sports

Big Ten Media Days began Wednesday, and, man, there was a lot of coverage! I was holding things down at the mothership, where we churned out all this stuff, and also got freaky-deaky in the liveblog, and we'll be doing it all again today.

In between doing that I also did this post on what Coach Fitz had to say, but that was just the tip of the iceberg, and didn't even get to Kain Colter.

So let's take a nice, good, breakdown of what went down at Big Ten Media Days with Northwestern people -- and one prominent not Northwestern person -- shall we?

Coach Fitz

The full transcript from his presser is here. He also said some stuff off the stage I missed:

And it's nice to see stuff like this:

Nicer to see stuff like this:

Nicest to see stuff like this:

And let's end with this:

YEAHHHHHHHHH /runs through wall /runs through wall /checks watch to see how long til football /runs through wall

Kain Colter

I think the biggest thing is Kain Colter getting involved with the O'Bannon stuff. He's been vocal about it the past few weeks:

As Loretta8 wrote a few months ago, college athletes should be paid, and if you disagree you are logically and morally bankrupt. So it's nice to see Kain be one of the more vocal people, although I wonder why he didn't put his name on the lawsuit. We haven't considered, though, that perhaps he's just angry he was a ginger in NCAA 13.

So that means this season, nothing good is going to happen because they've accomplished all their goals, right?

We found out something extremely Northwestern sports about Kain:

I honestly don't know how they do it. Like, I could not go to med school or play football.

That said, the NFL tho? Kid ain't gonna be a QB there. How does he think he'll make it?

Kain also joined the guys from the Rittenblog in their live chat, and although most of it was straightforward -- go Cats! -- and stuff we knew already -- him and Trevor Siemian are tight and don't mind splitting snaps, his role changes week-by-week depending on the gameplan, he likes playing QB more than running back and wide receiver, NU changes its offense to fit the personnel -- there were some damn gems.

Buck

Kain,
Do you regret not coming to Nebraska?

@Buck: Kain Colter: Nope.

Cree

Kain, I couldn't help but notice you have a name similar to the famous wrestler "Kane". I was wondering if you ever considered painting your face the same way to strike fear in your opponents?

@Cree: Kain Colter: I'm thinking about doing that with the eyeblack before the games this year. It might be intimidating.

THIS IS HUGELY IMPORTANT. KAIN COLTER DOING WWE RELATED THINGS IS HUGELY IMPORTANT.

Jack

How is the Illini-Wildcat rivalry heating up with Illinois vying for the title of Chicago's Team? Northwestern IS Chicago's Team!

@Jack: Kain Colter: It's always a battle for that, and we both want to be known as Chicago's Big Ten team. That game has a big impact on who's crowned Chicago's Big Ten team.

Woah, Kain. the first guy has it right: Northwestern is Chicago's Big Ten Team. You don't get to be crowned Chicago's Big Ten Team. You have to build signs and billboards and stuff.

NUCats2000

Kain your'e arm strength has been criticized in the past? What have you been doing to work on that?

@NUCats2000: Kain Colter: Just rehabbing from the shoulder surgery that I had a few years back (in high school). It's stronger than its ever been before.

I like this development.

And lastly:

@JSchoch91:
In my opinion Northwestern is the most dangerous game on The Buckeyes scheduale. Would you agree?

Kain Colter: Yes.

Venric Mark

Dude was named to the Big Ten watch list (just five player per division,) which is nice. You know, I still haven't yet begun thinking about after this year, but interesting to see an article on NFL.com about Venric Mark.

This was his big quote of the day:

Tyler Scott

California dreamin'

He got asked a dumb question:

Jeff Budzien?

NU Sports tweeted out an image of Budzien at Big Ten Media Days, which is weird, because he wasn't on the list.

It turns out it was part of a joke video -- and unlike some joke videos, this one is damn hilarious:

The best part, besides just everybody being a jerk to Jeff Budzien, is when Fitz makes a quip about kickers not being allowed at Big Ten media days AT THE EXACT MOMENT INDIANA'S KICKER WALKS BY, which is funny for irony and the fact that Indiana brought their kicker, and for Fitz mentioning that he offered Ewald first.

Tim Beckman

So I wrote in my post about ten big Big Ten storylines to watch for that I expected dude to be an absolute trainwreck. OH, MAN, WAS HE A TRAINWRECK:

Eyjcj0h_medium There were a lot of UHHH's, some things that didn't really make sense, and most importantly, he was INCREDIBLY LOUD THE ENTIRE TIME:

Watching Illinois coach Tim Beckman on B1G Network. I think windows in my house are shaking.

and the one that actually made me laugh out loud at home by myself:

The performance was enough to get him trending worldwide on Twitter.

But I wouldn't just bring up the LOUD NOISES performances of Northwestern's rival coach if there wasn't some Northwestern involved. He was asked about the W.I.N. thing: He did not stick the landing:

Perhaps he's telling the truth. We really have no way of knowing. And I really have no way of caring. It does seem a bit weird that he'd reinstate a catchphrase from his days at Bowling Green (1998-2004) in 2013, never having used it at any of his previous stops, including his time as Toledo's head coach and as Illinois' head coach for a year, but whatever.

Other people

Good stuff.

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