Big Ten Media Days, the unofficial start of the college football season, are here.

Chicago’s sprawling McCormick Place is once again the site of the annual football talking championship, where coachspeak is the lingua franca – and, as a result, very little actual insight is typically gained.

On Monday, half of the conference coaches took the podium, one-by-one, and talked about how excited he is for the upcoming season, how his upperclassmen are showing great leadership, how he has been impressed by what he’s seen from the incoming freshman and how good the Big Ten conference is.

Of course, all of it – or most of it, anyway – is true. In the dog days of late July, everyone is still undefeated, and coaches, media and fans alike are counting the days until football season kicks off.

Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald will get to the podium at 8:15 a.m. CT on Tuesday, the second and final day of the event. WildcatReport will be there to cover what he says both on and off the podium.

Fitzgerald drew a short straw in the lineup this year, sandwiched between Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck, the bright young newcomer that Fitz himself was 11 years ago and the undisputed king of motivational slogans (and, who, it should be mentioned, beat Fitzgerald’s Wildcats in Evanston last year when he was at Western Michigan); and Penn State’s James Franklin, one of the best talkers in the business who now has a shiny new Big Ten in his trophy case to wax about (even though he has yet to beat Fitzgerald in three tries, at both Vanderbilt and Penn State).

Fitzgerald may unearth a few nuggets to tide fans over until regular post-practice press conferences start – personnel notes, how they wriggled out of playing two Friday night games this season as initially scheduled and what he will do with the 10th assistant position next season, perhaps.

At least Fitzgerald is bringing his three best players with him: quarterback Clayton Thorson, running back Justin Jackson and safety Godwin Igwebuike. All are well spoken players comfortable with the media who will no doubt give us some good quotes to work with.

Those three Wildcats may be the biggest stars of the entire show this year, as many other programs elected not to bring their biggest attractions. Ohio State’s JT Barrett didn’t come on Monday, and Penn State’s Saquon Barkely or Trace McSorley won’t be there on Tuesday, either.

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