David Braun, Big Ten Coach of the Year
After an unpredictable 7-5 season that started with an interim head coach title and ended with a five-year contract and Northwestern being bowl-eligible, David Braun has been named the consensus Big Ten Coach of the Year.
Braun is the fifth unique winner of the award at Northwestern, tied with Michigan State for the most in the Big Ten.
To call the job Braun has done for the Wildcats Herculean would be an understatement. He got the job on an interim basis in mid-July, with Big Ten Media Days fewer than 10 days away and the season opener against Rutgers in under two months.
He had just arrived in Evanston in January to be the program's defensive coordinator, and was now a head coach for the first time at any level. He also had never coached at the FBS, let alone Power Five level.
The program was already coming off of a 1-11 season, its worst in 30 years, so expectations sank. Las Vegas set the over/under for season wins at 2.5. Many fans braced for a return of the program's Dark Ages, when the Wildcats would go seasons between victories.
On top of all that was the hazing scandal that had cost previous coach Pat Fitzgerald his job, tarnished the program and spawned several lawsuits from former players and, eventually, Fitzgerald himself.
Under impossible circumstances, Braun set to work.
"I hope I've been raised in a way that I'm a guy that people can count on," he said at Big Ten Media Days. "I'll stand in the fire with you. I'll run to the fire for you. I hope when I look back 20 years from now, I'm proud of the way that we went about this."
The Wildcats stumbled out of the gate at Rutgers and lost two of their first three, with only a win over UTEP. But it was in Week 4 that we began to see that Braun could be special.
In that game at Ryan Field, against Minnesota, Northwestern trailed 31-10 early in the fourth quarter, but rallied with three unanswered touchdowns to tie it in regulation, and then another in overtime for a wild 37-34 win.
It was the type of win that can turn a season around. And that's exactly what happened.
The Wildcats kept improving week after week, showing impressive fight in losses to ranked Penn State and Iowa teams, and upsetting Maryland, Wisconsin, Purdue and Illinois. They wound up winning four of their last five games, including the last three in a row.
The win at Wisconsin on Nov. 10, Braun's first road win, prompted athletic director Dr. Derrick Gragg to name him the permanent head coach. The Wildcats capped the season by reclaiming the Land of Lincoln Trophy with a gutsy 45-43 win over a team that had beaten them by a combined score of 88-17 over the previous two seasons.
What became clear throughout the season was that Northwestern's players loved Braun, and they played hard for him. Even the Northwestern administration eventually realized that hiring him was a win-win situation; a no-brain, slam-dunk decision.
Somehow, Braun had replaced the school's all-time winningest coach and the most beloved figure in the program's history, and raised the bar. He even managed to land five recruiting commitments over the last four months, three of whom did it before knowing if Braun would be the head coach after the season.
Amazingly, Braun did it all with humility, grace and a steadfast belief in his players. He told us in July that the team was capable of something special, and by the end of the year they proved him right.
How did he do it? He didn't think about becoming a head coach or winning an award or becoming bowl-eligible. He just focused on the next game, week after week.
"So call me crazy, call me stubborn, but it was waking up each morning and asking what do I need to do today to help this team get ready for the next game," he said during his contract signing press conference on Nov. 15.
Winning the next game turned into winning seven and earning one more game, in a bowl to be determined. It also won him a Big Ten Coach of the Year award.
Even now, with another accolade on the list and a long-term extension in hand, David Braun will keep doing what he's doing to steward the program forward.