Brandon Joseph has a message for Northwestern fans.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
He feels funny saying that, but it’s the truth.
“I don’t know if I should apologize or not, but I promise that it was not an easy decision to leave.”
That just about sums up the feelings of the Wildcats’ former All-America safety, who entered the transfer portal last month and just announced his commitment to Notre Dame last week.
Even though he just completed his redshirt sophomore season, Joseph has up to three years of eligibility remaining -- though he hopes to play just one more and move onto the NFL. Either way, he will trade his purple helmet for a gold one for the remainder of his college career.
Joseph agreed to an interview with WildcatReport because he wants Wildcat fans to know that his transfer was all about football. He repeatedly called it “a business decision,” one that he felt was in his best interests.
His dream is to be a first-round NFL draft pick, and the feedback he was getting said his draft stock was falling. He believed he would have a better chance at achieving his dream at another school, so he decided to enter the portal. When the opportunity to play at Notre Dame opened up, he felt like he had to take it.
When he explains it over the phone, it all makes sense. But he still feels bad about leaving Northwestern – his teammates and coaches that have been like a second family, and the fans that supported him every step of the way.
“Northwestern will be in my heart and in my life for a long time,” he said. “I will never take my time at Northwestern for granted.”
Joseph spoke to WildcatReport on Tuesday, the day he enrolled for classes at Notre Dame, and the day before he started classes – two days after the spring semester started for everyone else. His life has been a whirlwind the last couple weeks: he entered the portal on Dec. 30, committed to Notre Dame on Jan. 8 and quickly moved to South Bend. He spoke while settling into his new living space.
“It was strictly a football decision,” he said about his transfer. “On the football side, I wanted to be in position to explore other options in the transfer portal. With the year we had and for my future, I decided to get into the transfer portal and see the places I could go. A lot of it was the NFL and my draft stock. I wasn’t where I wanted to see myself drafted.”
Joseph doesn’t hide his NFL aspirations. He didn’t want to get specific about the feedback he got from the league, saying only that “it wasn’t looking like a top two-round grade.”
That shouldn’t come as a surprise to Northwestern fans. It was a rough season for everyone in the Northwestern program as the Wildcats went from first to last in the Big Ten West, from 7-2 in 2020 to 3-9 in 2021.
The defense, especially, struggled. The bedrock of the team that finished 2020 ranked 10th in the nation, the defense was repeatedly gashed last season and looked like a shell of its former self under new defensive coordinator Jim O’Neil. The Wildcats gave up more than 40 points three times and saw their average points allowed per game almost double, from 15.9 in 2020 to 29.0 in 2021.
Joseph said the reason for the unit’s poor performance was simple.
“You have a new defensive coordinator and a young team,” he said. “That’s the main difference in the 2020 to 2021 seasons.”
Joseph ran through a list of the returning veteran players the Wildcats had in 2020, including defensive end Earnest Brown, linebackers Paddy Fisher and Blake Gallagher, cornerback Greg Newsome and safety JR Pace. All of them were gone in 2021.
On top of missing all that experience, the players were also learning O’Neil’s new system. There were a lot of errors, especially early in the season, as players were acclimating to new roles and a new scheme. It didn’t help matters that the Wildcats repeatedly got behind by two or three scores early in games.
“People don’t understand how hard that is on a team,” he said.
Joseph is naturally bubbly and gregarious by nature. Words flow out of him excitedly. But here he chooses his words carefully. He was somewhat guarded when talking about the problems with the Wildcat defense. He said repeatedly that he didn’t want to blame any individuals for the unit’s shortcomings – not coaches, and certainly not any of his teammates. It was a group effort that led to their demise.
“There were errors from the defensive line, from the linebackers, from the cornerbacks, and from me,” he said. “To go 3-9, that leaves room for a lot of errors. It’s on all of us.”
Joseph saved his most pointed criticism for himself.
“I didn’t perform to the best of my ability, either,” he said. “I could’ve played better to help the team, too. I could have tackled better, I could have communicated better, I could have been more aggressive.”
Joseph was named a consensus first-team All-American in 2020 after co-leading the nation with six interceptions, including his spectacular one-handed stab in the end zone against Ohio State in the Big Ten championship game, an iconic moment that will live forever in Wildcat football lore.
But Joseph clearly wasn’t the same player in 2021. He finished with three interceptions, and though he finished third on the team with 80 tackles, he also missed more than his share.
Part of that had to do with Joseph himself. He needs to work on “little technical things I can fix” to help him improve as a player, he said. Part of it also had to do with his role in O’Neil’s system. Joseph clearly wasn’t as comfortable in the new defense as he was in the scheme employed by previous defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz.
“The way the 2020 season went for me, in Coach Hank’s version, I think I was the best version of myself. I didn’t feel the same way this year,” he said.
Again, Joseph is thoughtful about his word choices. He makes a point to absolve O’Neil of responsibility for his leaving.
“He’s a great defensive coordinator and he has a great opportunity to do something special at Northwestern,” he said. “He’s a great coach, but for me, I wanted to explore something else.”
What probably sticks in the craw of many fans about Joseph’s defection is not only that he decided to leave Northwestern. It’s also that he chose to transfer to Notre Dame, the school Wildcat fans love to hate.
Joseph will also be the second Northwestern captain to transfer to Notre Dame in three years, following in the footsteps of wide receiver Bennett Skowronek, who did the same thing after the 2019 season.
But Joseph’s decision to leave Evanston for the Golden Dome is, in its own way, a tribute to Northwestern. It shows how much he valued the culture at NU.
Notre Dame, like it or not, is very similar to Northwestern in many ways. They’re both outstanding academic schools (Northwestern ranks ninth, Notre Dame 19th in the current U.S. News & World Report rankings). They are about the same size. They are within a couple hours’ drive of each other.
“That’s the reason that I went to another prestigious academic school,” he said. “I didn’t want to go to a huge public school. I always have a school’s academics on my mind.”
When you ask Joseph if he has any regrets about his move, he talks about leaving Northwestern before earning his degree in Learning & Organizational Change.
“The academic reason that I went to Northwestern was to get that degree, and to be as close as I was and not finish really hurts,” he said.
The one place were Northwestern and Notre Dame differ, however, is on the field. At least for the upcoming season. While Northwestern has more questions than answers going into 2022, the Irish are coming off of an 11-2 season and a No. 8 final ranking in the AP poll. They return a boatload of starters on both sides of the ball.
Joseph said that Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman was the first head coach to reach out to him once he entered the portal in late December. Joseph also talked to Skworonek, who now plays for the Los Angeles Rams and had nothing but positive things to say about his experience in South Bend.
It doesn’t hurt that Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton is projected to be a Top 5 pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, either. That is an ideal scenario for Joseph: it gives him the confidence that the Irish program can develop a first-round safety, as well as a spot in the starting lineup he can slide right into.
“Before I hit the portal, I had an idea of where I wanted to go,” said Joseph. “My goals were to find a place with a very good defense and very good academics. It happened faster than I thought it would.
“I’m joining a great team and some great players. They’re returning, like, 18 starters. I remember back in 2019 (at Northwestern), we returned almost the whole defense (in 2020)… We knew we were set to be really good.”
Joseph has that feeling again at Notre Dame. One that he didn’t have at Northwestern.
Still, Joseph says that Northwestern will be fine. He calls head coach Pat Fitzgerald “one of the best coaches in college football” and said that he’s confident that the coach will lead the program back, just as he did in 2020, after a disastrous 3-9 2019 season.
“I believe in the guys. I believe they’ll be great,” he said. “They just need to fix a few things. It could’ve gone really differently in a few games. I believe they have the guys, Coach Fitz and the staff in order to be successful.”
But they’ll have to do it without Joseph, who was generally regarded as one of their best players, and the only one whose name adorns the second deck at Ryan Field as one of 14 consensus All-Americans in program history.
Joseph is adamant that he will maintain his ties to the Wildcat program. He mentions that Notre Dame is “only a couple hours away,” so he hopes to return as often as he can.
“If they’ll let me back in,” he said with a laugh.
Joseph had nothing but glowing things to say about his time at Northwestern. Again, he is deliberate with his words, this time to protect Notre Dame and its fans. He doesn’t want to appear too attached to Northwestern, lest some feel that he isn’t all in with the Irish. He’s walking a tightrope between the two programs, not an easy task.
Joseph will miss his “brothers,” his teammates at Northwestern, the most.
“I have a great relationship with them, and the fact that they support me means a lot to me and makes it easier.”
But he’ll miss the entire Northwestern community, too. He wishes he could thank them all.
“I loved my time at Northwestern. I got so much support from people, people I never met. During the 2020 season, in the Ohio State game, in the Citrus Bowl, even this year.
“I love all of you forever.”
