Game week finally came to Evanston on Monday, as head coach Pat Fitzgerald and the team's five captains met with the media.

Here are our five takeaways.

The Michigan State quarterback who beat Northwestern last season, Rocky Lombardi, transferred to Northern Illinois. Now, the Spartans are giving Fitzgerald some of its own medicine and have yet to name a starting quarterback.

Fitzgerald named Hunter Johnson his starting quarterback two weeks ago, reversing his trend the last two years of waiting until the last minute to reveal his signal caller. Now, the shoe's on the other foot, as the winner of Michigan State's QB competition between Temple graduate transfer Anthony Russo and redshirt sophomore Payton Thorne has yet to be announced.

Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker has given no indication of who will be under center and probably won't before kickoff.

But Fitzgerald shrugged off the extra workload his staff had to do in scouting preparation.

“Yeah, you have to watch more tape as coaches,” Fitzgerald said. “But we do anyways, we’re pretty big losers. So that’s about all we do anyways is watch tape.”

Both Northwestern and Michigan State have a lot of unanswered questions going into this season.

Both will have new quarterbacks. MSU is ranked 64th in ESPN’s returning production rankings, while Northwestern is well documented at 126th (out of 127). Tucker is going into his second season at MSU and has brought in nearly 20 transfer additions since January, giving the Spartans a much different look this fall.

With many of those transfers expected to play significant roles for Michigan State, Fitzgerald talked about the lengths his staff had to go to for preparation this week.

“We have had to overturn a lot of stones,” Fitzgerald said. “We’ve had to go find a lot of tape on guys in different schools, to kind of get a snapshot.

"Our quality-control guys did a good job getting that all organized, and then trying to project where those young men will fit into their scheme.”

Northwestern hosts a Big Ten opponent in the season opener at Ryan Field. Outside of last year, which featured a conference-only regular season because of COVID-19, that hasn’t happened in the 21st century. In fact, you have to go back 40 years, to 1981, when the Wildcats hosted Indiana for their first game.

Opening at Ryan Field, under the lights and against Michigan State, has the team fired up.

“It's obviously super, super exciting,” defensive tackle Joe Spivak said. “I mean, that's what you grow up dreaming about, it’s playing in front of those packed stadiums, and playing in Big Ten country with the best fans in the world.”

Fitzgerald made sure to emphasize they’re looking at it like any other opener, and while he said there were no material changes in prep for a Big Ten opponent versus another team in Week 1, he pointed out it might have helped with the team’s mentality throughout spring and summer camps and practices.

“It's a big blip on the radar during training camp, right?” Fitzgerald said. “What's our why? It’s we're working through everything, to have an opponent, like a Big Ten team on the horizon in the opener.”

Spivak raved about the chemistry and community being built in the Northwestern defensive line room, starting with the return of defensive end Samdup Miller.

“So having [Samdup] back is unbelievable,” Spivak said of the three-year starter returning after opting out of 2020. “And the camaraderie that comes with him has just permeated through the whole D-Line room. I mean, we got a really, really special crew there.”

Spivak continued to be effusive in his praise, and painted a picture of how that might come up clutch for the Wildcats on Friday.

“The camaraderie and the brotherhood is what is going to transfer,” Spivak said. “When it's fourth-and-short [against] Michigan State, which you know we'll have that situation, you fall back on that brotherhood. You got to have guys that you trust and that you love, and there's a lot of love in that room.”

It’s a seasoned group that could have serious depth going into Friday and this season. Four of the top eight on the depth chart are graduates: Spivak, Miller and transfers Jeffrey Pooler and Jeremy Meiser. In addition, senior Trevor Kent returns after an injury-plagued 2020.

Pooler and Meiser are both listed as second string on the two-man depth chart released by Northwestern on Monday but will probably get a significant number of snaps off the bench.

In the build-up to this season, respect has been one of the common themes. After winning the Big Ten West and finishing the season ranked 10th in the nation, the Wildcats are nowhere to be found in the AP Top 25 in 2021.

Are the Wildcats getting enough respect? Not enough? Will this be a repeat of 2019, when the team fell off the cliff after capturing the division the year before? Or can they return to Indianapolis for the Big Ten title game?

Linebacker Chris Bergin cut through all of that back-and-forth, making his stance clear after he predicted a return to that title game in the spring.

“Respect is earned,” Bergin said, “and us having the least amount of returning production and college football, we haven't earned respect. And it's as simple as that. Last year's team, we earned it. This year's team, we are going to earn it.

"So, am I surprised [we’re not getting respect]? No. Do I think we should have it? No. Do I think we're gonna earn it? Yes. So we're excited for the opportunity.”