EVANSTON-If Northwestern is to turn around its dismal offense this season, two key men who will likely be more responsible for it than most met with the media after spring practice on a cold and dreary Thursday morning at Martin Stadium.
There was offensive coordinator Zach Lujan, whose first year at the controls didn’t go as planned, and Preston Stone, the veteran grad transfer quarterback being brought in as the hired gun.
Rightly or wrongly, those two are joined at the hip in the mission to resuscitate a Wildcat offense that finished 128th out of 133 FBS teams in scoring last season. If Northwestern catches fire this season, chances are that those two will provide the spark.
Both Lujan and Stone made a case for why there should be optimism in Evanston this year for an offense that scored just 17.8 points per game last season and hasn’t finished above 93rd in the nation in scoring since 2017.
Lujan said he learned some valuable lessons last season in making the jump from the FCS, where he directed the offense at South Dakota State, to the Big Ten. One of them is that the athletes are bigger and faster – hardly a surprise.
But the level of coaching, he found out, is also significantly better.
“There's certainly a jump,” said Lujan. “In terms of everything happens a little bit faster, everybody's a little bit more physical. And then, I think [there are] some of the best defensive coaches in the country, so adjustments are made quicker as well.”
Lujan should be better prepared this year after watching defenses limit his attack to 14 or fewer points six times in 12 games.
After self-scouting his own offense with his staff, Lujan also identified some areas where he can improve as a play-caller. (Some Northwestern fans who may have been scratching their heads at his play calls may be relieved to hear that.)
“I know we talked about self-scout, kind of looking at what you did last year. But what are some of the things that you want to improve on just as play caller?” he said. “For myself, I felt there were areas where I could have led better in terms of making sure that we're being intentful, with playing fast, playing physical and playing to win in everything that we do.”
More than all that, however, what gives Lujan confidence is that this will be Year 2 in his system. This season, the Wildcat players are more comfortable with the scheme, the playbook and the calls. That should make for a more efficient and more effective unit.
“The biggest jump you make is your first year as a starter to your second year as a starter,” he said. “Well, I would say program-wise, and with a new offense last year, the biggest jump we'll make is from Year 1 to Year 2 in terms of, it's not learning it for the first time, it's reintroducing it.
“We know the words, we know the verbiage, we know our fundamentals and techniques and what we're trying to do across the board.”
Transfer wide receiver Griffin Wilde agreed. Wilde played for Lujan at South Dakota State in 2023 and said that a big reason he transferred to Northwestern this year was to reunite with his former OC.
He thinks the Wildcats’ struggles last year were mainly due to them learning a new system. It’s hard to play fast and physical when players have to think too much.
“Obviously, [it was] Lujan first year, he's getting used to it too,” said Wilde, whose 70 catches for the Jackrabbits last season represent more than double what all of Northwestern's returning receivers had combined last season. “And so, coming off the second year, like he's got experience, he's ready to roll, and this team, like I said earlier, is hungry and they want it.”
The other thing that Lujan has this season is a veteran quarterback behind center in Stone.
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Last season, he had Jack Lausch, a first-time starter in a first-year system. The results were predictable: he was the lowest-rated passer in the Big Ten.
This season, the Wildcats will have a guy who went 13-3 as a starter at SMU over four seasons and has more than 4,000 passing yards and 35 touchdowns to his name.
An experienced quarterback has been vital to Northwestern’s success over the last six seasons, since the departure of all-time leading passer Clayton Thorson. In that time, the Wildcats have posted two winning seasons: both times with a veteran grad transfer at quarterback – 2020 with Peyton Ramsey, and 2023 with Ben Bryant. In the other four years, the Wildcats finished a combined 11-37.
Stone is a proven commodity who can make plays with his arms or legs, but he doesn’t see himself as any kind of a savior. He believes his job is as simple as getting the ball into the right players’ hands at the right time. It’s something he thinks he excels at.
“The biggest thing, my biggest job is just to put the ball in the hands of playmakers. So I think I do a really good job of distributing the ball,” he said.
“You can see from our time when I was playing at SMU, we didn't really have one receiver that stuck out and had a thousand yards. It was a lot of, like, 500-, 600-yard guys. So I think I do a really good job of distributing the ball and, when the play breaks down, I feel really comfortable moving and throwing on the run. So that's where chemistry with these guys have been really huge of being on the same page, when we get kind of get off schedule.”
Despite finishing third-worst in the country in average yards per play last season, Stone looks around the NU huddle and sees “dudes” who can help the team win games, from running back Cam Porter to wideouts like Wilde, CJ Johnson and Frank Covey IV.
“You can see out on the field during spring ball that we've got some swagger right now,” said the fifth-year collegian. “I think confidence can take an offense, it can take a team really far. And so I think if we can maintain a level of confidence, no matter who we're playing this year, that we'll be able to put up some big numbers.”
That remains to be seen. But it’s difficult not to think that the Wildcats should be better this season. Not only do all the returnees have a year in Lujan’s system under their belts, but they’ve also added key personnel through the transfer portal: two wide receivers, a tight end and three offensive linemen, in addition to Stone.
Northwestern is still maintaining that there is a quarterback competition going on, but it’s difficult to envision a scenario where Stone does not end up as the starter. Lujan certainly sounds like a coach who has been won over by his new QB.
“I think what's lost is that Preston was an unbelievably successful, winning quarterback, right?” said Lujan. “He took SMU to really the next level with that.
“And he lost his job [last season] to somebody who's gonna be a Heisman hopeful this upcoming year [Kevin Jennings]. Well, that's not in any way, shape or form a knock on Preston, but really speaks to who he is as a player, person and competitor.”
So did the fact that this winter, just weeks after his arrival, Lujan said that Stone was the first overall pick when the winter workout team captains got together to select their teammates. That, says Lujan, is the best example of what kind of impact he’s had on the team.
“I think it just speaks to the way he's come in and just put his head down and worked his ass off from day one,” said Lujan.
It’s going to take a lot more work to fix Northwestern’s offense. But Lujan and Stone both have reasons to believe that it can be done.
