New coach on the block

EVANSTON-The first thing you notice about new Northwestern assistant Kurt Anderson is that he looks like an offensive line coach.

He’s a big, burly, bear of a man who must hover around 300 pounds. He wears a black hoodie that looks like one you might wear to pick up the newspaper at the end of the driveway on a Sunday morning. His black Northwestern hat seems a little too small for his head. His face, covered with a dark brown beard, is as much hair as it is skin.

He rocks back and forth as he fields a reporter’s questions inside Ryan Fieldhouse on this first day of spring practice, like he has too much energy to just stand in one place for too long.

But once he starts talking, it’s clear within moments that the 40-year-old Anderson is not some brute of an ex-jock. He talks fast, but thoughtfully; calmly, but with energy.

Ask him what he hopes to bring to the offensive line in this, his first season on the job at Northwestern, and he talks first about what he hopes his linemen will be off the field, before he gets to their play on the field.

“I want them to be the guys always counted on, always on time, taking care of business in the classroom, contributing to our campus, our society, and growing as men.

“My goal,” he continues, “is to make them a better husband someday, a better father someday, a better whatever-they-choose-to-do-once-football-ends, and teach them the game of life through football.”

Anderson’s job may be coaching football, but it’s clear his vision goes far beyond a 100-yard gridiron.

Anderson has perhaps the most accomplished resume on the Northwestern staff, with coaching stops in the Big Ten, the SEC and the NFL.

Yet he started out on the Wildcat staff as an unpaid volunteer last season. He lost his job at Arkansas after head coach Bret Bielema was fired at the end of the 2017 season. Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald says that Anderson called him and said he wanted to “come in and help in any way. I’ll volunteer.”

So he started out as a defensive quality control coach on Fitzgerald’s staff because that’s what was open at the time. Fitzgerald said that Anderson added value in his role, even though he spent his entire career on the other side of the ball.

But that wasn’t the reason Fitzgerald hired him. It wasn’t because Anderson played at Michigan. Nor was it that he had coaching stops at Michigan (2006-07), Eastern Michigan (2008-12), the Buffalo Bills (2013-15) or Arkansas (2016-17). It wasn’t because he coached 2018 NFL first-rounder Frank Ragnow at Arkansas, either.

Fitzgerald said that Anderson got the job because of the way he treated the people on the bottom rung of the ladder at the Walter Athletics Center.

“What jumped out to me about Kurt was not the fact that he had experience or full-time coaching experience, it was the way he treated our GAs (graduate assistants) and our student volunteer,” he said last week in an informal session with the media. “People who could do nothing for him, who he treated amazing.

“I think that that type of humility in society today – where more people focus on people that can help you – he was just incredibly giving to that young group of staff members. Same with our video office, same with our offensive young aspiring coaches. That’s what really jumped out to me about who he is as a person.”

So when former offensive line coach Adam Cushing left Northwestern in December to take the head job at Eastern Illinois, Anderson was the logical choice to replace him. His resume and the fact that he already knew all of the players in NU’s offensive line room made him close to a slam dunk, even if Fitzgerald interviewed other candidates.

Anderson was officially named Northwestern’s new offensive line coach on Jan. 14 and moved from a quality control coach’s desk to a full-blown assistant coach’s office.

Not that he was complaining.

“The quality controls here have it pretty good in terms of having actual desk space,” he said with a laugh. “I’ve been some places where those guys have been in an actual broom closet. We’ll get my name tag on (the new office) by the end of spring.”

Anderson only quoted one person during a wide-ranging interview. It wasn’t a football coach, like Vince Lombardi or Bill Walsh or even his boss, Fitzgerald.

It was Abe Lincoln.

He likes one particular quote from his fellow Illinoisan – Anderson grew up in Glenview and was a Parade All-American at Glenbrook South – and has adopted it as a mantra for his linemen.

“Lincoln said, ‘Give me six hours to cut down a tree and I’ll spend five sharpening my axe,’” he said.

He likes that Lincoln’s philosophy lends itself readily to football. “We have a week,” he said. “We’ll spend six days sharpening our axe and we’ll go chop down that tree on Saturday.”

There are many fans who had an axe to grind with Cushing, who spent the last 10 of his 14 years in Evanston as the offensive line coach. In recent years, NU’s offensive line seemed to be the weakest link on the team, something Fitzgerald was not shy about telling the media on numerous occasions. The unit's performance sometimes held back an offense that often struggled to score points.

Anderson says that his first goal is to give his offensive line an identity. And make no mistake, it’s going to be a physical one.

“On the field, we want to be tough, nasty,” he said. “Just grind it out. Have an enthusiasm that is just unmatched. That is infectious. As an offensive line goes, the whole team goes.”

But to get that brawn, it’s going to first take some brains first. Anderson is changing everything about the Wildcats’ blocking scheme. “It’s a drastic change in terminology, footwork, eye progression.”

Anderson says that his system is not better or worse than Cushing’s. It’s just different.

“There’s more than one way to skin a cat,” he said. “I have my ways and my methods, and Cush had his. This is what I know, and I’ve got to teach what I know.

“It’s the same technique, same stuff that I taught in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills. They’re getting that type of attention to detail in techniques.”

Anderson’s teaching skills will be put to the test as he acclimates his players to his system. He explained that there is no “cut-and-dry answer” for how you block a particular play. “The technique you use depends on what technique the guy across from you is using,” he said.

It won’t be easy, but adapting to this type of a change is something Anderson hopes will teach his players lessons they can apply off the field, as well.

“It’s an opportunity to teach them about life,” he said. “Change can be good. A lot of stress comes with change, my job is to alleviate that stress… Someday, they’re going to be able to get in front of a room and teach it, and when you teach it, you know it.”

Fitzgerald says that Anderson comes from “a great family,” and football clearly courses through the family’s blood. Andersons have been playing this game for generations.

It started with Anderson’s grandfather, Bob Nowaskey, who played pro football for the Chicago Bears, Los Angeles Dons and Baltimore Colts during a career that spanned from 1940-50. His father, Donald Anderson, played at Northwestern as a receiver for one year, 1967, catching 33 passes.

Three of Don’s sons ended up playing Big Ten football.

Kurt played at Michigan from 1997-2001. He was a member of the 1997 national championship team and was named the first-team All-Big Ten center in 2001, his senior year, when he also won the Hugh R. Rader Jr. Memorial Award as the team's top offensive lineman.

Kurt’s older brother Erick also played for the Wolverines, from 1988 to 1991. Erick won the Butkus Award as the nation’s best college linebacker in 1991. That same year he was named the Big Ten co-Defensive Player of the Year and was a first-team All-American. He is the only player in Michigan football history to lead the team in tackles for four consecutive years. He then played for the Kansas City Chiefs and Washington Redskins from 1991-95.

Another older brother, Lars, played two years as a tight end at Indiana.

Kurt can take a lot of his coaching techniques from the job home to his family, too. He coaches a unit with five starters and, ironically, he and his wife have five kids.

Anderson inherits a unit that has lost three starters to graduation from a year ago – guards JB Butler and Tommy Doles, and left tackle Blake Hance. All three were multi-year starters. The two starters returning are tackle Rashawn Slater and center Jared Thomas.

So Anderson’s job would seem to be to find three new starters. However, he tells the offensive line room that “there are five open spots.” Fitzgerald says that one of the advantages of having a new coach is that "everyone has a clean slate."

Anderson ascribes to the same philosophy that Cushing did in terms of starting the best five linemen, regardless of position. The reason? If, say, the left guard goes down, he wants to bring in the next best linemen, No. 6 in the pecking order, and not the next best left guard, who could be No. 10 in terms of skill.

“It’s more of my NFL background, where you have seven, maybe eight guys,” says Anderson. “Versatility in your backups is key.”

Anderson’s teaching skills will be put to the test implementing his new system. “Communication will be key,” he said. In that regard, he is thankful that the leader of the room is Thomas, a fifth-year senior center.

“I’m really fortunate because you want to lean on your seniors and your centers are the mouthpiece of your offensive line,” said the former center. “It just so happens that our senior leader is our center, so I couldn’t have asked for a better situation.”

As for the other positions, one big move that he has already made is moving Slater, a junior who started the last two years at right tackle, over to left tackle to replace Hance. Gunnar Vogel, a redshirt junior, ran with the 1s last Tuesday at right tackle.

As far as the guards go, it’s too early to tell who will emerge. “We’ll figure out the inside,” he said. “A guy that has impressed me through my time here in the fall and this offseason is (redshirt freshman) Sam Stovall. I think he has the right mental approach to the game.”

Fitzgerald also mentioned three young offensive linemen that have caught his eye: interior linemen Nik Urban, a redshirt junior, and Sam Gerak, a redshirt sophomore; and redshirt freshman tackle Payne He’bert.

Anderson thinks that settling on a starting five won’t be too difficult. He plans to be transparent: everyone will be watching film every day and, as he points out, “the film doesn’t lie. We’ll know who the top five is.”

But Anderson says that more than five O-linemen could earn playing time. If that's the case, he plans to be very vocal in fighting for their reps.

“I’m a big man, but I’ll stand on the table to find ways to get a guy on the field,” said Anderson. Seeing an opening to poke fun at himself, he thinks about that table. “It’d better be sturdy.”