About a month ago, Kyric McGowan made up his mind that he wasn’t going to Northwestern. He eliminated the Wildcats from his short list and decided to move on.

Then, about a week ago, the three-star athlete from Dalton (Ga.) had a change of heart. He took another look at the school and decided that maybe it was a fit after all. Upon closer examination, he realized that Northwestern had the combination of high-level academic and high-level football he was looking for.

So he reinitiated contact with Northwestern coaches and put the program in his top four, along with Duke, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt. Now, McGowan is preparing to fly out to Evanston on Saturday for a barbecue to see everything the Wildcats have to offer.