As a couple of Ryan Board posters have noted,

the Cats are quietly updating the football

roster:

Howard is listed as a Defensive End

Jeff Backes is listed as 190 lbs - a big jump from his previous

weight

Several other players; Anderson

for example are listed as having added weight.

QB Tony

Stauss is up to 215 - there were rumbles around that NU might actually

run some Option.

The Starting O-Line is definitly bigger: Martinez-304

The big gainers are Jeff Roehl, Matt Ulrich and Carl Matejka - they've

all tacked on around 5 lbs each.

Over on the Defensive Line, Woods,

all added weight too.

and they've listed all the incoming freshmen for

next year...

Factor in the increased team speed, and you seem have the prototype Big

10 grind it out team. NU still lists a Fullback or two [Cobb,

Lezi],

and there are those big Tight Ends [Essex,

Worley]

so it would appear we have the players to run a straight 2 back set as

well as all those wide receivers you need to pull off the Spread.

All of our Quarterbacks appear to be faster than we've seen in a while;

the roster has 6 counting the 3 incoming frosh, Tony

Stauss, Brett

Basanez and Matt

Danielson.

Our Roster Watchers will probably find more tidbits as the pore over

the update. In addition, NU Sports has updated all of the player Bios and

pictures from last year.