David Braun has made some decisions this season that left some Northwestern fans scratching their heads. Make that a lot of Northwestern fans.
Against Duke, Washington and Maryland earlier this season there were play calls that were roundly criticized, and for good reason. Then, in Saturday’s 23-3 loss to Wisconsin, there were two first-half decisions that drew more puzzled looks than Donald Trump working the drive-thru at McDonald’s.
One was a field-goal try that seemed too timid. The other, a pass that seemed too aggressive. Somehow, they were both wrong.
It’s clear that Braun is struggling to find his footing as a head coach. The reason is simple: he is learning on the job. You can say the same thing about offensive coordinator Zach Lujan, whose road in his first year at the controls of an FBS program has been rocky. The dismal loss to Wisconsin marked the second time in four Big Ten games that his offense was able to put up just a single field goal.
Braun has said that Northwestern is “a developmental program” so often in the two years since he arrived in Evanston that they could put it on a T-shirt. He was talking about recruiting, of course. But this year, that label applies to him, too.
Braun is still trying to figure out who he is as a head coach in a very public and unforgiving spotlight. It’s not easy. And fans, who still have every right to yell into the social media megaphone about his decisions, might want to temper their expectations. This is what Northwestern signed up for when they gave him a contract extension and made him the permanent head coach last November.
The WildcatReport message boards, as well as my phone and DMs, were lit up after each of Braun’s puzzling decisions over the last two months. I heard from alumni, fans, media members and former players. But at no time did I see and hear more than after the moves he made against the Badgers on Saturday. There were two illogical decisions in the first half of that game. The first decision drew some angry shouts; the second one brought out the pitchforks.
First, facing a fourth-and-2 at the Wisconsin 34 in a scoreless game, Braun called on Luke Akers to try a 51-yard field goal. His kicked bounced in the end zone, well short of the crossbar.
Braun's decision was curious not only because it showed that he did not have any confidence in his offense to pick up a meager two yards; that may have been understandable. But he was calling on Akers, the team's punter who was pressed into placekicking duties only because of an injury to starter Jack Olsen. It was a lot to ask of Akers, who also just had a punt blocked by the Badgers. I can’t say how most fans felt, but no one in the press box thought Akers’ kick would have a realistic shot at going in.
Braun said after the game he was “confident that was the right decision” to try the field goal. He did, however, say he should have checked on Akers "from a mental standpoint" after he got hit on the blocked punt earlier in the game.
This second decision, though, is the Sistine Chapel of Braun’s blunders because, just the week before, the Wildcats were in a similar situation and made the same mistake.
The Wildcats had a first down at their own 8-yard line with 50 seconds left in the half against the Badgers. At that point, with the offense sputtering its way to four punts and two missed field goals, the Wildcats were fortunate to be trailing just 7-0. The coaches’ handbook tells you to take a knee, kill the clock and go into the locker room down just a score.
But somehow, at that point, the usually cautious Braun – a man who elected to kick a field goal from the Washington 1 while trailing 17-2 in the third quarter, and who had just declined an opportunity on fourth-and-2 not 18 minutes before – somehow decided to turn into a swashbuckler and chase points. He said he believed the Wildcats could get into field-goal range. Mind you, the Wildcats were in the shadow of their own goalpost. With less than a minute to play. With a quarterback who was 4-for-14 passing at that point. Behind an offensive line missing two starters.
You know what happened next. Lausch was sacked by John Pius and fumbled, and Elijah Pitts recovered it at the NU 3-yard line. The next play, Cade Yacamelli scored and the Badgers took a 14-point lead that felt like 40 for an offense that generated just 139 yards in the first half.
"On first down, we felt like we had an opportunity to get rhythm and get into field-goal range with Wisconsin starting with the ball at the beginning of the second half," Braun said.
That explanation is misguided at best, delusional at worst.
Perhaps worse than the decision to be aggressive in that moment is the play call. Lausch said after the game he was waiting for a double-move to come open. So Braun and Lujan dropped their struggling QB deep in the pocket, behind a struggling offensive line, and called a slow-developing route that would require a lot of time. Given that, the result isn't very surprising.
It was the second straight week an ill-advised pass deep in their own territory at the end of a half proved disastrous. Against Maryland, an incomplete pass in a very similar scenario gave the Terrapins an extra possession at the end of the half, but they missed the resulting field-goal attempt. The Wildcats didn’t learn from that fiasco and Wisconsin made them pay, landing a haymaker that knocked the Wildcats out.
Obviously, Braun is not a finished product as a coach. No one should expect him to be. It’s not because he’s from the FCS level, either, as some have suggested. Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti came from the FCS, too, and he led James Madison to an 11-2 mark in their first year of FBS play and now has Indiana at 7-0 and contending for a playoff berth. But Cignetti has been a head coach for 15 years. Braun is more like Sherrone Moore, a first-time head coach who is having a rough start at Michigan with a lot more talent and far higher expectations.
Braun’s growing pains have been frustrating to watch. But he earned some leeway for on-the-job training, as well as some grace from fans, when he swooped in like a superhero last summer to save the burning metropolis that was NU’s program. In what looked like a lost season after a hazing scandal and the sudden firing of head coach Pat Fitzgerald, Braun won eight games -- double what Fitz had won in his last two seasons combined – and took home the richly deserved Big Ten Coach of the Year award.
He proved he could lead a team and a locker room. His players loved him. But last year, Braun had some training wheels on. Seasoned veteran coach Skip Holtz was brought in to support him and help with things like game management. He was operating under ultra-low expectations and very little pressure to succeed. He said he let previous offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian run the offense and pretty much stayed out of the way while he served as the defensive coordinator. He focused more on supporting his players and had the good fortune of having an experienced quarterback like Ben Bryant at the controls on offense.
This year, Braun is learning how to lead a program holistically, on and off the field. He’s fired and hired coaches. He signed one recruiting class and started recruiting the next. He raised money for the new Ryan Field and the temporary Martin Stadium, which he and his wife contributed six figures toward. He’s had to make some tough personnel decisions. He had to navigate NIL and the transfer portal. All in the pressure cooker of the Big Ten that's a far cry from Fargo, N.D.
So far, he’s drawn mixed reviews.
In recruiting, to his credit, he was able to hold onto several 2024 commits through the tumult of last season. But with limited time and facing a lot of uncertainty, the class he signed was ranked 81st in the nation and last in the Big Ten by a wide margin. It featured several players with no other Power Five offers. He got some impressive early commitments for his 2025 class, but some of the early momentum has petered out. The class is currently ranked 57th in the nation and tied for 15th in the Big Ten with Illinois.
The additions from the transfer portal have been up-and-down. Mike Wright Jr. lasted just two games as the starting quarterback. Cooper Lovelace has moved into the starting lineup at guard because of injury. Maybe the most promising transfer, center Jack Bailey, suffered a season-ending injury.
Braun made what had to be a very difficult decision to bench Wright to go with Lausch. That required some guts. It was the right move in the larger context – Lausch has two more years of eligibility after this season – but right now, very little looks good about NU’s offense and there have to be questions whether Lausch is the right guy to lead the team moving forward. At the very least, you have to think the Wildcats will be back in the portal to look for a signal caller to start or, at the very least, challenge Lausch for the top job next season.
Braun’s biggest decision, to bring in Lujan to run his offense, is looking a lot like his call to air it out at the end of the half against the Badgers. Lujan was hired to replace the unpopular Bajakian, whose team averaged 22.1 points per game last year. After Saturday’s debacle, Lujan’s Cats are now scoring 19.0 per contest, a field goal less. That’s still a better mark than two of Bajakian’s four years, but it’s clearly not what Braun had hoped for.
When Lujan was hired, we heard that he was not married to any one system but would build the scheme around his players. Braun lauded his creativity as a play caller at South Dakota State. But so far, he’s had Lausch throwing mostly from the pocket. Where are the bootlegs to move him outside? How much read-option have they run to better leverage his running skills? Why don’t the Wildcats run more RPOs? Why are there so many pre-snap penalties? And, now, more pointedly, why the heck did you throw the ball at the end of the half against Maryland and Wisconsin? In the last couple games, aside from three passes for 40 or more yards against Maryland, the Wildcats’ best offense has been Lausch dropping back to pass and then pulling it down to scramble for yards.
Braun has hinted in his comments this season that Lujan is hampered by personnel. He’s got a young, inconsistent QB; a porous, banged up offensive line; a running game that has generated 100 yards in just one of four Big Ten games; a recovering Cam Porter.
They’re all valid points. Maybe that’s what Lujan’s learning curve is: figuring out how to generate offense when he doesn’t have the talent he’d like to run his stuff. Lujan came from an FCS powerhouse that he helped lead to a 29-1 record and two straight national titles. They were the Georgia of the FCS. He had an All-America quarterback in Mark Gronowski, who last year won the Walter Payton Award, the FCS equivalent of the Heisman Trophy. He had talent that was better than most of the Jackrabbits’ opponents. Now, he has the lowest-rated quarterback in the Big Ten and a program that usually doesn’t measure up to the competition in terms of personnel.
It's okay that Braun is learning on the job. Last year, it looked like Northwestern had found something special in him, and that affords him some runway to develop that maybe wouldn’t be tolerated otherwise. But he and Lujan better get up to speed quickly. If the offense looks anemic this season, wait until next year, after the Wildcats may lose their top rusher (Porter) and five of their top six receivers (Bryce Kirtz, AJ Henning, Thomas Gordon, Marshall Lang and Porter).
Braun figures to get this year and the next one to prove he’s the right guy to lead NU into the new stadium in 2026. After all, despite some frustrations this season, he still has the best record by a Northwestern head coach in his first 20 games since the 1940s.
But the man who promoted him, former athletic director Dr. Derrick Gragg, is no longer his boss. The guy making the decision on his future will be new AD Mark Jackson. His favorite phrase so far has been “generating revenue”. And he knows that a losing team that can’t score isn’t going to sell tickets at their new, $800 million palace.
