First in a series of stories looking at some of the questions facing Northwestern heading into the 2022 season.
Questions: Will NU win over/under 4.5 games in 2022?
Ah, the quarterback question. It’s an annual rite of summer at Northwestern.
For the third time in four seasons, the Wildcats have a quarterback battle on their hands heading into fall camp.
Ryan Hilinski, who started five games in 2021, will have to fend off a challenge from Brendan Sullivan, a redshirt freshman who had head coach Pat Fitzgerald singing his praises.
No matter who emerges victorious, this will be the fourth consecutive year that the Wildcats feature a new starter at QB. It’s been a revolving door since all-time leading passer Clayton Thorson finished his career in 2018 – and the biggest reason that the Cats are riding the every-other-year rollercoaster.
Right now, if we had to bet, we’d put our money on Hilinski to start Week 1. But we think Sullivan is likely the future of the position and could be the starter by mid-season.
Hilinski, a junior who transferred from South Carolina about 15 months ago, had an up-and-down 2021 season. He completed 54% of his throws but averaged just 127.3 yards per game, with three total touchdowns and four interceptions.
He had his flashes, but often looked more like a game manager than a true difference maker. And a Northwestern offense that scored an anemic 16.6 points per game last season to rank 125th among FBS teams needs someone who can make plays.
The jury has not rendered a final decision on Hilinski, and he might yet surprise us. He wasn’t supposed to play as much as he did last season – he began the year as the No. 3 QB – and he may make a breakthrough in his second year in offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian’s system. The arm talent is there; he was a four-star, Top 50 recruit coming out of high school in 2021.
While Hilinski’s bag has been decidedly mixed in Evanston, at least he has one. Sullivan has yet to take a snap in a college game. We’ve heard many positive rumblings from practices, but he is largely an unknown commodity.
Sullivan came out of Davison (Mich.) in 2021 with questions about his arm strength and only one other Power Five offer, from Indiana.
But Sullivan is the more athletic of the two QBs, a dual-threat who can avoid pressure, extend plays with his feet and make off-platform throws on the run. That’s the reason we like him here.
“He's got all the athleticism we want,” said Fitzgerald this spring. “It’s going to be fun to watch him develop.”
Sullivan is the kind of quarterback that Bajakian has traditionally favored. Sullivan would add an element that Northwestern’s moribund offense desperately needs after generating only 44 plays of 20 or more yards to rank 110th in the country last year.
In 2020, Northwestern went the opposite direction at the quarterback position. Coming off of a disastrous 2019 season, the Wildcats went with grad transfer Peyton Ramsey, a proven commodity with experience who didn’t wow anyone with his arm or dynamism but who could execute the playbook like a pro. Ramsey did more than that, leading the team to the Big Ten title game and a Top 10 finish.
But that team was much different than this one. It had a Top 5 defense that could dominate and control games. All the Wildcats needed offensively was a QB who could consistently make the smart play and the defense would do the rest.
This year’s squad doesn’t have that luxury. Northwestern’s normally stalwart defense was a disaster in 2021, finishing 101st in the nation. They got pushed around on the line of scrimmage, allowing 214 rushing yards per game. They figure to be better this season, but they’re not going to win many 17-10 kind of games.
Northwestern is going to need a QB who can make a big play or two, and we think Sullivan is more likely to be that guy. And if all other things are equal, they should go with the young guy who still has four years of eligibility left.
(Speaking of young guys, we haven't forgotten about incoming freshman QB Jack Lausch. We think he could have a role as a Wildcat QB this season but will need some development before he's ready to push for the starting job.)
One other thing we like about Sullivan is that he may have that “it” factor, the intangible quality that makes a quarterback a leader. He’s confident, bordering on cocky. Players reportedly love him. He’s all tatted up. At Davison, he engineered four comeback wins in five playoff games to capture the state title as a junior in 2019.
Can Sullivan do it at the Big Ten level? We don’t know, but it might be fun to find out.
