Football season has finally arrived in Evanston!

Northwestern is holding its first practice of fall camp on Thursday. With that in mind, we are taking a look at some questions that will have to be answered by the time the Wildcats open the season on Sept. 3 against Michigan State.

We could come up with a lot more, of course, a couple for each position group. But these are six on our mind to keep an eye on – if possible. Head coach Pat Fitzgerald will once again keep a pretty tight lid on access to practice and the information coming out of the Walter Athletics Center.

If questions were monkeys, this would be King Kong. We remember all too well what happened in 2019, the last time the Wildcats relied on a hotshot transfer to take the reins after winning a Big Ten West title: they produced the worst passing offense in FBS and stumbled to an ugly 3-9 season.

Everyone expects Ryan Hilinski, the transfer from South Carolina, to step right into the starting job – just as they expected Hunter Johnson to do in 2019 – and he’s the prohibitive favorite to beat out Johnson and Andrew Marty, a pair of fifth-year seniors. Hilinski has all the tools: he’s big, he’s got a cannon arm, he’s a natural leader and, though he’s not a dynamic runner, he should be a good enough athlete to make defenses pay attention to the QB run.

Whispers out of Evanston last spring were that Hilinski looked the part during his three weeks practicing with the team, but he still has a lot to learn in a short amount of time. He’s not the finished product that Peyton Ramsey, a fifth-year senior, was when he took over last season.

Hilinski doesn’t have to carry the offense – Cam Porter and the running game will do that – and he has the arm talent to stretch the defense down the field, something that Ramsey largely lacked.

Keep in mind that if Hilinski trots out with the first-team offense at Ryan Field to take on the Spartans, he will be the fourth new opening-day starting quarterback in four years for the team in Purple. Coaches hope that he lines up behind center this year, and at least a couple more after it.

Hilinski has a big-time arm, but who exactly will he throw to? That’s another burning question for this offense. With the departures of starting wide receivers Ramaud Chiaokhiao-Bowman, Riley Lees and Kyric McGowan, as well as tight end John Raine, the Wildcats’ leading returning receiver is tight end Charlie Mangieri, who had all of seven catches last season.

Grad transfer Stephon Robinson Jr., however, is a proven commodity, a slot man who had 75 catches for more than 1,000 yards at Kansas. He’s a good bet to be Hilinski’s No. 1 target. Bryce Kirtz, the leading returning wideout with six catches last year, could be primed for a breakout season. The Wildcats will also get back a trio of receivers who missed most of last season: injuries limited Malik Washington to five games, Berkeley Holman to two and J.J. Jefferson to zero.

In addition to those guys, coaches hope that Wayne Dennis Jr. and Genson Hooper-Price are ready to increase their roles in their third years in the program to give the Wildcats some size on the outside. Jordan Mosely, a speedy Class of 2021 signee from Alabama, might also be able to contribute as one of the most polished receivers to come into the program as a true freshman. Another first-year, C.J. Johnson, could also contribute, though the former high school QB will have a steep learning curve.

Mangieri, who also claims the most TDs of any returning player with two, will start at tight end. A proven blocker, he will have to take the next step in his development as a receiver and fill the shoes of the reliable Raine last season. If Trey Pugh is finally healthy, he could offer a big boost to Bajakian, who likes to utilize the tight end heavily.

Northwestern’s new defensive coordinator will put his imprint on what was the No. 5 scoring defense in the country last season. He won’t fix what isn’t broken, but we’re sure to see some new NFL-style wrinkles.

O’Neil has talked a lot about being multiple, so we could see more three-man fronts, and not just on passing downs, as previous DC Mike Hankwitz usually employed them. If recruiting is any indication, the Cats could run more five-DB alignments, too. O’Neil’s first class has four safeties, a couple of which are linebacker/safety hybrids who can be utilized in different ways. He might take a lineman or linebacker out of the game in favor of an extra defensive back.

While Hankwitz favored a Cover-4 defense, will O’Neil play more man on the back end? Will he blitz more than Hankwitz? We won’t know those answers until well into the season, but they’ll begin to take shape over the next month.

Northwestern’s offensive line is a work in progress. Two of the spots are already chiseled in stone: Peter Skoronski will be the starting left tackle and Sam Gerak will be the No. 1 center. Ethan Wiederkehr, the other returning starter, will also be in the lineup. The question is where.

Rumor is that sophomore Josh Priebe has the inside track for the starting left guard job, between Gerak and Skoronski. The questions, then, are right guard and right tackle. Charlie Schmidt, Dom D’Antonio and Ben Wrather are among the battlers for the guard job. If one of them prove to be ready to be a starter, Wiederkehr will likely man the right tackle spot. If they aren’t however, Wiederkehr will move back inside to guard, the position he played last season, with Zachary Franks taking over the right tackle job.

There are also a couple wild cards in the mix. Four-star incoming freshman tackle Caleb Tiernen could be one of those rare players, like Skoronski, who could come in and play right away. Redshirt junior Payne He’bert, if healthy, could also have a say at right tackle.

Offensive line coach Kurt Anderson will figure out over the next four weeks who his best five blockers are.

Talk about big shoes to fill. Between the two of them, Paddy Fisher and Blake Gallagher took a combined 736 tackles and 96 games of experience with them when they graduated last year. They left behind only SAM linebacker Chris Bergin, who will enter his third year as the starter and will have some young pups to train alongside him.

O’Neil and Fitzgerald are confident in the talent of the potential replacements at WILL and MIKE linebacker, but they are going to be inexperienced. And, in general, inexperienced players tend to make mistakes.

The favorite to replace Fisher in the middle is redshirt junior Khalid Jones, who was a star coming out of high school but hasn’t done much in Evanston, playing in just five games and recording three career tackles – 401 fewer than Fisher. Taking over Gallagher’s WILL spot will likely be Peter McIntyre, a special teams ace who battled through numerous injuries earlier in his career.

But those jobs are by no means decided. Blake’s younger brother Bryce, a redshirt sophomore, could have something to say about his brother’s old job at WILL, and Cullen Coleman, a redshirt freshman who drew offers from Notre Dame and Ohio State out of high school, could press for the MIKE job. Then, there are guys like Jaylen Rivers, Michael Jansey, Xander Mueller and even true freshman Mac Uihlein who could get into the mix, too. We don’t know too much about any of them.

It’s tough to predict how things will work out. Fisher started all four years and Gallagher started three, so we didn’t see a lot of their backups get playing time. Plus, because linebackers typically learn all three positions, it’s anybody’s guess who will be playing where. It will be a very interesting August in the linebacker room.

The free year certainly benefited Northwestern’s special teams, as punter Derek Adams and kicker Charlie Kuhbander decided to return for their bonus year. So the Wildcats know who will be kicking the ball. They just don’t know who will be catching it on the other end.

Lees, Northwestern’s top punt returner, and McGowan, the kickoff man, have both moved on. Last year, Coco Azema fielded two kickoffs, so he figures to be ready to take the job over full-time. The redshirt sophomore safety showed what he can do with the ball under his arm when he rushed for 123 yards on seven attempts against Illinois when he was pressed into duty as a running back in the 2019 season finale against Illinois.

Robinson, who returned kickoffs at Kansas, is another possibility as a return man. Freshmen like CJ Johnson and Theran Johnson and veteran Ray Niro III also might get a shot to show what they can do in camp.