GAME RECAP: The David Braun Era begins with a thud

PISCATAWAY, N.J. - Northwestern's 2023 season started with a disappointing loss at Rutgers, 24-7.

It was interim head coach David Braun's first game at the helm and he got a wake-up call to Big Ten play from Greg Schiano and the Scarlet Knights. Rutgers opened up with two dominant, 16-play drives for touchdowns and never looked back.

Quarterback Gavin Wimsatt finished 17-for-29 for 163 yards and a touchdown through the air, with 33 yards and a touchdown on the ground.

Northwestern's defense stopped the bleeding, allowing just 10 points over the majority of the final three quarters, but the damage was done and the Rutgers defense put Northwestern's offense in shackles.

Cincinnati grad transfer quarterback Ben Bryant could never get comfortable in his Wildcat debut, finishing 20-for-35 for 169 yards and two interceptions. The running game was even worse, as backup quarterback Brendan Sullivan led the team with four carries for 11 yards, all in garbage time.

The touchdown with 19 seconds left that averted a shutout was little consolation. Sullivan led the Wildcats to a TD, with subs in for both sides on a drive that started on the Rutgers 45 after a muffed punt with 2:45 remaining.

Here are our takeaways from a disappointing loss at Rutgers:

Rutgers dominated the time of possession and the line of scrimmage

Northwestern was outgunned in the trenches. The defensive line barely made a dent in Rutgers' offensive front, finishing with no sacks or hurries, and the offensive line couldn't generate enough push to establish Cam Porter or create a pocket for Bryant. The inability to challenge at either point of attack led to an astonishing time of possession differential in Rutgers' favor: 37:59 - 22:01.

"It's just execution on third- and fourth-down," Braun said. "You go back to the 16-play drives, you have opportunities to get off the field and opportunities for takeaways.

"There's certainly a couple calls that I wish I had back to put our guys in better situations."

Nine of Northwestern's 12 drives were six plays or fewer. Wildcat quarterbacks completed 60% of their passes and finished with fewer than 200 yards. Their lead back, Cam Porter, had six carries for eight yards.

Bryant was sacked five times and hurried two more as a swarm of Scarlet Knights seemed to take up residence in the backfield. The season veteran shouldered through and shouldering some of the blame for the pass protection struggles.

"I thought they played, they played hard, they always do," Bryant said. "Sometimes I need to get the ball out quicker. A sack isn't always their fault."

Whomever deserves the blame, Bryant and his line need to find ways to get the ball out cleaner and quicker or Northwestern's struggles will continue unabated.

NU's defensive front seven struggled

Northwestern's first half could be summed up neatly early in the second quarter, when 6-foot-3, 235-pound, senior linebacker Xander Mueller blitzed hard and was promptly flattened by Rutgers' running back picking up blitzers. Wimsatt had plenty of time to throw, and the Scarlet Knights would score their second touchdown a few plays later.

The defensive line failed to pressure Wimsatt, and while Gallagher tallied an impressive 19 total tackles, the other linebackers consistently failed to execute tackles in space. The size and speed necessary to be competitive in this game was simply not there.

And those things aren't there against Rutgers, one has to fear what some of the later games on this schedule may look like.

There were some positives in the defensive backfield, however, especially sophomore Devin Turner. Turner finished with five tackles and two pass break ups, which should have been three if a controversial defensive pass interference flag stayed in the ref's belt.

"There's still a lot of room for growth on the back end," Braun said. "But we have some depth in that DB room specifically, and we need to continue to lean into that depth."

Bryant struggled in first start

Starting quarterback Ben Bryant's debut for Northwestern was not pretty.

He proved to be a downfield threat at points in the game, completing a 26-yard pass to AJ Henning and a 15-yard pass to Cam Johnson in the first half to pick up first downs and stretch the defense. But with inconsistent protection, Bryant never seemed to be able to string enough of those plays together to sustain drives or score, and his play suffered late.

Bryant was candid postgame about his performance and his expectations to be better going forward.

"I was definitely not happy with my performance," he said. "I think we left a lot of plays out there on the field. I need to sharpen up and hit some of those plays."

Bryant finished with two interceptions, though one of them came on a miscue late in the first half on an attempt to throw the ball away after a bad snap. It's hard to judge him completely off one game, especially one as comprehensively offensively futile as this one, but hopes that he could reshape and recharge Northwestern's offense singlehandedly have been effectively dashed.

Bryant should have a long leash to figure it out and adapt to the constant pressure as Braun made it clear he wants to stand by his starter. However, there may come a time later this season to evaluate the long-term goals of program in developing sophomore Brendan Sullivan, the other half of the fall camp quarterback battle.

Sullivan came in for the final possession of the game with the result already decided and led a 10-play, 45-yard touchdown drive to break up the shutout in the final seconds. If a bowl game isn't on the table, it is more valuable long-term to develop Sullivan than to play Bryant, even if the grad transfer gives Northwestern an edge in short-term success.

What little faith there was in Bajakian is gone

Former head coach Pat Fitzgerald's decision to keep offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian for another season to maintain continuity on the offense looks like a major error. Northwestern's offense spun its wheels against Rutgers, a team with one Big Ten win last season and which finished at the bottom of its respective division.

The Wildcats seemed to be playing the 2021 Georgia Bulldogs instead of the 2023 Scarlet Knights at times. Except for a muffed punt that started the Wildcats at the Rutgers 45-yard line and led to a garbage-time touchdown, the furthest they made it into Rutgers territory was the Knights' 41-yard line. Not only did they fail to get in the red zone when the game counted, they failed to get within 20 yards of the 20-yard line.

"It's a really common theme," Braun said on the offense's struggles. "We need to be better on third- and fourth-down. We need to convert on third-down offense.

"Defensively, we certainly didn't help the offense early in the game. It's really tough to find a rhythm offensively when you simply are not on the field."

2023 forecast looks grim

This was the first Northwestern game for Braun and five other sideline coaches, as well as special assistant Skip Holtz, so some bumps were expected. But if this is the result against Rutgers, a team that went 1-8 in Big Ten play last season, then this looks to be the third straight season of three or fewer wins.

The Wildcats have a winnable game against UTEP at home Saturday to try and bounce back, but riding a 12-game losing streak across two seasons, nothing is certain anymore.

"It's a Sunday, you guys have a game on Saturday, there is no 24-hour [break] coming," Braun said about what he told his players. "We're going to get back tonight, we're going to rest and recover, then watch film tomorrow in an abbreviated fashion.

"We'll grab the things we need to learn from and put our full focus to beat UTEP."

If this is what they look like against a team that is picked to finish at the bottom of the Big Ten East, beating the Miners, and then non-conference HBCU opponent Howard in November, may be the only realistic chances for the Wildcats to get wins this season.