[NU Sports] You saw it coming...

[John Labbe]

I think this is good analysis.  Although I'm fairly satisfied with 
Walker, I tend to agree that it's not true that we're recruiting the 
best possible players even given our admission standards.  Of course, 
the pool is much smaller, which serves to reduce the batting average, 
so to speak.  No school is able to recruit the best possible admissible 
kid at every position.

The main reason I post, though, is somewhat non-sports related.  When 
you said an NU scholarship is now worth over $125,000, I suspect you 
were just estimating at what you thought was a pretty high number.  
Well, a full-ride 4-year scholarship would actually be worth over 
$180,000 (figuring an increase of 5% a year over the current rates 
($170,000 if you just multiply this year's rates times 4)).  Can you 
believe that undergrad tuition alone is now $30,000 a year?  I don't 
have any kids yet, but I'd better start saving!  See 
http://ug-finaid.northwestern.edu/components.html.

Back to football: I think I'm more upset about this loss than any 
football loss ever.  I'm not sure why.  Probably because it's the only 
time that one game meant a bowl or no bowl, and we lost.  (Even if we 
had lost last year's Illinois game, I don't think I would have been as 
upset, because the overall season wasn't as good.)  Plus, this was a 
game we didn't need to play.  It couldn't help us, it could only hurt 
us, which it did.  Plus, we didn't play a great game, and  I thought 
some of our coaching was off.  Plus, the officiating stunk the place 
up, including the game-winning INT, which I think hit the ground.  
Plus, I was already planning my trip to Nashville (but I'm not a 
complete idiot, those Southwest tickets are completely changeable, with 
no penalty).

Time to focus on the court Cats.  Of course, I watched their first 
defeat today.  It's a low day for NU sports.



> The recruiting problems here are much more the result of not having a 
> winning season for the past four years and RW's "old school" coaching 
> style than admissions standards.  This is one of the top universities 
> in the country.  An NU scholarship is now worth over $125,000. 
>