jhodges: NU Football Commentary and Analysis

Hello Fellow Wildcat Faithful,

First, let me introduce myself. I am Jonathan Hodges (jhodges) and formerly ran jhodges.org before my website hosting company disappeared off the face of the earth. Instead of building my site back up from scratch, I have decided to join HailToPurple as a contributor. I will be writing pre-game previews, post-game analysis, and commentary much like what was on my previous site. I hope to be able to provide regular contributions to help HailToPurple keep fresh material available to all of those Northwestern football fans on the web who are always hungry for more. I am very thankful to Larry for letting me contribute to his site and I look forward to it.

For those of you who weren't regular readers of my previous site, I attended Northwestern from 2000 to 2005 and graduated from Northwestern in 2005 with a degree in Chemical Engineering. I was in NUMB for all 5 years at NU (I participated in the engineering Co-Op program so my work experience extended my stay) and was a bonehead (played trombone). After stepping foot onto Northwestern in 2000 I bled purple and became a die-hard Wildcat fan (particularly football since college football is always something that I have enjoyed).

I currently reside in Evanston and work in a Chicago suburb for a medical products company and attend every Northwestern football home game (in fact, I have attended every NU home game dating back to October 7, 2000 vs. Indiana - an NU win - where I marched with NUMB for the first time). During my time in school between the 2000 and 2004 football seasons, I also visited every other Big Ten stadium to see the Wildcats play. I have also been to every NU/Illinois and NU/Michigan game since 2000. Including the 2005 football season, I have witnessed a Wildcat victory over every other Big Ten school as well as attended 2 bowl games (I missed Detroit, unfortunately). Needless to say that my timing for attending NU was fortunate to coincide with the success of the Walker era of Wildcat football - especially my freshman year where I came in with low expectations and saw NU pick up a share of the Big Ten title.

Going back a little further in my life, I grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio and grew up an OSU fan - but fear not as I did see the light of NU upon entering college. Of course growing up a Buckeye I did gain a very large disdain for the Michigan Wolverines which still lives strong and is reflected in many of my musings. Coincidentally, like fellow NU web contributor FarEastWildcat, I lived in Singapore from 1998 - 2000 where I graduated from high school.

I hope to contribute some insight and additional material relevant to Northwestern football which you won't find through traditional news outlets, but one must also take into consideration my engineering background and complete lack of journalistic experience when reading my material. Also, while I support the 'Cats through thick and thin and always want to see a win I try to be realistic in my predictions and previews and provide a more balanced viewpoint than others (while I am more tempered than the most optimistic NU fans I don't get to the point of the pessimistic fans or media who always expect the 'Cats to dwell the Big Ten basement).

In any case, I hope you find some value out of my contributions to this site and feel free to send me your comments.

jhodges

e-mail: j-hodges@alumni.northwestern.edu

jhodges' commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of HailToPurple.com.