David Braun Raves About Northwestern's Progress in Spring Practices
David Braun's first two seasons as Northwestern's head football coach went in very different directions. After taking over as an interim coach in 2023 amid program turmoil, Braun led the Wildcats to a shocking 8-5 record and a Las Vegas Bowl victory. A year later with Braun as the full-time coach, NU was just 4-8.
Northwestern has had to reinvent itself in the new modern era of college sports. While still priding itself on being a development-first program, NU has expanded its approach to the transfer portal and adapted its admissions process to fit the transfer timeline. Through the school's collective, True NU, Northwestern has also dedicated more resources to NIL.
While speaking to the media ahead of Northwestern's Pro Day on March 18, Braun expressed how pleased he was with the school's efforts to adapt to the changing landscape. This enabled the Wildcats to welcome transfers in the winter portal window and begin practicing with them in early March, rather than trying to meld the existing team and new additions in summer training camp.
"We have to reimagine everything," Braun said. "We’ve got a lot of work to do, but where we're at as a program today compared to where we were at a year ago, I couldn’t be more excited. There's been a lot of hard work that's gone into that, and a lot of things behind the scenes, starting off with [Athletic Director] Mark Jackson's leadership. It's also people on campus and people outside the program. The work that Jacob Schmidt has done through the collective to get us into this situation is something that I'm really proud of.”
After a weeklong look at how his team is shaping up, Braun gave some insight into how his team was coming together. The 'Cats have added three graduate transfer linemen this offseason, and Braun said he has been impressed with the "competitive depth" the position group has.
“The job that [offensive line coach] Bill O’Boyle has done in terms of the fundamentals and the technique and the investment that he's putting in these guys this offseason has been really fun to see," Braun said. "And then the hiring of Ryan Olson as our run game specialist. Ryan's come in to assist OB and essentially, we've created an environment where we have two high-end coaches working with our offensive line... You see a different level of play in our offensive line right now in this spring ball compared to where we were at last year."
Braun gave a shoutout to the development of linemen Caleb Tiernan, Deuce McGuire and Ezomo Oratokhai, as well as the seamless integration of South Dakota State transfer Evan Beerntsen. Despite being a highly coveted transfer, Beerntsen has rotated with the first- and second-team offenses to "earn" a starting spot.
The 'Cats are benefitting from having 11 healthy offensive linemen in spring practice, compared to just seven last year. They also return two captains from 2024 — Carmine Bastone and Cam Porter — whose leadership has helped push the Wildcats in this early spring period.
“You've got a leadership group on this football team that has kind of taken the bull by the horns and said, 'What we experienced last year, we're not going to let it happen again,'" Braun said. "The way that our guys have navigated this offseason has been really impressive. We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but the fact that we’ve got Carmine and Cam Porter coming back, two returning captains, is a great starting point.”
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Gavin Dorsey is the Lead Writer for Northwestern Wildcats On SI and covers a handful of other teams in the On SI network. Before joining On SI in February 2025, he wrote for the Star Tribune and Inside NU while broadcasting college sports for both radio and television. Dorsey is a graduate of Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism, where he also studied psychology. In his free time, he enjoys running and being outdoors. Dorsey is currently a freelance writer for the Associated Press, covering Chicago area sports teams.