Saturday Tradition’s annual Crystal Ball series continues with Northwestern. Game-by-game breakdowns of the B1G West’s teams appeared this week. Breakdowns of the East’s teams appeared last week.

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The fall from first to worst was swift for Northwestern in 2021.

A year after winning the Big Ten West and giving Ohio State a decent fight in the conference championship game, everything fell apart at the same time for the Wildcats.

The offense was bad, ranking 125th nationally with 16.6 points per game. Attempts to throw the ball were particularly unsuccessful. The Cats ranked 122nd with an average of 5.8 yards per attempt.

The defense, usually the staple of a Pat Fitzgerald team, was unreliable. Northwestern’s run defense allowed 213.3 yards per game, which rated 113th in the country. Only a middle-of-the-pack pass defense headed by safety Brandon Joseph kept things from getting worse than the actual 3-9 outcome.

Joseph, a likely first-round selection in the 2023 NFL Draft, seemed like the ideal building block for the Northwestern defense to rebound to its typical form. Alas, he headed to Notre Dame in the transfer portal.

Despite the likelihood of a repeat finish at the bottom of the West, Northwestern does have one of the top draft prospects in the Big Ten to pave the way on offense. Left tackle Peter Skoronski is an all-America candidate and among 4 starters returning on the Northwestern offensive line.

If the guys up front are good enough, the Cats could potentially control enough clock to patch over their other deficiencies. But there might not be enough spackle available to get back to a 3rd bowl game in 5 years.

What can the Wildcats do well?

Run the ball. And not much else. But Northwestern could potentially run the ball really, really well.

Cam Porter, who missed all of last season due to a camp injury, is back after a promising freshman season in 2020. He’s joined by Evan Hull, who asserted himself as the starter last year. Hull broke out with 216 yards against Ohio University, and also gained 107 against a Minnesota defense that ranked 8th nationally against the run.

When they last combined forces in the regular season, each rushed for more than 140 yards to beat Illinois and clinch the West title in 2020.

A strong offensive line and solid backfield is the right combination for keeping a bad team more competitive than you’d expect.

The QB conundrum

When you have 3 quarterbacks, you have none.

Ryan Hilinski, Andrew Marty and Hunter Johnson combined to complete 57% of their passes for 13 TDs and 14 INTs last season.

Only Hilinski is back this year, but his leash still will be very short. So short it may not last beyond the Week Zero opener against Nebraska. Hilinski was pushed in training camp by sophomore Brendan Sullivan, who was QB4 on Northwestern’s roster as a redshirt freshman last season.

Sentimentally speaking, it would be nice to see Hilinski break through. He is a major mental health advocate following the suicide of his older brother, former Washington State QB Tyler Hilinski. Ryan’s rebound from a down year would be a welcome storyline.

Will we see a vintage Fitz defense?

At 29 points per game, Northwestern ranked 12th in the B1G in scoring defense last year. The Cats hadn’t even been as low as 10th in the conference in scoring defense since 2011. And going back to that example, Northwestern improved from 27.7 ppg in ’11 to 22.5 ppg in ’12.

So this is the kind of ground Fitzgerald is plenty capable of traversing.

Losing Joseph is a pretty significant blow, but the Cats return 3 other starters in the secondary.

It’s the front 7 that will ultimately determine Northwestern’s defensive fate. Defensive end Adetomiwa Adebawore and middle linebacker Bryce Gallagher are the only returning starters. Both are all-B1G caliber players, and they’ll have to play like it if this is going to be a vintage Wildcat defense.

Week-by-week predictions

Week 0: vs. Nebraska in Dublin, Ireland (W)

Factor 1: You give Pat Fitzgerald an entire offseason to game plan against Scott Frost, who do you think is going to win?

Factor 2: Are you going to bet against a guy named Fitzgerald in Ireland?

After last year’s 56-7 embarrassment at Nebraska, the Cats will be raring to go and pull off the season-opening upset.

Week 1: Bye

Week 2: vs. Duke (W)

The revenge tour continues. Northwestern avenges last season’s loss to the Blue Devils.

Week 3: vs. Southern Illinois (W)

Envisioning Ryan Field half-filled with Salukis fans eager to gleefully beat a school that would never take them, the Crystal Ball originally called this upset. But research shows that the No. 9 team in the FCS has a weakness defending the run. Which, as noted, is the one thing Northwestern can exploit. It’ll be a sweat, but the Wildcats move to 3-0.

Week 4: vs. Miami, Ohio (L)

Led by all-MAC quarterback Brett Gabbert, the RedHawks are considered the team to beat in the MAC East this year. Moreover, Miami is 6-3 all-time against Northwestern, including an upset win against the 1995 Rose Bowl team. The Miami mojo continues.

Week 5: at Penn State (L)

This game will be an old-fashioned rock fight, with Fitz sporting a 2-1 head-to-head record against James Franklin. But Penn State’s receiving corps is full of weapons who will break the game open in the second half.

Week 6: vs. Wisconsin (L)

Even though Wisconsin fans take over Ryan Field, the Wildcats have won 6 of the past 7 meetings in Evanston. But the Crystal Ball can’t figure out how a Northwestern run defense that allowed 5.3 yards per carry last year will have an answer for Wisconsin running back Braelon Allen.

Week 7: Bye

Week 8: at Maryland (L)

An extra week of prep time won’t be enough to slow down one of the Big Ten’s most explosive offenses in 2022.

Week 9: at Iowa (L)

Once again, Fitz has a winning record against his counterpart — 9-7 all-time against Kirk Ferentz. But Iowa is poised to have the Big Ten’s best defense this year, and it’s hard for the Crystal Ball to foresee Northwestern’s offense getting much traction against that unit.

Week 10: vs. Ohio State (L)

It’s a moral victory if the Cats can hold the Buckeyes under 60 points. And Northwestern should get that moral victory.

Week 11: at Minnesota (L)

The run defense issue will again very much be in play against the Golden Gophers, who gashed the Cats for 294 rushing yards last season.

Week 12: at Purdue (W)

The run defense issue won’t be relevant against the Boilermakers, who are allergic to the ground game. Northwestern hasn’t lost in West Lafayette since 2007, and will keep the streak alive with its first win since September. It’s a major spoiler, too — this will end up being the loss that costs Purdue the Big Ten West.

Week 12: vs. Illinois (L)

Bret Bielema is historically successful in rivalry games, and will continue that trend as he moves to 2-0 against the Wildcats at Illinois.

2022 Projection: 4-8 (2-7), 7th in B1G West

#GoCats

Northwestern certainly won’t be as bad as it was last season. Fitzgerald has never followed a losing season with a worse record the following year, and he’s been doing this since 2006.

But it’s also unrealistic to expect a rebound as drastic as going 3-9 in 2019 to the West title in 2020. The 2019 Cats were one of the least experienced teams in FBS, then brought virtually all of those players back in 2020 to become one of the country’s most veteran teams. The current cycle isn’t quite as favorable in that regard.

Neither is the Big Ten West. There are 5 teams with legit title aspirations — Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Purdue and Nebraska. Northwestern isn’t in that class right now, and that’s going to make merely picking up enough wins to qualify for a bowl a tall task. The Wildcats will go a second straight season without a bowl bid for the first time since 2014.