The bigger story in Evanston is the man calling the plays. Northwestern went out and landed Chip Kelly as offensive coordinator, a hire program insiders are calling program-defining given his resume — Oregon and UCLA head coach, two NFL head-coaching stops, and the OC chair for Ohio State's 2024 national title run. He inherits a rushing attack with junior Caleb Komolafe as the new engine and Griffin Wilde, who caught 71 balls for 880 yards and 8 touchdowns last year, still out there stretching the field. It's a lot of new pieces snapping into place at once, and Kelly's history says the system tends to hit its stride fast.
Rutgers isn't walking in without answers of its own. Antwan Raymond ran for 1,241 yards and 13 touchdowns last season and heads a Scarlet Knights offense that Greg Schiano has built to protect the football. But the record tells the real story — Rutgers finished 5-7, went 2-7 in Big Ten play, and closed the year on a losing streak with a defense that simply couldn't hold up as the conference got tougher. That's the gap this program needs to close, and it hasn't shown it can yet.
Northwestern, for its part, closed 2025 the opposite way — a 34-7 rout of Central Michigan in the GameAbove Sports Bowl, the program's sixth straight bowl win. That kind of finish buys goodwill, but it's not without cracks. Edge rusher Anto Saka, who racked up 12 sacks and 14 tackles for loss, is gone to the transfer portal, and the Wildcats will be breaking in a new coordinator's scheme with a first-year QB under center. New systems don't always click in October the way they do by November.
This is still July, so nothing here is locked in — camp battles will play out, depth charts will shuffle, and both staffs have months to figure out their identities. But the shape of this one is already visible: a Northwestern program with more continuity and a marquee coaching addition hosting a Rutgers team that has real playmakers but a defense and a quarterback room that both need to prove something before Big Ten play gets serious.