The time has finally come for us to conclude our summer Mt. Rushmore series. In honor of football season starting this week, Inside NU’s final topic will be dedicated to the best Northwestern football players of all time.
As a refresher, there are two teams made up of four writers each, and the goal is to select the best four-pick squad for each category. You can vote on which team you think is best on @InsideNU on X and in a poll at the bottom of this article.
Team 1 currently has the advantage at
4-3 — a win this week would make them the overall winners of this series, while a loss will put the series at an ultimate tie (not the most satisfying result, we know.)
Team 1: Harris Horowitz, Brendan Preisman, Matt Campbell and Calvin Kaplan
Team 2: Miguel Muñoz, Yanyan Li, Sai Trivedi and Charlie Jacobs
This week’s category is: Best Northwestern football players of all-time
1.01: Team 2 selects Otto Graham
Far and away the most iconic football player to have donned the Northwestern colors, Otto Graham’s legacy was cemented in Evanston even before a Hall of Fame career in the NFL. After arriving on campus, Graham wasted no time showing off his immense athleticism, playing for the basketball team his freshman season before being recruited for football by head coach Lynn Waldorf. After a single tryout, he was offered a spot on the team, and it was history from there. Graham would go on to break every Big Ten passing record, make two All-America teams and eventually finish third in the Heisman Trophy voting while simultaneously being named the Big Ten’s Most Valuable Player, all in his junior season of 1943. Graham’s name continues to live in infamy, of course, for his outstanding professional career thereafter, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that the Illinois native’s talent had shown itself on Wildcat grounds long before he became a household name.
-Miguel Muñoz
1.02: Team 1 selects Pat Fitzgerald
This would be the proper spot for No. 51 even if he’d never coached a single down of football in Evanston. Did you know Fitzgerald is still the only Wildcat to ever be named as a First Team All-American for two consecutive seasons? Or that he’s the only Northwestern player to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame since Ron Burton, whose last collegiate season was 1959? From 1975 to 1994, a 20-season span, Northwestern won just 36 games and went winless in four separate seasons. In Fitzgerald’s All-America campaigns, the team went 19-5 and won a pair of Big Ten titles — the school’s first since 1936. The team resume, combined with back-to-back Nagurski and Bednarik Awards (something that to this day, no other collegiate player has ever done) shows that Fitzgerald is quite simply the best defensive player Northwestern has ever seen.
-Brendan Preisman
2.01: Team 1 selects Darnell Autry
A perfect spot for the best Wildcat running back of all time. Autry defined NU football in the 1990s, leading the ‘Cats to a Rose Bowl while finishing in the top seven in Heisman Trophy voting twice. During 1995 and 1996, the Wildcats’ dynamic runner ran for over 3,000 yards in just 21 games, routinely putting the offense on his back and helping to give Northwestern at least a share of the Big Ten title in both seasons. It’s often discussed how the ‘90s truly revitalized Northwestern’s football program, and Autry’s excellence was one of the biggest reasons for that.
-Calvin Kaplan
2.02: Team 2 selects Damien Anderson
Anderson was a huge part of Northwestern’s squad between 1998 and 2001, and arguably the best player on NU’s 2000 team that won its most recent Big Ten title. He’s ranked second all-time in rushing yards in program history, and still holds the single-season program rushing yards record with 2,063 in 2000. In that same season, he was named a Consensus All-American, First-team All-Big Ten and finished fifth place in Heisman Trophy voting. Particularly, he had a heroic 268-yard performance in NU’s victory over No. 12 Michigan, a win widely regarded as one of the team’s best in recent memory. His impact both in the Northwestern record books and nationally makes him an all-timer in our books.
-Yanyan Li
3.01: Team 2 selects Justin Jackson
Known for his reliability and prowess, Jackson is NU’s all-time leader in rushing yards, rushing touchdowns and total touchdowns. In his senior season, he ran for 1,154 yards during the regular season, marking him the second player in Wildcat history to rush for 1,000 yards in four-straight seasons. His rushing performances frequently eclipsed 150 yards, including 224 yards against Pittsburgh in the 2016 Pinstripe Bowl, for which he won MVP. What was most remarkable about Jackson was his consistency game after game, finding tangible ways to make an impact. His college success didn’t go unnoticed, as he was drafted by the Los Angeles Chargers and played in the NFL for five years. It was a much-deserved accomplishment for a Wildcat legend, one that current and future NU players will always view as a role model.
-Sai Trivedi
3.02: Team 1 selects Rashawn Slater
When Rashawn Slater’s name is mentioned in conversation, most Northwestern fans think of his viral 450-pound front squat that went viral on social media. If not for that video, the highlight of Slater’s collegiate career would perhaps be his incredible pass protection as an upperclassman.
Slater’s impact was felt immediately as an All-Big Ten Freshman Team honoree — a season in which he helped Justin Jackson to his fourth straight 1,000-yard season. His junior year, however, would prove to be his best. After making a shift from right tackle to the left side of the line, he wouldn’t allow a single sack in the 11 games he appeared in on his way to an All-Big Ten Third Team nod. He started the 2020 season rated the second-best offensive tackle in any Power Five conference by PFF. Slater would then sit out his senior year due to the COVID-19 pandemic before becoming NU’s highest drafted player since 1983 (before being surpassed by Peter Skoronski just three years later).
-Matt Campbell
4.01: Team 1 selects Alex Sarkisian
One of the greatest centers to ever play college football. Sarkisian played during an era that could be considered the “golden years” of Northwestern football, and captained one of the Wildcats’ greatest teams ever as a senior in 1948. That season, he led the Rose Bowl champions’ incredible come-from-behind victories: a 19-16 win over Minnesota and a 20-14 win over Cal in that year’s New Year’s Day Classic. At season’s end, he was named to the 1949 College All-Star Team and competed against the defending NFL champion Philadelphia Eagles — the team that took Sarkisian in the 11th round of the 1947 NFL Draft. He transitioned to an assistant coaching role following the ‘48 season, sticking with the ‘Cats until 1954. He’d be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 1998.
-Matt Campbell
4:02: Team 2 selects Peter Skoronski
Skoronski is arguably the most successful offensive lineman in Northwestern Football history. During his Wildcat career, he started all 33 games he played at left tackle and didn’t miss a single game. Skoronski performed his way to an All-Big Ten second team selection as a freshman, following that up with first-team selections in his sophomore and junior years. He was also a True Freshman All-American as he was the highest-graded true first-year performer in the Big Ten among all players in 2020. In his junior season, Skoronski was named the Rimington-Pace Big Ten Offensive Lineman of the Year (first ever by an NU lineman) and was a unanimous first-team All-American. He finished the 2022 season with a 93.0 PFF pass-blocking grade (best in the country) and a 79.1 run-blocking grade (fifth among all Power 5 tackles). Skoronski was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in the 2023 NFL Draft at pick No. 11: Northwestern’s highest draft selection since guard Chris Hinton was taken at fourth overall in 1983. He will forever go down as one of the most dominant Northwestern athletes of all time.
-Charlie Jacobs
Final rosters
Team 1:
- Pat Fitzgerald
- Darnell Autry
- Rashawn Slater
- Alex Sarksian
Team 2:
- Otto Graham
- Damien Anderson
- Justin Jackson
- Peter Skoronski
Vote on X at @InsideNU, and let us know anything you think we missed in the comments.
That’s a wrap for Mt. Rushmore! We hope everyone enjoyed getting to go back in time and reflect upon Northwestern sports this summer — we participating writers sure appreciated the opportunity to dig deeper into NU athletics history. But now, it’s onto the fall sports season.
