Last night was truly 2026's "circle the date on the calendar" for the Northwestern Wildcats football program. And the end result matched the hype. Northwestern opened their brand new home, Ryan Field II, with a bang, blowing the doors of off Penn State 31-14.
It's basically a NFL venue, just a smaller version. Facets of the venue evoke several National Football League facilities including: Reliant Stadium in Houston (with the slope angle), Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas (the overall shape), Lucas Oil Field in Indianapolis (vantage points), SoFi Stadium in Inglewood and AT&T Stadium in Arlington (with the field level premium club seating).
State-of-the-art in every way, shape and form, it's the most expensive college-only football stadium, and it was
brought to life by Pat Ryan, retired founder and CEO of the AON Corporation.
Of course, you need a product to match the packaging, and Northwestern truly plays an entertaining brand of ball. Offensive Coordinator Chip Kelly is absolutey thriving in his new role, and elevating everyone around him. Quarterback Aidan Chiles is flourishing on the designed runs, as well as the scrambles.
Northwestern has a three-headed monster at tailback right now, with Gavin Sawchuck, Caleb Komolafe and Joseph Himon II. Enterin the season, Himon was not really on the NFL Draft radar.
He absolutely has the attention of people at the next level right now.
Entering the thrashing of Penn State, Himon had 10 carries for 115 yards, so 11.5 yards per carry, on the season.
On new Ryan Field opening night, he had 10 carries for 162 yards, so 16.2 yards per rush. This is small sample size to be sure, and there will inevitably be regression to the mean, but these stats just jump off the screen at you.
We're a third of the way through the season, and Himon is averaging 13.8 yards per rush.
"Coach Kelly, he's just a great offensive mind," Himon said in post game, about how the scheme has facilitated the proliferation of the Northwestern rushing attack.
"He gives us the opportunities to go out there and do what we do. We have a great o-line that we run behind each and every day.
"So, it's just the positions that he put us in, and then just the work that we put in each and every day. I think that allows us to have success."
Friday night saw a lot of trickeration hand-offs, fake end around/reverses, showing inside zone run while actually running an outside zone run.
"We just run so much motion and action out of it the defense has no idea where the ball is," Himon added.
All three running backs are beneficiaries of Chip Kelly's offense, and they'll all be in the mix as prospects to potentially reach the next level.
Himon, in the same press conference, also credited "the brotherhood, the bond that we have off the field" as another component contributing to the position group's success.
This article originally appeared on Draft Wire: NFL Draft stock report- buy: Joseph Himon II, RB, Northwestern
