OK, he had obviously had earned the spot as the H Wideout - he came into the game as the #1 guy on the right side, but if you look at all the stats from last year, you don't find much Jonathan Fields - and he operated under the radar in the Spring as a Frosh from Michigan, Kim Thompson, made his claim as the odds on "future star."

So what happened?

According to the Evanston Review's Larry Watts, it was a trip back home instead of to the Motor City Bowl...

"I'm back home with family and friends and all they want to know is why I'm not with the team," he said. "It was tough to explain that to them. And my mother told me I had to do something with my life."

Enter the new WR Coach Garrick McGee and a new role for Fields on the offense. The Evanston Review Story tells the rest of it, but Fields' turnaround is just one of many NU players who have reached their Junior year and made a commitment to play Randy Walker's style of football.

Jon Fields knows two of them - Jason Wright, and Noah Herron both have told the story of just sliding through their first couple of years, then deciding to step up. I'm sure there are many more Wildcats who have made the same decision.

And yes, there are some guys who have decided not to make the leap, and many of them, as highly regarded as they were on signing day, are no longer with the program.

NU QB Brett Basanez [who also stepped up his game last Winter] had a good quote for the ER - and you can put several different names at the start,

"...was at a point in his career where he had to decide if he was all in or all out, and he decided to put all his chips in."

Maybe there's something in the way Randy Walker runs the NU Football program that demands that kind of commitment from our gang of academic overachievers. I know later in life you face many crossroads like Jon Fields did last Winter.

Sometimes the path you choose will, just like the path Jon chose, set you up for life...

and now there's one more kid who has been touched by the atmosphere in the Coach's office at Nicolet.

I wonder if we can bottle it?