Joe Sports

At 4:50 p.m. Bourbonnais time, Bears equipment manager Tony Medlin blew the airhorn that signaled the official end to the team's 22-day camp in Kankakee County. Much hooting and hollering ensued -- by far the most enthusiasm showed all afternoon during their restrained walkthrough.

Less than two minutes later, third-string QB Brett Basanez established his leadership credentials by leading the sprint to the Olivet Nazarene parking lots. Not everyone made a beeline for their sweet SUVs and other impressive rides. A few Bears hit the fan ropes to sign autographs, safeties Craig Steltz and Kevin Payne stuck around on the field to work their techniques...and Tommie Harris proved he's injured by moving slowly enough to become the only Bear caught by the media horde.

The Big Ten released its basketball schedule (and TV slate) for the 2009-10 season, which reminded me of a few long-held pet peeves when it comes to Northwestern hoops.

Peeve No. 1:
I get tired of people telling me Northwestern's style of play is boring. Sure, during the years when the Wildcats haven't had enough good players, they struggle to get open shots...the scores go down...it's not an aesthetically pleasing game. I understand that viewpoint.

Hey gang:

In Brett Favre's continuing quest to impact everyone's life for good or evil -- including people he has never met -- my flabbergastingly great feature story on the Bears secondary (and how its talent stacks up against Super Bowl winners and NFC North foes) has been held until Thursday's edition of the Herald. There wasn't enough room to squeeze it into Wednesday's paper thanks to Favre's latest dash from the throes of retirement.

In any case, I enjoyed my first intimate chat with the Bears' ninth-year general manager.

ESPN just announced its GameDay crew will show up at Illinois on Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010, to hype and broadcast the Michigan State-Illinois game.

The Illini have never played host to GameDay for either football or hoops, so it's an opportunity for a bunch of exposure that the school hasn't received.

Dick Vitale, by the way, ranked Illinois No. 10 nationally in a preseason poll he did earlier this summer. He has MSU at No. 3.

GameDay broadcasts at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. Central. The game will be at 8 p.m. CST.

LW

Well, Jay Cutler threw 1 interception in the first half and should’ve had 2. Brett Basanez threw 3 interceptions in the fourth quarter and should’ve had 2. Any way you add or subtract it, the Bears offense wasn’t sharp in Saturday’s 27-20 loss at Buffalo.

But we’ll save the analysis for my teammate Bob LeGere’s stories in Sunday’s paper and on the Herald web site almost any minute now. I’m just here to break down the snaps at each position. Unofficially, Buffalo and its no-huddle attack ran 81 plays from scrimmage compared to the Bears’ 51.

RB Matt Forte, TE Greg Olsen, DT Tommie Harris, FS Danieal Manning, CB Peanut Tillman, CB Zackary Bowman and LS Patrick Mannelly did not play.

In order of appearance:
OFFENSE
QB: Cutler 14, Hanie 20, Basanez 17.

Junior defensive tackle Corbin Bryant wore one of the biggest smiles on Monday afternoon after Northwestern's first practice of 2009 fall camp.

Not only did Bryant's surgically repaired knee hold up just fine (he injured last Nov. 15 against Michigan and didn't get to play in the Alamo Bowl), but he got the chance to brag about his team's victory in the "Wildcat Games."

For those who didn't pay attention to the inaugural Wildcat Games last season, the 10 players on Northwestern's Leadership Council hold a draft of the rest of the team's roster durign the winter. Then those 10 teams compete for points for several months in varied categories such as GPA, community service, weight-lifting and school spirit.

I apologize for the misleading headline. There's not really a ton of Ron Zook or Juice Williams news contained within this particular blog entry.

But I attended Illinois' media day on Sunday and thought I'd experiment to see if listing their names with exclamation points might increase the number of clicks. Now, if only I had access to this blog's statistics...

Despite some intense heat, the specter of Lollapalooza a mile to the north and the Bud Billiken parade to the south, a whopping 27,793 Bears fans showed up for Family Day on Saturday at Soldier Field.

Lovie Smith promised the fans a regular practice when he appeared on the giant video screens at noon. That usually means 2.5 hours of action, but he cut things short due to the heat and practice ended officially at 1:48 p.m. when safety Corey Graham picked off backup QB Caleb Hanie on the first play of his two-minute drill.

Unless it's still raining in DeKalb, the Huskies are just about to get down to business with their second practice.

Here are a few quick notes before I give the skinny on the 19 Herald City players on this year's roster:

1) NIU announced 24 signees on National Letter of Intent Day on Feb. 4 -- and all 24 are on campus with the team. That doesn't happen often in Division I-A ball.

2) NIU's defensive staff visited Florida, TCU and Virginia Tech to "steal" some concepts and thoughts, while the offensive staff visited UNLV and a few NFL teams to pick some brains. Considering Lovie Smith's younger son, Miles, is working as a volunteer assistant in the football office (he's an undergraduate student), you'd think the Huskies had an in to visit the Bears.

For the first time since the Bears opened summer camp on Friday, oppressive weather came to the Kankakee River Valley. The hot, sticky weather bothered the fans (one lady passed out while watching the Bears work on red-zone situations) and some players celebrated the muggy weather by mugging each other.

Offensive lineman Tyler Reed and defensive end Mark Anderson instigated a little brawl that had a relatively serious tone. Late in the afternoon, wideout Rashied Davis and cornerback Zackary Bowman clutched and grabbed to start a relatively mirthful free-for-all in the end zone. It looked and felt a lot like a baseball “brawl,” where maybe a couple of guys are serious and the rest are smiling as they look for a partner to dance with.