CHICAGO — The most memorable sound effect for Northwestern games at Ryan Field was a screeching Wildcat growl after big plays. Its repetition would get the sound stuck in your heads.

At Wrigley Field on Saturday, the public address announcer said “We are going to move! those! chains!” He said it ad nauseum as the Wildcats totaled 25 first downs in a 38-35 win.

The Gophers defense came into the game allowing 331 yards per game (38th in the nation), but allowed more yards of offense to a .500 Northwestern team (525 yards) than the U gave up to No. 1 Ohio State (474) and No. 7 Oregon (510). The Gophers also gave up 476 yards to Michigan State, which is winless in Big Ten play.

Given how glaring the breakdowns were Saturday, Fleck was asked about how new defensive coordinator Danny Collins has done in his first season at the helm.

“I look at three things,” Fleck said. “I look at the coaching. I look at personnel and then the scheme. Those are the three things that I evaluate every single week. I got to go back through the tape. …

“(But) I love what Danny is doing. I love how hard our defensive staff works. Part of it is you just got to make the plays that present themselves. Again, I think at times throughout the entire year, we’ve pressed here and there. We are pressing to go get the ball (and force a turnover). And the details matter.”

Collins called the Gophers’ defense Saturday from the sideline, a departure from doing so from the coaches’ booth high above the field. Fleck said that wasn’t a reaction to performances, but a decision based on not having great vantage points from a baseball press box.

Charging for long distance

Gophers kicker Brady Denaburg continues to struggle on field goals from 40 yards and longer this season.

Denaburg is 11 for 12 from inside 39 yards, but the transfer from Syracuse is 2 for 7 from beyond 40 with misses from 40 in the third quarter Saturday and 48 on the last play of the game.

“Keep kicking,” Fleck said. “Sometimes it goes through, sometimes it doesn’t. We got to execute way better. He’s made some really big kicks for us all year. I know he’ll respond to that.”

Briefly

With the new $800 million Ryan Field opening up next year, Wrigley Field plans to host games for other college programs. … Anthony Smith was credited for a sack on a Preston Stone intentional grounding Saturday. That gives Smith 10 1/2 sacks this season, becoming the first Gopher with double-digit sacks since Willie VanDeSteeg in 2008. … The Gophers turned to Tony Nelson at guard on Saturday, a rare change along the U’s offensive line that managed to run for 3.5 yards per carry.

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The contrast is jarring. Against teams with losing records, Minnesota is 10-0 to open the season. Against winning teams? 0-6, the latest a mindboggling loss Friday in Phoenix.

Minnesota has one more cupcake on deck — a bout Monday in Sacramento against a Kings team the Wolves already have handled twice in this young season. And, this time, Sacramento will be without star big man Domantas Sabonis.

After that, the two only true potential laughers for the Wolves between now and Christmas are a pair of games at two-win New Orleans in early December.

That’s for the best for these Timberwolves. Yes, they’ve handled business against the League’s cellar dwellers — far more so than they have in other recent seasons. Minnesota is housing the NBA’s worst teams on a consistent basis. But little from those wins is translating to games against stiffer competition.

The ball pressure did. Minnesota was stiff enough defensively to force 28 turnovers Friday. At the same time, Phoenix took advantage of Minnesota’s propensity to overhelp and rotate poorly on that end, which allowed the Suns to generate a number of open looks. Phoenix shot 48% from the field, including 45% from distance.

That’s not a weakness that gets stressed by bad teams, which often struggle to even execute one action within a possession, let alone the two or three that can truly try a defense’s communication and effort.

On the other end, Minnesota’s ball movement — which has been excellent at times this season — dried up. The Wolves again resorted to the isolation-based attack that works great when the opponent doesn’t have defenders capable of keeping the ball in front of them, and quite poorly when they do.

The Wolves had just 18 assists on Friday, and only 39 potential assists — the lowest number across the NBA that evening.

Minnesota has mastered ball movement and quick decision making when there’s no opposing resistance, but quickly devolves into old, bad habits when the other team practices ball contain. That was evident against Portland and Phoenix, and in the second halves of each of its losses to Denver.

Those are problems that will require reps to remedy, and they can only come against teams that repeatedly test your deficiencies.

The Timberwolves should get those over the course of the next month, starting with Wednesday’s game in Oklahoma City — a must-win if Minnesota wants to reach the knockout round of the NBA Cup. Friday’s game against Phoenix will better prepare the Timberwolves for that affair.

It was clear Minnesota was a step slow in Friday’s first half. It took the Wolves 24 minutes of basketball to seemingly remember the effort and intention required to punch in the NBA’s upper-weight classes and muster it up themselves. Repeated looks at that standard should allow Minnesota more easily summon it at the outset of games.

Iron sharpens iron? Cupcakes certainly don’t.

Perhaps the Wolves will lose a few more games over the next month, but they’re also likely to emerge from it a team capable of more seriously contending in the West.

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CHICAGO — Gopher fans at Wrigley Field could not sing their hearts out during a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” before the start of the fourth quarter on Saturday. Northwestern was in the middle of scoring 22 unanswered points to take a 34-28 lead early in the fourth quarter.

Minnesota quarterback Drake Lindsey threw his fourth touchdown pass of the game to make it 35-35 with eight minutes left in the game, but Minnesota’s defense allowed Northwestern to continue to gain more that 500 yards of offense and convert on more than 50% of third downs.

Northwestern kicker Jack Olsen made a 33-yard field goal to win it 38-35 with 53 seconds left.

Minnesota’s last minute drive set up a 40-yard field goal attempt from Brady Denaburg, but he missed wide left on the last play of the game.

The Gophers (6-5, 4-4 Big Ten) fell to 0-5 on the road this season. The Wildcats (6-5, 4-4) reached bowl eligibility and won for the first time at Wrigley Field (1-7).

The Gophers’ defense was without its top tackler, linebacker Devon Williams, and key cornerback John Nestor, on Saturday. They allowed 525 yards and 58 percent conversions on third down.

The Gophers struck out looking in Saturday’s first quarter.  Northwestern had 150 total yards and 10 points in the first quarter, while Minnesota had five measly yards and zero points. But the Gophers’ kickoff return unit set up Koi Perich’s 93-yard scamper to the Wildcat’s 5-yard line. A home run-type play.

“Holy Cow!” as the legendary, late Cubs announcer Harry Caray used to say for games at the Friendly Confines.

With that special teams jolt, Minnesota was off and running and outscored Northwestern 21-3 in the second quarter. With After Northwestern’s muffed punt early in the second half,  Drake Lindsey and Javon Tracy connected on their third touchdown to make it 28-13.

The beginning of Saturday’s game had a handful of similarities to the 42-13 loss at Oregon last Friday. First, Northwestern running back Caleb Komolafe ran untouched for 40 yards on a 46-yard touchdown drive on the opening drive. Then Minnesota went three and out on its opening series. It was similar to the start of the Ducks game, and, frankly, all games against FBS competition this year. The U has nine punts and one field goal this season in first quarters this season.

The Wildcats put together a 15-play drive to extend their lead to 10-0 with a 34-yard field goal.

On the ensuing kick return, Perich’s explosive play was his longest since a 56-yarder against Rutgers in September. Minnesota scored four plays later with Darius Taylor taking a toss in from the half-yard line.

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John F. Kennedy’s granddaughter disclosed Saturday that she has terminal cancer, writing in an essay in “The New Yorker” that one of her doctors said she might live for about another year.

Tatiana Schlossberg, the daughter of Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, and Edwin Schlossberg, wrote that she was diagnosed in May 2024 at 34. After the birth of her second child, her doctor noticed her white blood cell count was high. It turned out to be acute myeloid leukemia with a rare mutation, mostly seen in older people, she wrote.

Her essay was published on the 62nd anniversary of her grandfather’s assassination.

Schlossberg, an environmental journalist, wrote she has undergone rounds of chemotherapy and two stem cell transplants, the first using cells from her sister and the next from an unrelated donor, and participated in clinical trials. During the latest trial, she wrote that her doctor told her “he could keep me alive for a year, maybe.”

Schlossberg said the policies pushed by her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, could hurt cancer patients like her. Caroline Kennedy urged senators to reject RFK Jr.’s confirmation.

“As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers,” she wrote in the essay.

Schlossberg wrote about her fears that her daughter and son won’t remember her. She feels cheated and sad that she won’t get to keep living “the wonderful life” she had with her husband, George Moran. While her parents and siblings try to hide their pain from her, she said she feels it every day.

“For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry,” she wrote. “Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

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