NU's Sutton feeling good, eager to play Saturday

Tyrell Sutton injured his left hamstring Saturday, but you couldn't prove that by the way he ran during Northwestern's practice Wednesday morning.

The senior running back, wearing shoulder pads and shorts like his teammates, took about one-third of the snaps during 11-on-11 work and looked as smooth as ever.

"I felt pretty good," Sutton said. "I felt loose. I don't know how many people could come back two days after a hamstring injury, but it feels good."

Sutton hurt his hammy during a 31-yard run just before halftime of Northwestern's 16-8 win over Ohio.

"It got tight," Sutton said before joking, "I was trying to go from first (gear) to fifth all at one time."

He sat out the rest of the game and didn't practice with the rest of the Wildcats on Tuesday.

But after during some running work on a side field early Wednesday with the trainers, Sutton resumed his place on the main field with the first-string.

That suggests he'll be on the field from the start when Northwestern (4-0) heads to Iowa (3-1) for Saturday's Big Ten opener.

"Tyrell's good," coach Pat Fitzgerald said. "He's fine. He's ready to go."

Sutton has rushed 63 times for 387 yards and 5 touchdowns this season. Even if Northwestern somehow fails to go to a bowl this season, that projects out to 1,161 yards and 15 TDs for the year.

Bacher same way: Senior quarterback C.J. Bacher practiced Tuesday and Wednesday with nothing protecting the sprained fingers on his throwing hand.

Bacher was injured early in Saturday's win over Ohio, yet he hung in the game and threw 3 more interceptions after tossing just 2 in his first 13 quarters this year.

He declined after the game to blame his ailing hand for the miscues, but he admitted Wednesday there were issues.

"Yeah, I was trying to put it out of my mind," Bacher said. "It was a little painful. But if I thought I would hurt the team, I would take myself out."

That shouldn't be an issue at Iowa.

"The trainers did a good job over the weekend," Bacher said. "I came out here on Tuesday and I was a little skeptical of how it'd feel, but it felt great. When I'm out there getting reps in 'team' (11-on-11) and 7-on-7, I don't even think about it."

Migraine time: To simulate the wall of sound that Northwestern expects to encounter Saturday at Iowa's Kinnick Stadium, the Wildcats practiced with piped-in crowd noise again Wednesday.

A manager drove around the field in a cart that carried a massive speaker on the flatbed in back.

Maybe it was a coincidence, but coach Pat Fitzgerald didn't seem too keen about standing too close to the cart.

"It gives me a migraine headache," Fitzgerald said. "It just drives me absolutely up the wall. You know, what it does is it forces us to focus.

"It puts our guys in a most hostile environment than they'll be in on Saturday. That's our job as coaches, to try to give our guys everything we can to prepare them for the opportunity (to win)."

Yell, yell, yell: As Northwestern's defense continues to climb the national charts - it ranks No. 11 in scoring (11.3 ppg) and No. 32 in total yards (298.0 ypg) - its increasing swagger carries over to the practice field.

Prior to a few 11-on-11 plays between the first-string defense and second-string offense Wednesday, the black-clad substitutes on the defense's sidelines chanted "Kill, Kill, Kill!" to inspire the starters.

In return, when the scout-team defense took on the first-string offense, the defenders on the sidelines once chanted, "Win, Win, Win!"

Apparently, it's impolite to root for the demise of quarterback C.J. Bacher, running back Tyrell Sutton, et al.