FOX 32 goes one-on-one with Northwestern head coach David Braun

INDIANAPOLIS - After a year of challenges, Northwestern football found its leader.

David Braun was hired as the team's defensive coordinator, assumed the interm head coaching role and took the 'Cats to an 8-5 season with a Las Vegas Bowl win.

We had a chance to talk to him about how that all leads into the 2024 season. 

Here's our one-on-one conversation with head coach David Braun, where Braun discussed his reflections on his past year entering the fall in his first season as Northwestern's head football coach, without the interim tag.

Below is an except of three questions and answers from the interview.

What has Northwestern implemented to prevent another scandal like the 2023 hazing scandal

"In my experience that I've had since I've been in Northwestern, I've identified so many incredible qualities of what our institution stands for, what our program stands for. So many things that drew me to Northwestern were a lot of those same things like I viewed Northwestern as, and that's the type of program that I want to be a part of. And what I'll say is, uh, at the end of the day in my role, and it's my job and responsibility to ensure that our student-athlete experience is as good as it gets in the country. And that requires that everything I do and everything that we do operationally and the standard that we set alliance are done."

On his favorite aspect of the Northwestern fanbase

"It's so cool to hear the stories about people that have been riding their bikes to Ryan Field, right?" Braun said. "Like, 'oh, we've been riding on bikes as season ticket holders for X amount of years.' It's such a passionate fan base, such a passionate season ticket holder, base alumni group. And in this role, I've had an opportunity to get to know so many different people and, from different areas of that and still have so many more people I'll have an opportunity to get to know. But, I've been blown away with the passion. It's been inspiring and invigorating, honestly. But I mean, the riding your bike over the games, to me, like cool, from a standpoint of a lot of the memories I had as a student athlete, D-II, small town, Winona, a lot of the same things are going on just on a totally different scale in terms of Big Ten football."

How Braun feels in his role now

"To know that there's an opportunity to be here for a long time, there's an opportunity for our kids to build great relationships with neighbors and buddies and kids that they play on sports teams with. The coaching profession can be tough on a family, (I'm) just really excited to be at a place that I feel like our family aligns with and feel like we can be building the program for the long term is something that's really exciting."