My name is Meaghan Delle Cave, and I’ve covered most of the football games this season for The DePauw, and I have a deep dark secret: I barely understand football. Have you ever asked yourself why all the game articles read exactly the same or wondered why we only write scoring summaries? It’s because I know and understand seven football words total and they are “touchdown,” “run,” “yard,” “pass,” “interception,” “punt,” “kick,” and “fumble.” The game isn’t totally lost on me, I promise! I can follow along just fine on game days (although fan reactions are always helpful hints as to whether good or bad things are happening). However, I am by no means the most qualified person for this job. Anyway, with that in mind, here are some of my Monon game predictions:

  1. Nathan McCahill ‘25 will have the ball in his hand and pass it to someone else: I am so sure this is going to happen because it happens every single game. Maybe it’s because he’s the quarterback, maybe it’s because he’s super lucky and always gets to throw the ball. Regardless, I would bet my life on this happening.
  2. Someone is going to catch McCahill’s pass: This is another thing I’m fairly certain of since I’ve seen it a hundred times before. I’m willing to go even further with this prediction and say that this will happen more than once during the game, and it will probably be Robby Ballentine ‘26, Jaylon Smith ‘25, or Gabe Quigley ‘24 because those guys catch the ball the most in the other games.
  3. Caden Whitehead ‘26 or Gus Baumgartner ‘24 will get to hold the ball and run with it toward the touchdown spot (endzone?): Making predictions is so easy, guys! I just guess what will happen based on what’s happened during other games, and this happens all the time! So, I’m pretty confident in this prediction. 
  4. Someone is going to tackle someone else: I’m feeling pretty good about this one too, to be honest. I think if there’s one thing about football players, it’s that they’re gonna tackle a guy on the other team. We can be pretty sure that this will happen at least one time during the game.
  5. A touchdown is going to be scored: I will be upset if this doesn’t happen (mostly because I don’t really understand the other ways to earn points in football). The game would be boring if no one earned any points by scoring touchdowns. Also, I think that means the defense is good, which is a good thing, right? That doesn’t matter though because I’m pretty sure someone is gonna score a touchdown.