Prior to Northwestern’s shocking victory at Penn State on Saturday, graduate student quarterback Preston Stone’s last Beaver Stadium experience was not a positive one.
Relegated to SMU’s backup quarterback slot after a prolific 2023 starting campaign, Stone watched from the sideline as his team “got (their) tails kicked” by the Nittany Lions in the first round of the 2024 College Football Playoff.
So when the Dallas native transferred, packed up his life and moved to Evanston in January, a chance for retaliation in Happy Valley was something he circled on his calendar.
“Big Ten football simply is just different,” Stone said at an August press conference. “I can’t wait for the ’Cats to go to Penn State and play them this year.”
Flash forward to Week 7, and NU’s transfer signal caller got the bounce-back performance he hoped for, overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds against an opponent favored by three touchdowns to deliver a 22-21 win.
After Stone ended the contest in victory formation, kneeling the ball three times to run out the clock, he immediately found coach David Braun to give him a big hug, he said. Afterward, the team celebrated with a party in the locker room, which he described as something he’ll remember forever.
“It was definitely one of those games you dream about as a little kid,” Stone told The Daily after the Wildcats’ (4-2, 2-1 Big Ten) Tuesday practice.
Building a rapport
While an NU squad that limped to a 4-8 record last season taking down what was a CFP semifinalist may come as a shock to most onlookers, to Stone, high-quality wins aren’t surprising for a team he holds in high regard.
Before the season, Braun routinely referred to his receivers as an “unproven” group, conceding that many of them had a “chip on their shoulder” and hadn’t delivered many noteworthy performances early in their careers. After a 2024 season where the ’Cats averaged the worst yardage and second-lowest scoring output per game and in the Big Ten, the third-year coach didn’t shy away from the work to be done on offense.
But Stone was quick to convey his optimism in the hands on the other end of his passes.
“I have a ton of confidence in those guys,” Stone said during the preseason. “I think we have one of the best receiving rooms in the country.”
Receivers weren’t the only ones who have earned Stone’s unbridled trust. When asked Tuesday about the progression of NU’s offensive line since the team’s season-opening loss at Tulane, the veteran playmaker echoed what he previously said about the guys downfield, calling the O-Line the nation’s preeminent force “hands down.”
For Stone, cultivating trust among teammates is an essential element in the ’Cats’ recipe for success. He said Braun’s promise of a player-led team is one of the key factors that drew him to NU as he navigated the transfer portal.
With six games in a purple jersey under his belt, Stone described the team as “fully assimilated,” meaning that the work he put in to earn respect across the locker room has paid off. His days of being the new guy in town have gone by the wayside.
In a July interview at Big Ten Football Media Days, the transfer passer said his top priorities when he first arrived in Illinois in January were proving his work ethic on the field and building relationships off of it.
During his first week at NU, defensive players Aidan Hubbard, Carmine Bastone, Braydon Brus and Mac Uihlein invited him over to their house for dinner, making it easier for him to establish some crucial early bonds on the roster.
“(It) just speaks to the kind of guys they are,” Stone said Tuesday, reflecting on the experience.
Redshirt junior edge rusher Anto Saka, who was also at Big Ten Media Days, called Stone a “gamer” and said his camaraderie stuck out to him early on.
“If y’all squatting, I should be squatting,” Saka said, paraphrasing Stone’s practice philosophy. “If I’m benching, then y’all should be benching, and vice versa.”
Aside from dinner with teammates and putting in time at workouts, Stone said it definitely helped being in a “beach town,” which he considers to be a defining characteristic of Evanston. After spring and summer practices, Stone and other players routinely hung out by the lake to cool down.
In the quarterback room, Stone built early bridges when he asked his fellow position players where he should take his girlfriend on dates. Ironically, the player who recommended Stone’s eventual choice was his starting predecessor, who has since transitioned to play baseball full-time instead.
“It was actually Jack Lausch that texted me Trattoria Demi, which is my favorite restaurant in all of Evanston,” Stone said.
The start of something great
Stone’s days on the gridiron began long before he worked to forge new bonds ahead of his final year of college eligibility. The youngest of three brothers who all played Division 1 football, he said growing up in “the epitome of a football family” is something that’s shaped his game.
Stone got his start in football playing running back, but his older brother, Lindell, was a quarterback. The youngest Stone wanted to follow in his footsteps.
NU’s eventual passer’s knack for football was evident early on, especially to his high school coach, Daniel Novakov. Novakov first got his eyes on his future quarterback during the spring of his fourth-grade year.
While doing quality control for the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, one of Novakov’s assignments was to coach Jerry Jones’ grandson’s 11-man football team. The publicity and success he garnered from the position earned him another coaching job for kids in his neighborhood the following year. Now, he’s been doing it ever since.
Stone ended up getting on one of those teams, and, for Novakov, the talent was undeniable from the time he first saw a video of Stone throwing.
“I’ve had three Power Five quarterbacks now,” Novakov said. “You can tell immediately. They’re very different. It’s kind of like when a kid has a gift to play the piano or they’re really good at math, that gift just stands out. It’s like it was given to them by God.”
Novakov got the chance to coach him at various times during the spring throughout his middle school career, and even in high school. Novakov earned a promotion to become Parish Episcopal School’s head coach in 2017.
That same year, Stone chose to begin his high school playing career at Parish Episcopal over perennial Texas powerhouse Highland Park High School.
“I had a ton of faith in coach Novakov,” Stone said. “I felt like I would definitely be taken care of from a football perspective there. Also, Parish is a great school, and so I thought it would set me up best for my future.”
The decision not only gave Stone a platform to play during his freshman year, but Novakov said it also helped Parish Episcopal become the football power it is today.
“He jump-started our program, which is now known as probably one of the top private school programs in Texas,” Novakov said. “He put us on ESPN. He built that.”
Since the quarterback is the foundational piece of any program or team, Stone’s arrival as one of the top-rated ninth graders drew recruiters and coaches, which attracted kids who wanted to play for the team that people were coming to see.
Novakov said Stone brought Parish Episcopal instant credibility and notoriety by just being there.
Even better for Novakov, Stone backed it up on the field. After a 5-7 start in his freshman year, Parish Episcopal went 10-4 during his 2018 season. That same sophomore season, Stone was a captain of the team.
“He never missed a weight workout, never missed a practice, never missed a game. He always was at everything,” Novakov said. “Even though he would skip recruiting visits (and) all-star games, he made it all about the team.’
In 2019 and 2020, Stone led Parish Episcopal to TAPPS Division I State Championships.
As a senior, Stone passed for 3,429 passing yards and 38 touchdowns while rushing for 536 yards and 10 touchdowns.
The success earned Stone all the offers a high school quarterback could ask for. A school from every then-Power Five conference came knocking for the Texas quarterback.
But among offers from Alabama, Ohio State and Texas, Stone chose SMU.
Between a Stone and a hard place
Choosing SMU made sense for Stone. His father graduated from SMU and his brother Parker played wide receiver for the Mustangs. Stone grew up loving SMU, and, according to Novakov, he wanted the opportunity to bring unseen success to the program in his hometown.
After breaking his collarbone in 2022, Stone got his chance to lead the Mustangs in his redshirt sophomore season.
Stone spearheaded a SMU team that went 7-6 the year prior to only two regular-season losses, but the season ended on a sour note for the quarterback. In the final game of the regular season against Navy, things went south.
“I would always argue with him about, ‘Quit running around, especially when you don’t need to because that’s how quarterbacks get hurt,’” Novakov said. “So they were killing Navy, and he’s playing his best game. He runs around, in my opinion, needlessly, he gets tackled, falls on his leg awkwardly and breaks his leg.”
Though throwing three touchdown passes before the second-quarter injury was enough to help lift the Mustangs to an American Athletic Conference championship-clinching win, Stone did not have the honor of playing in it.
“It was a bit of a heartbreaking moment for me because you played those games with the hopes of making it to the championship and bringing home that championship,” Stone said.
Instead, his teammate, Kevin Jennings, threw for 203 yards and one touchdown in his first career start and led SMU to its first AAC Championship.
Stone attempted to mount a comeback in 2024, initially splitting time with Jennings before taking a backseat when the latter was named the starter.
“It was not an easy decision in terms of the fact that Preston’s a winner,” SMU coach Rhett Lashlee said at the time. “We feel like (Jennings) gives us the best chance to win with this team.”
While Stone did not see the time on the field he would have liked, the 2024 season was still a useful one.
Standing on the sidelines, Stone said he learned the value of “servant leadership,” noting the need to separate his personal adversity from his role as a teammate.
“You play and you train with the hopes of being able to be on the field on Saturday, and I think learning last year, watching from the sidelines and trying to support Kevin as much as I could, you learn the importance of doing your job, whatever that may be,” Stone said.
Following a 2024 campaign spent in the shadows, Stone opted to depart SMU in pursuit of new frontiers. Despite expressing discontent with his final season in Dallas, he said he has no bad blood for his former school and still roots for the Mustangs on Saturdays.
‘The most important stat’
From Braun’s perspective, the decision to recruit Stone once he entered the transfer portal was a no-brainer. In preparation for NU’s Sept. 6, 2024, matchup with Duke, Braun told Big Ten Network his team watched an abundance of SMU’s 2023 film since its offensive coordinator had left his post for the Blue Devils.
“The second that Preston went in the transfer portal, as a program (we said), ‘The quarterback from SMU? We gotta go get that guy,’” Braun said.
While Stone’s deep pass threat immediately got Braun’s attention, he was more impressed by the way he carried himself off the field, taking on a leadership role the moment he arrived in Evanston.
During the recruiting process, Braun didn’t promise Stone that starting spot because he views competition as a “core value” of the program. Instead, he told the former Mustang that if he opted to come to NU, he didn’t have to “be anything but the best version of (his) self,” Stone recalled.
“What he did throughout the offseason and what he put on display throughout spring, it was abundantly clear that he was our starting quarterback,” Braun told reporters ahead of the season.
Since then, his confidence in the graduate student passer never wavered, even after Stone’s season got off to a rocky start in a 23-3 loss at Tulane.
In that game — Stone’s NU debut following four years in Dallas — he threw four interceptions and fumbled on the team’s opening drive. Compared to the 2023 performances Braun had watched on tape, his shiny new quarterback looked markedly different than he had two years prior.
“I think something coach Braun and coach (Zach) Lujan did a great job of was getting us to look at the game as objectively as we can,” Stone said. “… (I) wasn’t making bad reads, I was just missing throws that I’ve been making since I was in high school.”
Since then, Stone has found his rhythm in his final year of eligibility — other than an additional two picks in a 34-14 loss to then-No. 4 Oregon.
He’s thrown for five touchdowns across NU’s last three contests, hovering around a 65% completion rate as he’s established a rapport with receivers beyond his go-to guy in junior wideout Griffin Wilde.
But if you ask him, these stats don’t matter.
“I completely agree with coach Braun that the most important stat for a quarterback is how many wins you get,” Stone said. “… If we hand the ball off 100 times and still win a football game, I’ll be just as happy.”
On the heels of a win at Penn State, where his individual performance was neither glowing nor dull, Stone has embodied that doctrine in his play.
He’ll look to carry his prevailing form into a Saturday showdown with Purdue, as the ’Cats vie for their fourth-straight victory.
“Winning feels good, all the time,” Stone said. “We’ve done a great job of responding to adversity early in the year, and now it’ll be a test for us to see how we respond to success.”
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