It was Pat Fitzgerald's tenth season as the team's head coach.

The Wildcats home games were played at Ryan Field in Evanston, Illinois.

The Wildcats hosted Big Ten foes Iowa, Minnesota, Penn State, and Purdue and travelled to Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.

[1] The Wildcats hosted three of their four non conference games against Ball State, Eastern Illinois and Stanford.

Northwestern traveled to Durham, North Carolina to face Duke of the Atlantic Coast Conference on September 19.