Pat Fitzgerald
- Thread starter hoopsstar12
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He has a 56.8% win record at Northwestern. He is not one of the best coaches in the country. He’s a slightly better than average coach.
When Fitzgerald follows up a 4-8, with 41-6, a 12-0 regular season, CFP berth and currently 8-0 ranked #2 in the nation. You let me know okay? Until then prepare to get dunked on all balls in the face style.
Fitzgerald has had a 6-7, 5-7, 5-7, 4-8, and a 3-9. in 15 years. And he is worshipped at NW? Why? Because the school has virtually no expecations for its football program. Winning is just an add on bonus. If any coach of a college football super power puts up 5 losing seasons in 15 years they would be canned quicker than spit on a griddle.
Some guys are a perfect fit for small time low expectation jobs. IMO that is Pat Fitzgerald. Now, if he wants to step up and take a pressure cooker job where ONE 3-9 or 4-8 gets your seat warm. Then let him step up to that job (Michigan? Penn State?) But my guess is that he wants no part of that heat and stays right where he's at and flys quietly under the radar.
Comparing the HC of NW, to the Head Coach of ND, Mich, Ohio State, Penn State, USC, Texas, Alabama, OU or any other pressue cooker is a pointless exercise
He’s a solid coach who does well with what he has.
Well stated----agree completely .
My daughter is a grad of NW and I have met Coach Fitz both as an undergrad and later on as the HFC.
Very personable and you get the impression you would like your son playing for this guy .
He loathes ND. I have about the same opinion of him as I do Harbaugh.
Please Kelly couldn’t do that at Northwestern. Ara couldn’t even do that at Northwestern. You can’t compare coaching at the 2 schools. The talent draw alone is weighs heavily toward ND. I’m not saying Fitzgerald could do what Kelly has done at ND, but he’s doing well at NW.
What Kelly did at Cincinatti is more impressive than what Fitzgerald has done at NW.
Bodizephax
I've posted how many times?
BK took over a team with no football history, that had won 10 games once in its history and reeled off 10, 11 and 12 wins in three seasons, 3 bowl bids including Orange and Sugar Bowl. I find that to be way more impressive than the product that NW puts on the field year in and year out, Fitz has averaged 7 wins a year and has had 5 losing seasons. Nothing to suggest this guy could succeed on a bigger stage.
I think PF would do just fine on a bigger stage but I agree with everything you said.
We probably won’t ever get to find out - and it’s of course a matter of opinion. I would just say the lights are a lot brighter elsewhere, and his moderate success at NW (the occasional 9 or 10 win season) feels a lot like Willingham/Stanford which didn’t translate to ND or Washington where regular 8 and 9 win seasons get you fired.
Okay. I would need BK's Bearcats to have won one of those big bowls to say anything definitive. And I recall Cincy had just become respectable from BK's predecessor who went on to Mich St; like how Lou laid a foundation for Spurrier in SCe.
Previous coach of Cincy was Mark Dantonio who was 7-5, 4-7 and 7-5. Hardly a foundation. Fitzgerald on the other hand inherited a nice foundation built by Gary Barnett who bolted for Colorado.
SC had tired of Holtz and player issues and brought in Spurrier to clean up ... Spurrier hardly needed someone to build a foundation for him.
in any event these are all just opinions. Fitzgerald and NW seem like a great match. BK would have turned in a few good years at NW and then moved on to a bigger job. He has different ambitions than Fitzgerald who is one of the more notable NW football alums.
Cincinnati has nowhere near the academic standards NW has.
Sure, Cincy isn't known as a football school, so recruiting top talent is a problem ... but at NW it is both hard to recruit top talent AND having academic restrictions.
This is a myth. Even Ivy League schools who technically don’t give scholarships can get football players in on full scholarships that are nowhere near the academic standards of the school.
Looks like Rick Minter preceded Dantonio at UC. But, UC didn't enter the Big East until Dantonio was coach so he would have had to develop a different level of player to compete with respectable established programs like Pitt and WVU.
When I say "lay a foundation" I don't mean the W-L column. Creating a team that takes it seriously and sets high standards for themselves is a foundation, it doesn't mean they necessarily win. St Lou, wishing a speedy recovery, did that at all of his stops. SCe had nothing like two bowl wins over Ohio State in their entire history before Holtz, and they had joined the SEC. Spurrier would have had to get people excited about a 3-9 program if he had taken over in 1999.
All good points and Dantonio proved to also be a very good coach on a bigger stage.
Gary Barnett left 8 years before he took over. When Randy Walker died he was 37-45 NW then Fitz took over.
NW is not bending to get difference makers in.
I don't think Fitz is made for programs you can get anyone in. At the same time, I dont think there are many coaches who could do much better with the academic restrictions he faces.
My point is NW was a moderately successful program until the 70s and it was Gary Barnett in the 90s that laid the foundation and made them relavant again, not Fitzgerald. Also too much is made about academic restrictions - it would be way easier to recruit to NW than to Cincinatti. Have you visited both schools? In any event not much is expected of him at NW and he manages to occasionally exceed the low expectations. Don’t however mourn the lack of talent he gets. The rebuild at Wisconsin led by Barry Alvarez and then sustained through several coaches is way more impressive. In the 4 years I was at ND I think Wisconsin won 9 games.
Again, you are comparing a team that played in the crappy Big East that was in the midst of falling apart to a team that plays in the B10. I think BK’s signature win at Cincy was Rutgers, please.
I’d say Kelly’s best wins at Cincy were against Pitt not Rutgers. Curious what do you consider Fitzgerald’s signature win at NW? He did beat a ND team that was coached by BK and couldn’t run out the clock ... I think he’s managed to knock off some top 25 Big 10 teams. I don’t believe he’s beaten a top 5 Michigan or Ohio State ... but if you are impressed with averaging 7 wins and having more winning seasons than losing seasons than Pat’s your guy.
What was wrong with Holtz at SC? I remember Billy Brewer etc. What player issues?
I am a huge Lou Holtz fan ... his tenure at USC ended in a very unsportsmanlike way.
