Things are Not Well at Northwestern Football

Northwestern has let go of head coach Pat Fitzgerald. Take a second for that to sink in. He was their golden boy. He was the former star player, turned coach who kind of turned that program around. He has coached them to a Big 10 title game appearance. They've had winning seasons. They played hard football. They never backed down. That was due to his coaching and the program kind of giving him carte blanche. So, for Northwestern to fire him, something big had to be going on within that program that we outsiders know next to nothing about.

For people that are confused, about a week or so ago a former player came out and anonymously said that there was some hard core hazing going on, and that Fitzgeral knew of it and did nothing. The reports that came out about what this former player said were pretty disturbing. The university did an investigation and deemed a two week suspension was sufficient.

I spoke with my dad, we both do not like Fitzgerald as a coach, he comes off too rah rah and cliched, and we were both not surprised that this was coming out and that Fitzgerald was getting a slap on the wrist. We both figured this would be swept under the rug, and if Northwestern had a solid season, the ESPN's of the world would praise him for "overcoming odds" or some nonsense. But after the initial investigation concluded, a few other former players came out and said the hazing was there, and Fitzgerald knew, but also there was rampant racism within the program, and much like the hazing, Fitzgerald kind of turned a blind eye to that as well. The players who came out now cited instances of black players being asked to cut dreads while white players were allowed to have long hair, that position coaches would tell black players that they "weren't in the ghetto anymore" and things of that nature and some black players said they felt like they had to laugh at these remarks so as not to get into trouble.

So, we have hazing and now all of this other stuff. Northwestern, rightfully I might add, had no other choice but to fire Fitzgerald. Of course, if you go into a dark place and read internet comments, this is all about the "woke mob", and "players today are too weak" type stuff. That is wrong. This is horrific what is apparently going on at a very prestigious university. A school like Northwestern always talks about how they are an upstanding, everyone is included and welcoming school. Sure, it is tough to get in, but if you do you are family type stuff. So for this to be going on at this school, I'd be frightened if I were a parent of a player making these claims. The whole idea of sending your kid off to college is based on trust. Add on the aspect that football, a very dangerous sport, is part of it, all of these accusations make me sick to my stomach. I feel for these kids. They should not be treated like this because of their skin color or because they made a mistake in a game or practice.

Football is archaic, especially in college. These coaches think they can do what they want, and some do with little to no consequence. Look at DJ Durkin. A kid died on his watch when he was the head coach at Maryland. Sure, he got fired, but he is already back in D-1 football as a defensive coordinator at Ole Miss, and ESPN LOVES his story of "triumph". Again, a teenager died because Durkin told him he wasn't tough enough. Northwestern did the only thing they could do in this scenario. These allegations, if any or all of it is true, are fireable for anyone. And for Fitzgerald, who I believe is planning on suing the university, to say he didn't know, or was unaware, that is poor leadership from a guy who spouts the benefits of leadership all the time. How could he, being the head coach of this team, have no idea what was going on during his practices and in the locker room? That is asinine. He had to know something.

I read that Northwestern is going to be shooting to hire a big time assistant, and I wish them luck on that front, but this is going to be a full teardown and rebuild. And Evanston is not the best place to try and turn it around quickly. This is a dark day for college football, Pat Fitzgerald and Northwestern. I'd expect this from other schools, even schools within the Big 10. But to hear this coming from Northwestern, that is dark. 

Ty   

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Let Me Respectfully Explain Why Your Team Stinks: Ty is not impressed with Northwestern Football

This is to you Northwestern. You try so hard every year.

Today I'm going to re visit one of my favorite topics to talk about on the site. I'm going to go back to my irrational hatred blog.

I haven't written one of these in quite some time, and with college bowl season all but done, I realized how much I hate Northwestern Wildcat football. This has been a bubbling hatred for some years now. It's grown and grown a lot since they hired Pat Fitzgerald. I'll get to what I dislike about him in a bit.

I feel like they may be one of the most overrated, way to often talked about on ESPN, mediocre football teams I've ever seen. They seem to go 5-7 for three years, they'll up that to 6-6 or 7-5 for four or five years, then they'll have a season like this most recent one, when they finished 10-3 and everyone and their mother seems to think they are on the rise, especially world class blow hard, Mike Wilbon. I swear, if you listen to him long enough, you'd think Northwestern football is as good as the 96 Chicago Bulls. He's that blinded by his fandom. I mean, I love Michigan football, but I also realize that they've been very underwhelming for almost a decade now. Things seem to be turning a corner, with Harbaugh and how they finished the year, but I'll wait to start popping off at the mouth until they prove it on the field a bit more. Not the case with Wilbon. Northwestern can beat Rutgers by 1 point and you'd think they knocked off the number one team in the country when Wilbon inevitably talks about it on "PTI" the following Monday. I cannot take him seriously as a journalist anymore because of his blind love for his alma mater. I understand being a fan of your school, but when you are in journalism, as he is, you cannot be biased, especially when you have a talk show that focuses on sports. It's not a good way to conduct yourself at work.

Let's get back to some other things I don't really care for about Northwestern. I absolutely hate how arrogant and entitled their student athletes act. Sure, you guys are the Harvard of the Big Ten, but who really gives a shit. You know what other schools in your very conference are just as hard to get into? Michigan, Maryland, Penn State, Minnesota and Indiana. Really the only Big Ten school that's an absolute joke when it comes to grades is Ohio State. They could care less if you flunk out of high school as long as you are a good athlete. They are the Florida State of the Big Ten. So, knock it off with the excuse that it's harder for you to recruit elite athletes because your standards are too high. I don't care. Michigan and Penn State have equally as hard academic standards yet they're competitive and get top flight recruits in football almost every year. Hell, Maryland is almost impossible to get into and they have a top ten basketball team this year with one of the best sophomores in all of college basketball, Melo Trimble. He has to go to class just like all the Northwestern student athletes so he can make the grades to play. That excuse is old and tired. I'm done with it.

Then there's your coach, whom I've mentioned earlier. He is the WORST. The only coach I hate more than him in the Big Ten, and maybe all of college football is, Urban Meyer. At least Meyer wins, but he is a cheater, don't get that twisted. Fitzgerald's whole "blue collar" attitude and his teams very hard "work ethic" nonsense that he's always yelling is stupid. It's the worst kind of generic coach speak. He is way too giddy on the sidelines too. A head coach needs to keep his act together until they are in the locker room, where no one, except you team, can see you. I can count on both hands how many times I've seen him cheering late in a game because he thinks his team has the win sealed up, but then they blow it in typical Northwestern fashion. I love how much of an idiot this makes him look. All giddy and excited one second, then something bad happens to his team, then he's all flush with embarrassment and tries to make up excuses in the post game press conference. What a boob. He should have been fired five years ago, but a 10 win season this year has probably bought him, at least, another three or four years.

The majority of his players are mediocre as well. Their version of the spread is laughably bad and extremely slow. They haven't had a decent running back since Darnell Autry, and I cannot think of one time, at least in my lifetime, when they've had a legitimately good college quarterback. The players are sub par and it shows when they face real competition. Let's look at this most recent season as an example. Sure, they beat Stanford in the very first game of the year. It was an 11am kickoff time, making it 9am in Palo Alto, and I as I said on a blog earlier this week, that may not sound like an advantage, but it is. So, they get their signature win of the year during their very first game. Then, they rip off five straight and people are actually calling him a potential playoff team. Totally insane and totally off base. Luckily, for me and all college football fans, they went up to Ann Arbor and Michigan dismantled them 38-0. It was glorious. The following week, with some media, Mike Wilbon, saying that the game was an aberration and they'd easily recover with Iowa coming to Evanston, they got crushed. So, two legit opponents in two consecutive weeks destroy them and their "playoff" hopes. They won their next four games, against very weak Big Ten teams, to finish the year 10-2 and they were actually ranked, by the playoff committee ahead of the same Michigan team that shut them out. They finished inside the top 15, coming in at 13. They were extremely overrated by the committee at the end of the season and it showed when they played Tennessee in the Outback Bowl. Tennessee was very up and down all year, couldn't hold leads against quality opponents and finished the year at 8-4, I believe. Well, they hammered a very overrated Northwestern team to the tune of 45-6. So, against four quality opponents, Stanford, Michigan, Iowa and Tennessee, they went 1-3 with a combined score of 131-29. That's not what a top 15 team does when it plays real competition.

Now don't worry, I'm sure ESPN and Mike Wilbon will have them as a preseason top 25 team going into this year and they will regress back to their 5-7, 6-6 or 7-5 ways. The hype for this nothing program needs to end sooner rather than later. I loathe Northwestern football and it will be nice to see them float back into mediocrity for the next decade. The only really good thing I have to say about them, it's easy to get tickets when Michigan travels to Northwestern and since there's more Michigan fans there, it feels like a home game for them and their stadium and fans, for the most part, are genuinely nice people. But when that's all you have going for you as a football team, well, you will always be mid to lower level. I'm sorry, but it's true. Northwestern is to the Big Ten what Missouri is to the SEC. Very overrated, very underachieving programs.

The love for this team needs to end.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He will never respect a school who has a compass direction in their name. Hear that Parkway West? Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.