The only real hard news to emerge from today’s Pat Fitzgerald National Signing Day press conference was confirmation that that the entire coaching staff will be retained for 2016. We all suspected as such, but Fitzgerald told the media assembled at Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse that indeed everyone will be back.
Yes, even Offensive Coordinator Mick McCall, who’s job is…well, you know that McCall shouldn’t keep his job. You knew he shouldn’t keep his job last year, you knew….let’s just move on.
Although the news conference was light on news (all press conferences are these days, just about everywhere, with National Signing Day sessions typically being the worst offender), Pat Fitzgerald did have a lot to say about the big picture. Fitz is essentially the anti-Jim Harbaugh when it comes to honoring scholarship commitments.
We’ll get to that in a bit, first an evaluation of the latest Northwestern football recruiting class hauled in by Pat Fitzgerald.
This is by Louie Vaccher (@WildcatReport), Publisher and Managing Editor of Wildcat Report. It’s the NU community on Yahoo’s Rivals network. Vaccher saw Pat Fitzgerald recruiting to his system and fitting needs, like OL and WR:
This is a solid and “Fitzian” Northwestern class. The 20 new Wildcats are ranked 47th in the country (10th in the Big Ten) by Rivals, but it’s never been about star ratings with Fitz. The Wildcats addressed their needs, at wide receiver and offensive line particularly, and all the players have that “fit” that Fitz always talks about.
The crown jewel is cornerback Roderick Campbell, the lone four-star of the group and a guy that made a lot of NU fans happy when he turned down Notre Dame to wear purple.
247 Sports have NU ranked 50th overall, 10th in the Big Ten. Scout has ’em 43rd and 9th. In other words, they ended up right where you would expect a Northwestern class under Pat Fitzgerald to finish. There’s a 4-star or two, lots of 3s and 2s. They don’t sign 5-stars, you know this.
Gratitude from @coachfitz51 to current @NUFBFamily players who hosted #2016commits #SigningDayOnBTN @HarryCarays pic.twitter.com/4g6bC5SeAx
— Kara Lentz (@karalentz) February 3, 2016
(Regarding the picture above, I should do that grey sweater/navy blue slacks/brown dress shoes combo more often. That worked out well)
Moving on to the more interesting stuff from today.
Pat Fitzgerald on de-commits: “We’ve had some young men who’ve had a change in their decision so that their commitment needs to go somewhere else, and I think I’ve been pretty clear that we’re going to move on somewhere else. That’s just the way we’ve always done it and I think you’ve seen minimal de-commitments from our program over a decade because of that. You build a relationship on trust, you build it on honesty.”
– When asked about de-commitments and offers being pulled, Pat Fitzgerald said: “When we offer you a scholarship, it is a committable scholarship offer. If you decide to commit we’re going to take your commit unless you change your academic character or your social character, we’re not going to change from that. That’s the way we philosophically believe in going about it.
transcript- Inside NU
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and sometimes writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. The website is also featured on News Now.
Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye. He also appears regularly on numerous television and radio talk shows all across the country. Catch him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone.
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