I’m very surprised that both the local and the national media overlooked this bizarre and grossly inaccurate statement Northwestern Coach Pat Fitzgerald made following the 47-33 loss to his hated intra-state rival on Saturday. Fitzgerald actually sounded a lot like the Coach on the other sideline, Tim Beckman. You could says that Fitzgerald “pulled a Beckman,” by doing a “if you take out X plays and Y points” and we finish….Let’s just get to the quote:
“Other than this first half, the second half of the Nebraska game and the whole Iowa game, we had every opportunity to win the rest of the games.”
Fitzgerald referred to the first half of the Land of Lincoln game, where his group fell behind 26-7, Nebraska, where he led 17-14 at half before being outscored 24-0 in the second half. He seems to have forgotten another whole half of play where the Wildcats failed to show up- the opener versus Cal. (And also the first halves versus Michigan and Northern Illinois, where the offense didn’t wake up until late in the 3rd quarter)
Pat Fitzgerald’s team fell behind 24-7 at halftime (versus Cal, and then trailed 31-7 in the third before their alarm clocks finally went off. To Fitzgerald’s credit, he is right in that he still had a chance to win that game. Down 31-24 with 1:38 to play, Trevor Siemian had driven the Wildcats to Golden Bears territory, but got picked off at the Cal 38 yard line. So while I agree with Fitz in that he was right there competitively in nine games out of 12 this season, I whole heartedly disagree with his statement that the Wildcats only played four bad halves of football the entire year.
His team had seven bad halves of football this year. This statement is kind of like a most ambiguous but equally misleading “5:03” that became the motto post 2012 entering into 2013.
Cal, like Northwestern, ended up at 5-7 and will be home for the holidays. Pat Fitzgerald made an infamous comment in that postgame press conference about blogs. The quote then turned into…..this.
And that transitions quite nicely into Pat Fitzgerald making pointless, condescending remark about blogs. After the Illini game, he was asked about how he sells the program to recruits now, after back-to-back bowl less seasons. “We’re pretty darn close to being where we want to be.”
“We tell them not to read blogs.”
Now really, what is the upside to making that remark? How does that help anything?
Yes, NU narrowly lost a couple of games in 2014 that it could have won. Just like what happened in 2013. So Pat Fitzgerald, over the past two years, has the same exact record as Tim Beckman: 10-14.
So when Fitz said this on Saturday:
“Our program is as stable and as strong as it’s ever been.”
No one outside of the NU Football Family believes that. The records, numbers and statistics show that. Just like no one believes that Northwestern is “Chicago’s Big Ten Team” outside of the NU marketing department. The latest polls shows that the five most popular college football teams in Chicago are 1.) Notre Dame 2.) Illinois 3.) Michigan 4.) Ohio State 5.) Northwestern.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net ,which is partners with Fox Sports. Read his feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks). His work has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Washington Post and ESPN 2