To state the obvious: Northwestern's firing of Pat Fitzgerald was shocking.
The fifth-longest tenured head coach in FBS and, without question, the most important figure in his university's football history, Fitzgerald went from gainfully employed on Friday morning to terminated by Monday evening with very little explanation in between.
Fitzgerald led his alma mater's program since the July 7, 2006, a job he inherited in a time of similar duress, days after the late Randy Walker's sudden heart attack death.
This means Northwestern is about to embark on its first head coaching search since the winter of 1998.
First, there is the immediate matter of the 2023 season. A Wildcats team that went 1-11 in 2022 and sits at 4-20 since winning the Big Ten West in 2020 now must head into the season with very little time to prepare for the upcoming campaign and, as of this writing, zero explanation as to how a 2-week suspension turned into a termination over the course of 72 hours.
Northwestern was likely to be underdogs in 10 of 12 games before Fitzgerald's firing. And now a staff of assistant coaches -- complicit bystanders in some people's eyes, innocent victims in others' -- must lead the team knowing they will almost certainly be out of jobs come December. The impending search could go in any number of directions, but a fresh break and a clean slate seem mandatory.
In the here-and-now, Northwestern has appointed defensive coordinator David Braun as something of an acting head coach/liaison to the football program, but this situation calls for a long-term interim -- an outside hire to serve as the head coach for this season and this season only. Think Jim Grobe after the Art Briles meltdown at Baylor. This person would need to have enough gravitas to command the immediate respect of the locker room and the public, and also be established enough in his career that caretaking the program for five months would sound appealing to him. If Northwestern is looking for suggestions, allow us to offer up former Bears head coach Lovie Smith.
Looking beyond this season, with the Northwestern job on the open market for the first time in a quarter century, here's a rundown of what a prospective new head coach might see as positives and negatives.
LEADERSHIP
The first question every coach wants to know is who their boss is going to be, and how supportive that person is of football. The answer, in this case, is ????????
University president Michael Schill unilaterally decided to fire Fitzgerald, after unilaterally handing out his 2-week suspension, and didn't really explain how he got from A to B in a 72-hour span. This naturally invites questions, and a Board of Trustee member may not find the answers satisfactory.
One thing this saga proved is that the buck stops with the president when it comes to Northwestern football, which puts AD Derrick Gragg in a precarious spot.
Gragg, by the way, is dealing with his own scandal related to the baseball coach he hired who, after one season, has reportedly run off a number of players and coaches with an alleged toxic culture of his own.
Fast forward five months from now, I wouldn't be surprised if Schill and Gragg are both still in place, and I wouldn't be surprised if both are gone.
RESOURCES
Northwestern is a high academic school in the nation's most lucrative conference, and a private school in the suburbs of the nation's No. 3 media market, which means.... Northwestern is a high academic school in the nation's most lucrative conference, and a private school in the suburbs of the nation's No. 3 media market.
That's a long way of saying Northwestern's profile will always attract a certain type of kid and repel another, and the second group will forever be larger than the first.
Ryan Fieldhouse is as picturesque as it gets when it comes to football facilities, a 460,000-square foot facility with a 44-foot-tall glass façade providing views of Lake Michigan and Chicago, and an 87-foot ceiling that means even the punters don't have to go outside to practice.
Ryan Fieldhouse helped build the Wildcat team that won the 2020 Big Ten West title, but it was also in place when the 2022 Wildcat team went 1-11. It won't win games by itself.
Northwestern has plans on the books for an $800 million renovation of Ryan Field, but Monday's news may slow that down.
Speaking of, Fitzgerald was tight with the Ryan family, who have donated hundreds upon hundreds of millions to the university and the football program. Maybe the Ryans' feelings toward Northwestern remain unchanged through this week's news, maybe they don't.
EXPECTATIONS
As mentioned above, Fitzgerald went 4-20 over his last two seasons and was in no danger of losing his job.
Now, the next coach won't have the on-the-field job security that Fitzgerald enjoyed, but this isn't a "national championship or bust" program. Six to eight wins per year will earn you tenure in Evanston. Money won't be an issue, with a $7 billion TV deal now in place. Northwestern is one of the few places in college football that can pay a coach like a Playoff contender to reach the Outback Bowl.
However, structural changes outside Northwestern's control have increased the difficulty of the job. The transfer portal makes it easier for the Wildcats to lose players than gain them. The Big Ten's additions of UCLA and USC will eliminate the Big Ten West, which means fewer games against Minnesota and Purdue and more with Michigan and Ohio State.
In fact, the Wildcats get Ohio State, Penn State and USC in 2024, and Ohio State and Michigan in 2025. (Northwestern has not played Ohio State and Michigan in the same regular season since 2013.)
Elsewhere, Nebraska is trying at football again. Wisconsin will likely improve after a couple down seasons. Illinois is on the upswing.
The new TV contract may allow B1G schools to pay their coaches $7 million or $27 million a year, but someone still has to finish at the bottom of the standings.
It's not hard to squint and envision a near-future where Northwestern is once again the Vanderbilt of the Big Ten, for all that means. It's also not impossible to see, with the right person in place -- someone with enough sway to get the administration to allow the right players into school, a figure with enough juice to get the money of Chicago behind him -- Northwestern approximating what Stanford built in the 2010s, or rising up for an all-the-pieces-click season like what Tulane just enjoyed. Everything's on the table here.
SUMMARY
The last great Wildcat football moment that did not involve Pat Fitzgerald as a coach or player was... the 1949 Rose Bowl win? The 1936 Big Ten title? In between those milestone moments and Fitzgerald's arrival, Northwestern went 3-62-1 from 1976-81. This program has proven it can hold its own with the biggest of the big boys when all the pieces are in place, but it's also seen the bottom fall out like no one else in college football.
I don't know what the future holds for Northwestern, and that's the point: Nobody knows. A coaching search at Northwestern in college football's post-modern era is uncharted territory for all involved.