Northwestern Fires Pat Fitzgerald

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hungan1 said:
As should be the case with the principal mission as an institution of higher learning. They are willing to expiate the football program.

NW can do as it pleases to protect its reputation. IMHO, they jumped the gun too quickly. It should have been an indefinite suspension until the facts are brought to bear.

It feels too draconian a punishment. IMHO, a longer suspension with preventative corrective measures established is more apropos.
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And if your kid was one of the ones hazed?

This stuff isnt allowed for a reason. Just because he chose to turn a blind eye to it doesn't mean he deserves a softer punishment. Part of his job is to protect his players and he didn't. (if what we know so far is to be believed)
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Yes

Many people said exactly that. You guys keep acting like you know what happened, or even like you know what’s in the report. You don’t, but are getting extra wound up about our questioning of the facts and testimony within a report -something the school is actively hiding from view.
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First of all I am not wound up about anything.

Second, I am not saying you can't question the facts, I am saying the point you made made no sense. If there was supervision in place, those supervisors would have been talked to or would have gone public by now. They have zero incentive not to. If there was someone out there that could corroborate either side of this we would know about it. That is the point. There is no way he had proper oversight on the program if something like this could have slipped through their fingers. Even if you assume the "whistleblowers" would be afraid for some reason (either Fitz or the school threatened them) the story would have leaked by now and you know that.

You can haggle the rest of the facts all you want...be as cynical or supportive as you like. But don't pretend there aren't things that seem pretty obvious at this point. Lack of oversight is all over this situation and denying that stinks of you letting your cynicism block your ability to deduce logic.

I have no dog in this fight. If Fitz is exonerated I will say he got screwed and admit I am wrong in my gut feelings. But we would know more for sure if he had someone in charge of supervising the team when he and his fellow coaches were not around.
 


MNVCGUY said:
Agree it makes them look bad, but no way you can fire whole staff this close to training camp.
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Sure you can. This isn't Bama this is Northwestern. A bad season will be tolerated. Hell they pretend they suck because of their high standards...this would be the perfect way to back that up even more.

They probably tripled the amount of bad press they are going to get about this. They could have mitigated it by just starting over and sacrificing what was likely to be a bad season anyways.
 

upnorthkid said:
yep i wouldn't be surprised to see a 1 year caretaker HC who has a ton of experience. won't do anything to turn the needle but serves as a stopgap.
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Correct. I wasn't thinking long-term, but as a caretaker/stopgap type of thing.
 


Dave H said:
Sure you can. This isn't Bama this is Northwestern. A bad season will be tolerated. Hell they pretend they suck because of their high standards...this would be the perfect way to back that up even more.

They probably tripled the amount of bad press they are going to get about this. They could have mitigated it by just starting over and sacrificing what was likely to be a bad season anyways.
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Not only could a bad season be tolerated, it has been the last two years
 

Dave H said:
There is no way he had proper oversight on the program if something like this could have slipped through their fingers. Even if you assume the "whistleblowers" would be afraid for some reason (either Fitz or the school threatened them) the story would have leaked by now and you know that.

You can haggle the rest of the facts all you want...be as cynical or supportive as you like. But don't pretend there aren't things that seem pretty obvious at this point. Lack of oversight is all over this situation and denying that stinks of you letting your cynicism block your ability to deduce logic.

I have no dog in this fight. If Fitz is exonerated I will say he got screwed and admit I am wrong in my gut feelings. But we would know more for sure if he had someone in charge of supervising the team when he and his fellow coaches were not around.
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Sigh. Again, you are overstating what is known. I’ve heard commentary up to and including the 11 players corroborated what the QB Richardson said (Fitz orchestrated hazing). A narrative exists that may be truthful, or wildly exaggerated. This morning I listened to the Pair and a Spare podcast while walking the dogs and the host (not the shouter but the wierd sidekick) said the same.

So once again, nobody knows if this was a regular, organized activity on a weekly, semiannual, annual basis or a one-off event. We don’t know if Richardson is just making his version up. The hazing described by the others hasn’t been defined - what did that entail? Sexual grab ass stuff, making freshmen sing, making freshmen do this or that or the other thing.

Unless I am misremembering the report only stated some players said undefined hazing occurred/was corroborated, not what Richardson said (leadership led hazing) was true. If it was an isolated incident here or there I can conceive of scenarios where news of it didn’t make it up the chain.

And yes, I do believe some of you are wound up. Sorry.
 

upnorthkid said:
yep i wouldn't be surprised to see a 1 year caretaker HC who has a ton of experience. won't do anything to turn the needle but serves as a stopgap.
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If Jerry wasn’t busy I’d say he would be a good choice.
 

upnorthkid said:
and this case is not that case with one person saying things, not corroborated by others, with frequent changing of his story. we aren't at filing for criminal charges right now. maybe we will be. arguing that we're evaluating this a judge right now is not where the case is at. we're random people on a message board, not judges/juries. it's all speculative and i don't get why you can't understand/accept that. It's not going to change someone's mind who views the current info we have differently than you to bring out a bunch of random cases.
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^
Youre saying Richardson’s version of events was corroborated? I only read some type of hazing was stated to occur by the eleven but AFAIK we don’t know what they said or what was corroborated. I think we know at least one other said the car wash occurred in 2006-2007, and so on. Where did you see his story was confirmed by the ten others?
 



Some guy said:
Yup. Maybe it does

Maybe it doesn’t.


Northwestern has every right to fire Fitzgerald at any point. And they did. Now it’s a matter of how much they’re going to pay to fire him.
He’d probably like all of it. They’d probably prefer none of it. I would guess they’ll settle in the middle
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Defining the veracity of what happened, to what extent seems very relevant to a for cause termination. That’s why I linked the Penn State hazing case.

Like I said, both parties must know whether they have truth on their side, and also whether they want to allow any other buried skeletons to spring forth from the closet by keeping this in the news, opening up email and voicemail records, and so on. Northwestern is a circus. They want this to go away yesterday.

Based on what you’ve said you seem to feel this is a slam dunk for the school. All I’m saying is maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t. We don’t know hardly anything at all on details relevant to that.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Defining the veracity of what happened, to what extent seems very relevant to a for cause termination. That’s why I linked the Penn State hazing case.

Like I said, both parties must know whether they have truth on their side, and also whether they want to expose any other skeletons to spring forth from the closet by keeping this in the news, opening up email and voicemail records, and so on.

Based on what you’ve said you seem to feel this is a slam dunk for the school. All I’m saying is maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t. We don’t know hardly anything at all on details relevant to that.
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I do not think this is a slam dunk for the school.
In fact, in this thread Ive said anyone who thinks it is a slam dunk on either side without all the facts is equally as idiotic.
Some guy said:
I don’t disagree with that. But
1) I don’t think it goes to a jury
2) nobody on this board has any idea, so someone saying it isn’t a justified firing for cause is being just as dumb as someone saying it’s definitely a justified firing for cause
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I don’t know if you’re thinking of someone else or intentionally mischaracterizing my position
 

Pompous Elitist said:
^
Youre saying Richardson’s version of events was corroborated? I only read some type of hazing was stated to occur by the eleven but AFAIK we don’t know what they said or what was corroborated. I think we know at least one other said the car wash occurred in 2006-2007, and so on. Where did you see his story was confirmed by the ten others?
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Not corroborated in that literally none of it was outside of him.
As far as this event, there at least is corroborated something occurred that was in line with hazing but nothing of specs as you mention
 

Some guy said:
I do not think this is a slam dunk for the school.
In fact, in this thread Ive said anyone who thinks it is a slam dunk on either side without all the facts is equally as idiotic.

I don’t know if you’re thinking of someone else or intentionally mischaracterizing my position
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Not intentionally. You said paraphrasing education contracts stipulate creating a safe environment.
 



Dave H said:
Sure you can. This isn't Bama this is Northwestern. A bad season will be tolerated. Hell they pretend they suck because of their high standards...this would be the perfect way to back that up even more.

They probably tripled the amount of bad press they are going to get about this. They could have mitigated it by just starting over and sacrificing what was likely to be a bad season anyways.
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If you fire the whole staff right now who runs the team? There is a reason why you don't see coaching changes typically during this time of year....too close to the season.

Maybe they end up hiring some out of work head coach. But I don't know how that person assembles the staff they want this close to the start of the season. Maybe a few more assistants get let go once the coach is hired but have to think they at least keep a portion of the old staff in place for the 2023 season before cleaning house after it ends.
 


Dave H said:
And if your kid was one of the ones hazed?

This stuff isnt allowed for a reason. Just because he chose to turn a blind eye to it doesn't mean he deserves a softer punishment. Part of his job is to protect his players and he didn't. (if what we know so far is to be believed)
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B.S.
 


MNVCGUY said:
If you fire the whole staff right now who runs the team? There is a reason why you don't see coaching changes typically during this time of year....too close to the season.

Maybe they end up hiring some out of work head coach. But I don't know how that person assembles the staff they want this close to the start of the season. Maybe a few more assistants get let go once the coach is hired but have to think they at least keep a portion of the old staff in place for the 2023 season before cleaning house after it ends.
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Fleck says player-led teams do best. Maybe they should allow it (for real), see what happens.

Semi-serious.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
OK

I think we’re in agreement then; the facts around this haven’t been established, would need to prove systemic hazing for that clause to apply.
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Yeah. I mean if they can’t prove anything happened at all they’re going to pay the full buyout
 

A news reported today that the NW football coaching staff was caught dry humping in the bathroom of the local Custard shop, near NW campus last night, while Fitz was eating custard.
 






hungan1 said:
I think Fitz deserves better than what he got. This may haunt Northwestern Football and University for a long time.
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They probably nuked the football program completely for at least a generation over, by their own admission,“no evidence”.
 

Goldmember said:
They probably nuked the football program completely for at least a generation over, by their own admission,“no evidence”.
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Nuked in what way? They’ve been over .500 9 times in Fitz 17 seasons and 11 times since 2000. From 1980 to 2000 they were over .500 twice. Their football program has always been bad. It’s not going to magically get worse and will entirely depend on who they hire next. Players still came to penn state post paterno, players will still come to NW. it’s still a good school and in the big ten
 



It will be a tough rebound for NW post-Fitz.

Fitz didn't want to play the NIL game. With the high admission standards, good luck to NW, and other similar programs. They have to adapt to the changes.

Stanford seems to have no problem in the recruiting department.

PJ Fleck was very proactive, and even a pioneer in some cases during the pandemic.
 

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