That shows how myopic your view of Fitz’s tenure at NU is and also shows a complete lack of understanding of how to define success for NU football. While it is true that his last two seasons at NU were not successful, it is also true that FItz led NU to two Big Ten Championship games in the previous three seasons, left NU as it’s all time winningest coach, led NU to it’s only five bowl game victories in program history, and led NU football to a top 3 APR ranking across all of college football for TEN CONSECUTIVE SEASONS. The program’s record of achievement on and off the field under Fitz’s leadership is unparalleled in NU history and I would argue is unmatched in College football. No coach in college football led a more accomplished program on and off the field while dealing with as many limitations that Fitz managed at NU. He not only won, he won doing it the right way. He was the perfect representative for NU football and in my opinion was well on his way to rebuilding the program into an upper echelon Big Ten program. The talent and recruiting class he had assembled prior to his unceremonious firing was as good as NU had in recent memory. While I admire Braun for how he kept things together, I have no doubt Fitz would have won as much of not more in 2023 and I doubt we would have experienced the same drop off in 2024. I hope Braun can be successful but increasingly in recruiting it is becoming apparent that replicating the leadership, aura and charisma that Fitz brought to the program will be very, very difficult.
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