tos....has posted that Teddy Greenstien has verified that there have been family issues involving Hunters Mother....and that football was "taken off his plate" until the situation with his mother improved.
Johnson and Family issues
- Thread starter loyolacat
- Start date
Yeah, if Andrew Marty got time against dOSU because he's an Ohio native, HJ should get time in Bloomington.
I didn't say "get time." I said "start."
These sort of pieces don't just come out of nowhere. Fitz and the NU media folks don't just happen to make Hunter available to open up about all this.
I strongly suspect this marks the official start of the Hunter Johnson comeback tour.
p.s. I am appreciative of the way Fitz dealt with the sensitive situation.
And #regardlessoftheQBhowarewe130thinthecountry
Note: Aidan Smith is ALSO an Indiana kid. So I think Fitz gives him the start and rotates HJ throughout the game, riding whoever possibly gets hot.
And I agree, Fitz handled it well.
I know Aidan is from Indiana. Why do you assume this has to do with hometowns? Fitz is not in the business of giving QBs some time against their in-state school just for the heck of it -- except when down by 5+ TDs.
If you believe the following two things:
1) Fitz/McCall see Hunter as the QB of the future, not Aidan
2) Fitz/McCall want to avoid any QB controversy as much as they possibly can
Then going to Hunter after a game in which Aidan played the entire time and put up zero points (the first shutout since 2015) makes a lot of sense.
He was the Week 1 starter, everything about why he hasn't played since Wisconsin is now in the public domain, and there is now zero margin for error if NU wants to sneak into a bowl game.
Hunter's time is now.
Prayers for his mom. Football comes after family and always will.
Good luck HJ. Don’t know what’s happening but hope things go as well as they can.
Whoever starts, we’d better damn well beat the Hoosiers.
Why? This season is shot to hell anyway. Let’s get through the next five games and heal up in the offseason.
I expect we will win a few remaining games and the Corbis and PFs will use that to claim all is fine w the offense. And another year of McCall and Springer will come around.
If we win, I hope:
HJ sits out and gets mind straight. Practice, practice, practice.
Games are won with defensive scores and defensive lock downs such that any talk about retaining those two clowns brings the hard, hot heat from all media and booster types into the lap of PF.
It’s time for a sea of change. Please don’t let crappy programs like IU, Mass, PU and IL interfere.
Someone around here said they would be happy with 2-0 wins. Great - I could get behind four consecutive 2-0 wins against crappy teams. Then let’s talk about how much they liked them and feel prepared for 2020.
I find myself agreeing.
In a way, we're victims of our own success and character. Years of eking out wins by the skin of our teeth were exciting and satisfying as long as we were winning. But in retrospect, that success was hiding a deep and sinister problem -- our dysfunctional offense. This problem would rear its ugly head in head-scratching games like Akron, ISU, etc. but Fitz, Hank, the players willed the program to win games, even though they were handicapped by a bad offense.
It's time for a change.
I don’t care how we win as long as we do so while maintaining the character and integrity of the program.
2-0, 33-27, 54-51: doesn’t matter.
Bob: please say it with me, a win is a win is a win.
I think that we should not let it be lost that Fitz stood up there and made bs excuses and gave bs explanations, creating distractions that could potentially sacrifice his reputation and job....to protect the privacy of a college kid.
THAT....is a leader of men.
THAT....is a leader of men.
Point taken - strictly regarding Hunter Johnson.
Why are first in war, first in peace and last in the nation in offense, regardless of the QB? Last. Dead last. Worse than Rutgers. Against now-exposed ordinary opponents. Even with Hunter playing half the games. No excuse.
We have one particular business unit/operation that is unexpectedly losing money, a lot of it, this year. It is because of the managers of the operation and one particular former senior executive. But - guess what? Not one of us will get our bonus this year. Some people got fired. that's the real world
LOL wuht???
College football is not the real world (unless your own world is incredibly small).
Actually, I don't think the analogy by @phatcat is all that far-fetched. College football is big business, and a Power 5 program like Northwestern is a multi-million dollar enterprise. I guess the bonus he's talking about is a Bowl game or B1G championship, but the problem is clear as day -- an underperforming, actually terrible, business unit. It's actually been underperforming for years, but has been masked by the heroics of the defense and excellent coaching by Fitz. The warts are visible in losses to teams like ISU and Akron though. We need a new leader for the underperforming business unit.
Unless you are a coach making $5M a year on a lifetime gig and have a cast of cronies that underperform, don't get fired and are unaccountable for their performance
I think Fitz earns every penny, and more, of that $5M salary. He is one of the best coaches in the country, and his market value is actually much higher than $5M. But as a CEO of a multi-million dollar enterprise, he must make the tough decisions even if it means getting rid of poor performers that he happens to personally like.
The offense is not a "business unit" but I will play along and run with the metaphor. It's a department.
But the result that matters is 36 wins in 4 years. That's what matters to the buy and hold shareholders. The last quarter sucked, and the short sellers are ganging up, but I think value investors are not very worried. There has been underinvestment and poor product development on the offensive side, but there are some interesting things in the pipeline.
Big Ten payouts to NU in 2018 were $54 million. Conference revenues were $759 million, a 48% increase over 2017 revenues of $513 million. The Big Ten outearned the SEC by $100 million in 2018. The conference is doing great, and NU is benefitting financially.
The offense is a division or business unit.
A department is the O-Line, or Running Backs, or Receivers, etc. that belong to the division. Each department has a manager, eg. Anderson, Ayeni, etc. Same for defense, its departments are D-Line, Linebackers, etc. The coordinators are like GMs of the division, separate organizations.The mission statement of the enterprise is to win championships. We've won only one championship during Pat Fitzgerald's tenure. We got partially there last year with the B1G West championship, a great accomplishment. We took a huge step backward this year. I firmly believe Pat is the right guy to lead the organization. But when it comes to the underperforming business unit, he can't be fooled by the false positives of the recent success. In hindsight, Pat's been coaching around and over the weakness of the offense, and it finally caught up to him this year. There is really no downside to replacing McCall, and potentially a big upside if Pat hires the right person to lead the offense.
If Fitz had to do an annual earnings call, and gave no credible vision about how the worst offense in the country will improve next year, the stock would plunge. I am long on Northwestern, but I would be shorting it until McCall is replaced.
Fitz could have just as easily said, "Hunter is dealing with a personal issue and will play when he's ready." That would have ended it. There's no reason he had to let speculation fester about Hunter's health, status, and state of mind. Unfortunately, he's shown he has a habit for creating unnecessary drama because he considers himself above the media and ordinary fans.
Aside from that, I am glad that he has treated Hunter and his family with respect and hope that Hunter's mom has a speedy recovery.
Agreed. Of course, if HJ asked Fitz not to say anything at all, it's a different story, but if he didn't, I think they did him a disservice by remaining so quiet.
Or Fitz could talk about the R&D pipeline. There are 2 highly rated WR recruits in the program as first year players, and an impending crop of highly rated OL recruits committed for 2020, as well as 2 new recruits from 2019, who will be under the tutelage of a new OL coach. This may be a lost season for HJ, but he has another year left. Aidan Atkinson is also in the pipeline. There is more talent coming in at positions where it is sorely needed.
You never hear about these things unless the playing time or team is insignificant.
If I were a shareholder on the conference call, the first question I would ask is: "How can you assure me that the incredible talent in the pipeline won't be squandered by the leader of the worst offense in NCAA FBS football? The same leader that has been the architect and executive of below-average offenses for years?"
