I judge people on their decisions and actions. These two are void of any support or "hope", based on their decisions. And I believe Tim Beckman was a fan of Skoal.
Let the coaching search officially commence
- Thread starter Medill '03
- Start date
It is also a program where they can come here for 3-5 years, win, and become a hot commodity.
I thought Beckman liked lasagna. Earl Campbell made Skoal commercials, but he's 68.
Uh, no, he didn't. The defense was as good if not better in 2019 than in 2018. Hard to win games though when nationally you're 5th-worst in passing yards, 7th-worst in total yards, 3rd-worst in yards per play and 5th-worst in scoring on offense.
No. Fitz was not the answer at all. The last couple years makes that abundantly clear. We do not have the players to compete. We didn’t even have the Xs and Os, once Hank left. All Fitz had was the ability to get Pat Ryan to write some checks and the luck to have been carried by Mike Hankwitz. Without Hank, Fitz was equally bad on both sides of the ball. Complimentary football Fitz-style.
I think we can now. We have something we never did with Ara and Gary. We have money. We have a stadium (soon). We have facilities. Hank stayed until he retired. Fitz wasn’t a great coach but he would have stayed forever (while I don’t like how it happened, I think it’s a good thing that he was fired in the long run).
Thank you for reminding everyone that the world isn’t ending. We have had truly great football coaches at NU before and we can now and will again.
I think we are pretty clear how our defense looked in all the years under Hank and what it looked like without him. We also know how shitty our offense was during the entire of St. Paddy’s underwhelming zero title tenure.
Not to mention we had some of the nation’s best offenses during the Walker era. (And people say it was scheme - imagine that? Actually good coaching and coordinating can make a difference!) Put them together and what do you got?
St Paddy’s alternate universe where Clayton Thorson was awesome and McCall a top tier OC
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not.
Under McCall, the Wildcats did not finish in the nation’s top 50 in scoring or yards per play since 2012, when McCall’s beat offense ranked 42nd in scoring and 86th in yards (via cfbstats.com).
Since 2013, these are the yearly scoring rankings: 83, 101, 114, 87, 56, 100.
And these are the yardage rankings: 84, 122, 122, 100, 98, 124.
That includes the Thorson years.
Another potential name for consideration, though likely an extreme longshot: Alex Atkins, OC/OL coach at Florida State. He’s at least a Chicago native, so there’s a tie we might be able to play.
'He's going to be a head coach one day': Why Alex Atkins could help bring Florida State football back
As Florida State's offensive line coach, Alex Atkins has helped head coach Mike Norvell turn the group into more of a serviceable unit.
www.tallahassee.com
Another potential name: Marshall’s Charles Huff. Has had success at Marshall, reputation as a top-notch recruiter.
While he has no personal ties to the program, his DFO is Sharrod Everett, a former NU staffer from 2008-2010. Huff and Everett were on staff together at Tennessee State and the two are quite tight.
While he has no personal ties to the program, his DFO is Sharrod Everett, a former NU staffer from 2008-2010. Huff and Everett were on staff together at Tennessee State and the two are quite tight.
Bama, OSU, and the like also are limited to far less than 1/4 of HS football players. Their limitation is based on talent, not academics. Still, almost every school wants every player they recruit. (Former #1 now at Colorado).
Yet, they pull in the classes they want every year.
As pointed out above, we have demonstrated success pulling from the pool available to us. With good coaching - identifying, recruiting, teaching, scheming, etc.
It can be done at NU. It has been done at NU. And a coach can be handsomely rewarded here or elsewhere by doing it again.
And how did things go for St Pat every single year that Mike was not at NU, before and after? Asking for a friend…
Some people believe the truth lies in multiple data points. Some people find single data points outside the norm to be something they call an outlier 🤷♂️
I looked it up ... Fitz without Hank, 2 four-win seasons, 1 one-win season, 1 6-6 season, zero bowl games. That's just plain bad, there's no way to sugar-coat it.
Come on man.
Fitzgerald took over the team in July of 2006 after Randy Walker died.
The Cats went 4-8 (2-6) that fall.
In Fitzgerald's 2nd year, 2007, the record was 6-6 (3-5).
Then he hired Hankwitz and the team improved to 9-4 (5-3) in 2008.
Fitzgerald's initial recruiting class were underclassmen on that team.
In the previous 5 seasons, Randy Walker had led the team to a 26-34 (17-23) record.
Hankwitz was an important hire, no doubt, but Fitzgerald's elevation of the football program wasn't solely because of Hankwitz.
You're moving the goalposts a bit. "Solely because of Hankwitz" is not what I claimed. "Not very good w/o Hankwitz" is what I claimed.
Look, Fitz loves (or loved) the University, was a great ambassador for the program and the school, and did great things as far as upgrading facilities. I grant all of those things.
But the idea that some people seem to have that "we'll now suck forever because Fitz is the only guy who could get it done at NU" just isn't supported by the facts. We may suck forever, but it isn't because there are no other coaches we could realistically hire who could win here.
I don't think anybody has said (or written)
"We'll now suck forever because Fitz is the only guy who could get it done at NU."
You seem to be conflating two strongly held opinions...
1) Schill and Gragg are idiots who have damaged the program badly.
2) Fitzgerald was terminated in a disgraceful manner for someone who did so much for Northwestern.
When are you commissioning the statue of Saint Hank? Please keep him on retainer for Saint Lowry future build.
How long is forever, I may be willing to go out in that limb?
>> I don't think anybody has said (or written)
A couple of posters have come very close to that. At some point, we need to stop the hand-wringing and "woe is us" stuff and acknowledge (a) the program is not where we want it to be today; and (b) it wasn't there on July 1, either.
>> You seem to be conflating two strongly held opinions...
I don't necessarily disagree with either of those opinions. However, both of them are talking about what's in the past.
The two-character Japanese word for "crisis" means both "dangerous" and "opportunity". That's where NUFB is today.
A couple of posters have come very close to that. At some point, we need to stop the hand-wringing and "woe is us" stuff and acknowledge (a) the program is not where we want it to be today; and (b) it wasn't there on July 1, either.
>> You seem to be conflating two strongly held opinions...
I don't necessarily disagree with either of those opinions. However, both of them are talking about what's in the past.
The two-character Japanese word for "crisis" means both "dangerous" and "opportunity". That's where NUFB is today.
I am both disappointed and disgusted in NU. For me, it is more than football, but also the clear lack of leadership throughout this. The lack of support for the remaining players is mind boggling. I have never been more down on NU. I hope there is something that changes that outlook, but I am not ashamed to admit that I currently do not see light at the end of the tunnel and just changing Coaches, short of Sanders probably isn’t going to change that view.
Look. It's way to early to know how this year is going to turn out. And I don't share all the pessimism that seems to have taken over on this forum. Let's give Braun a chance and see what he can do. One game is no where near enough to throw in the towel on the entire season.
Let's see how things go as the season progresses before everyone here decides to give up on this team. The players deserve our support.
I know it's hard to ignore the awful administration that we unfortunelty now have. But the reality is that it is not likely to change anytime soon. Unless a very powerful group in the BOT takes control and ousts Shill and Gragg we are likely to be stuck with these two for quite a while. As much as I hate to say it, that is probably the reality at this point.
So support the team and the players and try to ignore the other stuff as best you can.
GO CATS!
Let's see how things go as the season progresses before everyone here decides to give up on this team. The players deserve our support.
I know it's hard to ignore the awful administration that we unfortunelty now have. But the reality is that it is not likely to change anytime soon. Unless a very powerful group in the BOT takes control and ousts Shill and Gragg we are likely to be stuck with these two for quite a while. As much as I hate to say it, that is probably the reality at this point.
So support the team and the players and try to ignore the other stuff as best you can.
GO CATS!
Dark horse here—Glen Caruso of St.Thomas-Minnesota! Look it up, STU was kicked out of the MIAC (d3) and immediately went BCS . In their second year in the Patriot League they won it! The guys a winner!
It is comical how the ‘Fitz never did nothing wrong never’ crowd has now resorted to making fun of Hankwitz, even as the strongest defense (though, notably, never a hazing denial) of Fitz also came from Hankwitz.
No, that is me Bob. You call it a knock, because I don’t give all the credit to the Assistants like some that have no clue how a team works. They are a big part of the success, but to suggest the HC is a bumbling idiot that would go winless with these good Assistant’s is moronic.
Or any of the credit. You ignore the logic in favor of what you want to be true.
Ok so our great defenses under Hank weren’t because of Hank but because of the HC. Because we all know that putting any DC in his place wouldn’t have made a difference. Silly of those of us who saw what happened the last couple years to think otherwise.
It’s comical though not surprising that the same crowd that thought Fitz was a great coach insisted that Coach Prime was a joke and doomed to fail.
Nope Doc was a huge part of NU’s success, he was not at all the only reason. It’s an insult to everyone not associated with the defense to claim that we only won because of Hank’s defense. That HC clearly is a defensive minded Coach. How often did that HC elect to have some of his best two way HS recruits go to the defensive side of the ball? Godwin and Lanny two recent examples. Yes, that HC had a boring ball control offense, but what would be your game plan with a stellar defense. Clayton and JJTBC won games for NU when this Defense wasn’t up to its standards.
Not seeing many if any claiming Prime is joke. Seen a few that don’t like his methods but they don’t seem to be in any way aligned with a pro or anti Fitz crowd. I think Prime would win at NU and that is saying something.
Do you realize how dumb a person looks when he takes a statement like "The assistants don't deserve all of the credit" and pretends it says "the head coach deserves all the credit" in order to mock it?
Asking for a friend.
Yeah, while I hesitate to give much credit to Fitz because nearly everything he has done is tainted, clearly there was organizational success - recruiting etc. That said - we economists like to look at what inputs changed prior to the change in output, and to ascribe some causality.
Basketball - soft team loses two big contributors, hires Lowery, team buys in and succeeds.
Football - strong defense-first program, fabled DC retires, arrogant head coach hires his friend and program collapses.
Look at a trend line and see a) success and b) collapse and ascribe causality.
