Uh, Marty Long might suggest that rumor of his demise at NU are exaggerated......he's STILL the DL coach.
Randy Bates might want to return to NU after his teams dismal performance against Ped State however......
Since the facility was built to retain him, Is Fitz the highest compensated coach in history?
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Randy Bates might want to return to NU after his teams dismal performance against Ped State however......
Typo! I of course meant Bates, but I wouldn’t be shocked if Long is hired away at some point. His DL get results, and every year we have a couple of studs up front.
Well, he's in his 11th year and came from The Citadel so by definition he's a "sycophant" with a poor (U of Chicago?) background.......
[BTW, Marty went to Northwestern High School in Rock Hill, SC so he was destined to retire in Evanston!]
No one is questioning whether Fitz has that goal.
We're questioning his judgment in retaining a coach that has not fielded an above average OL or put a single lineman into the draft in 10 years on the job. Especially as our OL seems to be our weakest (or one of the weaker) links year after year after year. Shouldn't be that difficult to understand.
Here is what confounds me on that philosophy: when Fitz was the LB coach, I heard with my very own ears that Walker took pride when his assistants were hired away and enjoyed hiring new coaches. That was his expectation for the staff that he hired, that they’d overperform and get new opportunities. Looking back, I think he was addressing the disgruntled players who loved playing for Kromer and other coaches who had moved on. Fitz was in the room hearing this, up front and center. It was one of a few classic Walker speeches that I rather enjoyed.
If McCall retires after this year, Fitz could shake up the staff without firing anyone. I hate seeing people lose their jobs and I hope it never comes to that, but it’s jarring that we haven’t been in the top 40 nationally in scoring since 2005 as another poster said in another thread (Dunbar & Basanez’s final season).
With Fitz’s awesome new facilities, hopefully we’ll get some coaching innovations soon as well. Time shall tell.
Stability is fine. I'm not asking that he fires people after one or even a few bad years. Unbending loyalty with no willingness to weed out underperformers after a decade of futility and failure to improve? That's a formula that doesn't work anywhere.
" Where there is a fortune,there is a crime"
"Where there is a hero,there is a tragedy"
This I agree with.
The NU DLs under a newly minted NFL DC (referenced earlier in this thread) were absolutely dreadful despite having some very good players.
Under this theory wouldn’t Wade Phillips be the most highly compensated coach in history since he was the Cowboys coach when the $1.2 billion dollar AT&T stadium opened?
Stump Mitchell was my favorite running back not named Payton or (OJ) Anderson.
To be fair: I think that not only is Long a great position coach but he’s also performing under Hankwitz’s scheme, who is a great defensive coordinator. People keep referencing the 9 game winning streak but his defensive plans (and a great running game) were the main drivers of that.
Washington & Peterson (the DL coach before him) were probably more than capable given the opportunities they’ve moved on to, but they were working within the confines of the infamous Colby Swiss Cheese defense.
E.g. Wootton quickly looked like a first round pick when Fitz hired Hank, his best move of his coaching tenure so far. I don’t recall any such hype for him before 2008, Hank’s first season.
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Actually, I think Walker said that we had a true freshman kid (Wooten, how the heck is his name spelled anyways) who would make us all forget about the disappointment of Loren Howard.
Nope, and I’ve modified the subject to make the main argument clear.
The AT&T stadium is referred to as the “house that Jerry built” as it would have happened if Daffy Duck were the Dallas Head Coach. Jerry didn't give a crap what Phillips thought about anything, much less his football mecca.
Here’s my logic on this:
- Fitz was a red hot coaching commodity
- Fitz had a contract on the table from a Top 5 program and realized his leverage
- Fitz tells Ryan (and Phillips) he’s leaving given our lacking facilities, unless something’s done
- Ryan shows the tenacity that made him a billionaire, getting a $250M world class facility on the Lake Michigan shore relatively quickly
- Without Fitz, I doubt we’d even have gotten anything by now and certainly not as impressive or pricey
- As evidence: even Turk, one of our most regular & astute posters, constantly referred to it as the “Fake by the Lake”. Even after it was built. It was that fast
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Walker did say that and he was damn right. Wootton always had the raw talent but he only emerged as a potential first rounder in 2008, before his awful knee injury in the bowl game. I don’t recall him making that many plays in the 2 he played BH (before Hank).
Earlier in his career, I recall debates on this very forum whether he should be moved to offensive tackle given our lack of OL depth, which was probably more ridiculous than even anything I’ve ever posted.
BTW his name is definitely Wootton. My mnemonic device: there’s a Wootton street in Boonton, NJ; not far from where he’s from (Don Bosco Prep).
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No, Washington’s defensive lines had terrible footwork and overall poor technique. There’s a reason they did not make many plays.
Maybe he got better after he left NU, but he stunk when he was here.
Hey, maybe Cushing can be an OC in the NFL.
So what do you feel is an effective treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder? Psychotherapy, medication, or a combination of the two.
Posting on Wildcat report seems to help.
The thread is quite interesting in that it discusses things that have been long ago revealed as the Problem of Fitz.
I've stood down on these threads lately because even though Fitz isn't perfect and his loyalty has its drawbacks, the totality of his program has been extremely successful. Isn't he allowed a few mulligan coaches? Yes he is.
The Problem of Fitz is a virus that is contained and dormant and weak since his integrity and dogged determination and drive has FAR outweighed his imperfections.
How anyone could use the Lakeside against him is beyond me.
The Ryan's, Wilson's, and others gave generously to the program and we should be thankful and NOT use it as any sorta mark against Fitz. It has nothing to do with Fitz other than Fitz advocating for the program and players. The facility wasn't built because of some "Barnett like" threat from Fitz saying "You better build this for me or I'm leaving for Michigan". I imagine that Ryan and the NU Admin would have never considered this if that was the case.
Big projects like the Lakeside are built on the trust they had in Fitz, the exact opposite notion of the fear of him leaving. Damn it, give Fitz credit on this. Barnett could only have a press box built as there was very little trust in Gary as he was always flirting with other programs.
At any rate, I knew the page would revert back to meltdown mode after we lost our first game in 10 tries. I get it. Hell, the Michigan board was much worse, even calling for Harbaugh's head after the loss to Notre Dame. This is what us fans do. Let Fitz do what he does.
I've stood down on these threads lately because even though Fitz isn't perfect and his loyalty has its drawbacks, the totality of his program has been extremely successful. Isn't he allowed a few mulligan coaches? Yes he is.
The Problem of Fitz is a virus that is contained and dormant and weak since his integrity and dogged determination and drive has FAR outweighed his imperfections.
How anyone could use the Lakeside against him is beyond me.
The Ryan's, Wilson's, and others gave generously to the program and we should be thankful and NOT use it as any sorta mark against Fitz. It has nothing to do with Fitz other than Fitz advocating for the program and players. The facility wasn't built because of some "Barnett like" threat from Fitz saying "You better build this for me or I'm leaving for Michigan". I imagine that Ryan and the NU Admin would have never considered this if that was the case.
Big projects like the Lakeside are built on the trust they had in Fitz, the exact opposite notion of the fear of him leaving. Damn it, give Fitz credit on this. Barnett could only have a press box built as there was very little trust in Gary as he was always flirting with other programs.
At any rate, I knew the page would revert back to meltdown mode after we lost our first game in 10 tries. I get it. Hell, the Michigan board was much worse, even calling for Harbaugh's head after the loss to Notre Dame. This is what us fans do. Let Fitz do what he does.
An intriguing response as always, Mr. Wickerpark. To clarify:
- In D1 college and professional sports, coaches aren’t allowed mulligans on anything. You are what your record says you are, so nobody's “allowed a mulligan” on anything by opponents who are out for your blood.
- I’m certainly not holding this against Fitz and actually think it was a master move by him; but rather am providing it as evidence that he knows wholesale changes are needed in some areas and is willing to risk acting on them, but not others. Why the blind spots?
- The announcers laid out the history as if it had been a demand during negotiations, and a savvy one at that. I give Fitz full credit for getting it done, but why doesn’t he demand excellence across the board?
I didn’t want to mention it first, but I heard similar critiques from one or two of his DL who I knew at the time. I thought it might be sour grapes given the overall porousness of the defense, but good by him to improve and become a NFL DC in less than 15 years. He may be better at overall management than the specific techniques.
I’ve always wanted to ask: if, in another thought experiment, Long moved on and Fitz called you to be his new DL coach, would you ever consider it? I think you posted once that you’re a published author so you have expertise in other fields, but I wonder if the coaching bug ever hit you.
What some call alternative wisdom, others call fake news. While we struggle to figure out the difference, just simply hail the Word of Turk.
I have tried to unpack this thread and the rhetoric within, and I can’t.
His loyalty to coaches is like a virus he can't get rid of. Just not going to happen, he got it for life. Cushing is here to stay forever. And although I don't know, it appears that he has a problem bringing in seasoned solid coaches. Maybe due to a tight budget, dunno. At any rate, former players seem to be at the top of the list, and I suppose deservedly so.
Got it now. I doubt Cushing is here to stay forever given this is the land of opportunity, but we shall see. I’m for hiring qualified coaches who happen to be alumni as they’re the best ones to sell recruits on what makes NU special.
3 out of 4 is pretty bad when you lose by 14. A simple equation my friend.
The answer is somewhere in this thread for your esurience for knowledge, Hungry Jack. But your post reminds me of another tale:
So I jumped ship in Hong Kong and I made my way over to Tibet, and I got on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-lagunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
May you have that going for you as well.
Nice story. But, it's fiction. The Dalai Lama is exiled, banned from Tibet. You couldn't have possibly met him there.
Fitz is stubborn but not irrational. His comments after the Duke game were a not so subtle indictment of the job Cushing has done. There is really no other way to interpret them. Combine this with the move to bring Anderson on board, and I am of the opinion that Fitz is coming around to the realization that a change will have to be made. Cushing has this season to prove his detractors wrong or I believe a change will be made. Fitz wouldn't just kick the guy to the curb. He would work to find him a coaching spot at another school or perhaps find a spot for him in the Athletic department at NU.
Hopefully, he doesn't bring in another one of McCall's outcast. I doubt Strief would leave his cushy job as a color play by play for the Saints to come back north. But maybe Austin King. An OL coach is crucial to recruiting. It has been the success of Wisconsin and others.
I've laid off of Fitz regarding Cushing. Sure, we struggle with attracting solid OL here but Fitz has been pulling the weight nabbing 10 win seasons so there really isn't much to really complain about, Corbi. And, actually, I'm shocked at just how awful our OL was against Duke. Same thing last year, just incredibly awful against Duke. But solid enough the rest of the year. Given the OL player talent coming in , is Cushing doing that bad of a job?
At any rate, it doesn't matter as much which coach we have if none of our OL can establish themselves in the pros. All of these recruits see themselves professionally, just like any other student program. When Castillo, Cofield, then Wooton stuck in the pros, solid DL recruits started flocking in. From Lowry, now to O'Rourke. Dare I say that we even have a NFL Pipeline going along the Defensive front. We won't be able to recruit solid OL until there is more of a modern day pipeline in the NFL.
Recruiting and development is the primary part of his job description, so yes, he's doing that bad of a job.
And I thought the title of my posts were dumb! This one takes the cake.
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