The Purple Pipeline

Darren72 · Apr 30, 2021

Great article by Matt Fortuna in The Athletic, The purple pipeline: Northwestern’s influence permeates throughout NFL’s front-office, coaching and scouting ranks

The FBI Room, as it was affectionally called, was a converted coaches’ office inside the Nicolet Football Center stuffed with eight to 10 grinders. It was stationed by the video room, with floor-to-ceiling windows that ensured the space was always too hot or too cold. Here, the Northwestern “FootBall Interns” — a combination of quality control coaches and entry-level personnel staffers — arrived early, left late and worked decidedly non-intern jobs, such as putting together scouting reports or sliding next door to take in a lesson on how to properly study film.

Fitzgerald: "I want everybody in this program to become a head coach someday, and the only way to get you prepared for that is to be in these meetings.”

The comments are also worth reading, though this one by Fortuna himself on the AD search doesn't sit well:

It should be a top-10 AD job — heck, the last two guys are now running the Packers and the ACC — but the search has been very sloppy. There's a big committee, an outside firm and an outgoing president, and there have been enough leaks to scare off anyone who is already in a decent AD job.

NUChicago · Apr 30, 2021