(07-13-2023 06:47 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-13-2023 02:03 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(07-11-2023 09:30 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

"Northwestern’s search to find coach Pat Fitzgerald’s successor probably won’t begin in earnest until the fall. It’s too close to the season to go looking for a permanent head coach."

Article speculation list:
Dave Clawson (Wake Forest)
Jonathan Smith (Oregon State)
Dave Aranda (Baylor)
Chris Klieman (Kansas State)
Lance Leipold (Kansas)

Northwestern is a plum job. Win enough games and you can get old and grey there. (You'll automatically be rich.)

I think so too.

IMO, any G5 coach would jump at the job, and all but a handful of M3 coaches would take it as well.

That's a fantasy. Fitzgerald was their best player (and coach) in history and was only getting $5.7m per year. Clawson makes $3.6m per year at the 2nd or 3rd weakest program in the ACC. Johnathan Smith makes $4.85m per year at OREGON STATE, and they could be in the MWC in 2 years.

Northwestern pays their coaches like mid-tier M3 schools, if that, and the Administration has less support for their Athletics than (probably?) any other P5 school. No M3 coach worth hiring would touch that job with a 10 foot pole.

Unless...

They pay him like it's a Big Job. Rhule just got $9m a year at Nebraska, pay that for a low-end M3 or pretty good g5 coach and you'll get a good one. But you'll be overpaying, and you'll only get 75% of what he's capable of because he'll always be watching his back and parsing every single word through his lawyer.

(07-13-2023 07:53 AM)chess Wrote:  

(07-11-2023 05:45 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(07-11-2023 03:30 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(07-11-2023 02:31 PM)Section 200 Wrote:  Very tough job before Fitzgerald was fired, impossible job now. Interesting that both Northwestern and Stanford football are in trouble. Will both schools still field teams in 10 years? This might be the opportunity for both schools to start deemphasizing big time football. Will these schools pay players? Northwestern should save the Billion $$$ and invest in something more critical to the school than a doormat football team. [/font]

No one is deemphasizing football. I know that this is a recurring fantasy of people outside of the elite private schools for whatever reason.

Not many are deemphasizing Football, but how can you say that with a straight face about Northwestern. They went from slap on the wrist to you’re fired bc of a hit piece by fake whistleblower with a vendetta. No new evidence. A school that cares about football would have possibly re-examined the situation but not panic-fired the best thing to ever happen to their football program.

Again, to be clear here, I’m going off of all the publicly available information. If there is damning evidence it that report, perhaps against dozens of former players as well, then perhaps they weren’t so hasty. Though in that case, why just the original 2 week slap on the wrist? It’s just very hard to view this situation as anything other than a hit piece targeted at a school that cares more about 0 hurt feelings by anybody than they do about winning football games.

Georgia when a hit piece comes out about their program: “ you’ll be hearing from our Lawyers”

Northwestern in the same situation: “will you feel better if we fire the head coach? What about all the assistants? Baseball coach too? Ok, we’ll even throw in the AD, but that’s our really really final offer”

If Wake Forest can build a program to compete with the big school programs, every school has a chance.

Oh, don't get me wrong, Northwestern now has the chance to build a program that can compete with any in the B1G, including tOSU and Michigan. They have greater resources than any big 12 or Pac school today, and all but a few ACC schools even. But the Athletic Department needs support from the University Administration for that to happen, which means they'll need different University Administration.

Ironically, they were never going to have a chance to build a really strong Program before Fitzgerald was fired, but the backlash from this just might get them to reexamine their priorities as a school and make some changes. Or, it might push them further towards "University of Chicago" instead of "University of Miami", like I said the other day. It could go either way, and neither way is necessarily wrong for them.

(07-13-2023 10:40 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(07-13-2023 06:47 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-13-2023 02:03 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  Northwestern is a plum job. Win enough games and you can get old and grey there. (You'll automatically be rich.)

I think so too.

IMO, any G5 coach would jump at the job, and all but a handful of M3 coaches would take it as well.

That's a fantasy. Fitzgerald was their best player (and coach) in history and was only getting $5.7m per year.
....

That's $109,615.38 a week before benefits and potential bonuses and raises.

With job security if your teams just break even.

Yes, one can get old and grey in a job like that. And you're automatically rich.

(07-14-2023 09:42 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(07-13-2023 10:40 AM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(07-13-2023 06:47 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-13-2023 02:03 AM)Gitanole Wrote:  Northwestern is a plum job. Win enough games and you can get old and grey there. (You'll automatically be rich.)

I think so too.

IMO, any G5 coach would jump at the job, and all but a handful of M3 coaches would take it as well.

That's a fantasy. Fitzgerald was their best player (and coach) in history and was only getting $5.7m per year.
....

That's $109,615.38 a week before benefits and potential bonuses and raises.

With job security if your teams just break even.

Yes, one can get old and grey in a job like that. And you're automatically rich.

Sure, you or I would take that job. But we're not elite level Coaches. An Up and comer, or successful M3 coach has options. And why would NW feel like they should pay a new coach more than they paid their all-time greatest coach, player, and probably fundraiser, too? That would be like saying that Saban's replacement should automatically be paid the same as Saban, but without any of Saban's accomplishments. No, if they valued Fitzgerald at $5.7m a year, they'd value a replacement level or up and comer at perhaps 1/2, maybe as much as 2/3 of Fitzgerald, say $3-4m a year for 5 years. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't pay more to stop the bleeding, but realistically they won't have to. Their DC has a pretty good resume, he'll be good-enough with the X's and O's, and he was vetted by Fitzgerald and the hyper-safety conscious Athletic Department before he was hired. He's clean as a whistle and can't really do much worse than 1-11 a year for a couple of years. They'll pay him $1m to be interim coach this year, then $2.5m a year for 4-5 years, then fire him after 3 years if he doesn't show some improvement or get fired for giving the janitor a dirty look in the interim.

OR, they can try their luck on the open market and see where that gets them. Hint: it will get them a coach who's no more qualified than the DC/interim coach, but who won't have been vetted with a fine-toothed comb yet up to NW's standards, and who will demand a significant premium to sacrifice his career arc and growth prospects as a coach to chase a single big payday.

I think they're stuck with this "interim" coach. It would be the height of irony if Fitzgerald hired a gem here and he manages to right the ship. I wouldn't put it past him, he really cared about his school and would have worked to hire the best person possible for that job.