By David MorrisonThe Daily Northwestern
Coach Pat Fitzgerald saw more than just an incredible comeback in the Chicago Bears’ 24-23 win over the Arizona Cardinals this week on Monday Night Football.
He saw a valuable lesson for his struggling team.
“I put together a highlight tape of all the adversity the Bears faced,” he said. “And how they kept believing and kept fighting and then went out and made it happen.”
The Bears fought through six turnovers and a 20-point, second-half deficit to keep their undefeated season alive.
Fitzgerald said he only got to watch the end of the fourth quarter, but he knew it was over when Charles Tillman returned a fumble for a touchdown and made it a one-score game.
“To see Brian Urlacher on the sideline saying, ‘We got it,’ when they re-seized momentum – that’s football,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
The Wildcats have no come-from-behind wins this year and have not scored in the second half for three weeks.
Fitzgerald said it all comes down to capitalizing, like the Bears did against the Cardinals.
“That’s what we need to do in the second half,” he said. “We’ve had our opportunities, but we haven’t gone out and made it happen.”
Fitzgerald said instead of focusing on the positives of the Bears’ comeback, the tape he showed the team dealt mostly with the negatives that put them in the hole.
“I think that’s much more significant,” he said. “Adversity’s going to strike you in every game, and you’ve got to find a way to come back and seize momentum.”
The Cats have lost four games in a row, their longest streak since 2002. They’ve already matched their loss total from last year and have dropped their first three conference contests by an average of 26.3 points.
Despite these facts, Fitzgerald said he is impressed with the team’s confidence.
“There’s nobody here feeling sorry for themselves,” he said. “We’ve got exactly what we’ve deserved because we need to do a better job coaching, we need to do a better job playing.
“There’s a lot of things we need to work on before we can win. We’re working on it. We’re going to crack the rock.”
Injury Update
For the last two days of practice, there was a healthy mixture of orange and red jerseys thrown in with the customary blacks and whites.
Senior cornerback Marquice Cole and freshman kick returner/cornerback Sherrick McManis donned the orange, the color reserved for players being held out of practice, Tuesday. Both were on the field Wednesday, but Cole wore a red jersey, which limited contact against him.
Sophomore running back Tyrell Sutton, recovering from a separated shoulder in the first quarter of Saturday’s game against Purdue, wore a red jersey at both sessions.
Fitzgerald said the measures were precautionary and all of the players would be ready to go against Michigan State.
Reach David Morrison at [email protected].
