In the wake of Randy Walker’s tragic death last season, Pat Fitzgerald and the Northwestern football program were thrown into an unexpected barrage of firsts.
The first entrance onto the field. The first halftime speech. The first post-game meeting in the locker room.
But most of all, the players endured the first signs that a familiar force on the sidelines was gone.
“When you lose your head coach as we did with coach (Walker), it’s tough,” senior wide receiver Kim Thompson said. “Everybody kind of got thrown into a different mode.”
That mode consisted of an adversity of uncontrollable proportions. The events of July 2006 could not be averted by making a difficult catch or forcing a huge turnover. When it came time to handle adversity on the field, the Cats realized their ability to do so wasn’t always at a premium.
In Fitzgerald’s first season, NU endured the losing end of the largest comeback in Division I-A history. For the first time since 2001, the Cats failed to win a game when trailing at halftime, losing all seven contests. The team failed to reach consecutive bowl games for the first time since making the Rose and Citrus in Fitzgerald’s junior and senior seasons as a player.
But while NU’s 2-2 record heading into Saturday’s matchup with Michigan parallels last year’s .500 start, the steps and circumstances to reach that mark are visibly different, beginning with the attitude of the team.
“He’s able to express his personality a little bit more,” defensive coordinator Greg Colby said. “It’s not that he didn’t last year, but he’s just more comfortable. There’s more of his touch on the team in playing with enthusiasm and passion.”
Those elements began brewing three weeks ago against Nevada. Staring at a 24-10 deficit, NU shifted its focus from the score and stat sheets to team character, resulting in the first second half comeback of Fitzgerald’s coaching career. Junior linebacker Mike Dinard recorded a career high 11 tackles and a forced fumble that game, with six of those stops and the turnover arriving in the second half.
“(Coach Fitzgerald’s) bar is if we play physically,” Dinard said. “Physically is driving guys in the ground, hitting people hard, and maybe even making mistakes here and there, but doing them aggressively. We’ve come out at times not interested and he’s let us know.”
Beyond energy on game day, Fitzgerald has taken steps to minimize lethargy in practice. Last year’s slated time of 4-6 pm has been moved to 9 am – a change welcomed by the players so far.
“A lot of our games are morning games,” Thompson said. “It’s hard waking up at 10 to get to class at 11. When you wake up at 6:30 with a game at 11, you get into the routine right away of getting your body going early.
While Walker was the offensive maestro who powered NU’s spread attack, Fitzgerald’s ideas rest on the defensive side of the ball. Colby described Coach Walker’s defensive checkups as walking in, seeing how the coordinators were doing, and leaving if all systems were good. A change of pace has occurred in Fitzgerald’s first 16 games as head man – the presence of a head coach in defensive film sessions, with a supply of ideas and a wealth of expectations.
“It’s rubbing off on his players,” Colby said. “That’s his biggest contribution. It’s the style. You can tell he knows what he’s doing, where he wants to go, and the kids see it too.”
Reach Chris Gentilviso at [email protected]
