CHICAGO — Coach Pat Fitzgerald seemed to be in high spirits Wednesday when he announced the signees of Northwestern football’s 2015 recruiting class.

After a dramatic few days of buildup which saw two Wildcats recruits decommit from other schools, only to be replaced by other last-second commitments, there were no surprises Wednesday morning as all 20 players expected to sign National Letters of Intent for NU did just that.

The Cats’ head coach was quick to rattle off statistics on the new class: nine players on offense and 11 on defense, 10 signees who played in state championship games, a team grade point average of 3.46 and two pairs of high school teammates.

The pairs are offensive lineman Adam Lemke-Bell and quarterback Lloyd Yates from Oak Park River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois, and wide receiver Jelani Roberts and cornerback Alonzo Mayo from Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland.

The pair of signees from Maryland is unusual for NU. Fitzgerald attributed it to the Big Ten’s recent addition of Maryland and Rutgers as member institutions.

“We’ve always recruited New Jersey pretty hard,” he said Wednesday at a news conference in Chicago. “Now to get into Maryland and have some success … there’s no doubt expanding our conference is going to help Northwestern.”

In addition to Roberts and Mayo, the Cats pulled six players from warm-weather states: two from Georgia, two from Texas and two from California. Just five members of the class are from Illinois.

With NU’s two last-minute recruit swaps, much of the press conference focused on the process of recruiting. The Cats aren’t usually known for losing their recruits late in the process or coaxing signees away from other schools.

“We felt strongly with a couple of the young men we had the opportunity to add,” Fitzgerald said.

The coach joked about the role technology plays in modern recruiting.

“We only had a couple kids fax their letters in today,” he said. “I assume by next year it’ll be all email or Snapchat.”

Fitzgerald said most high school players’ use of social media gives coaches access to information they didn’t have only a decade ago. He stressed the inexactness of the whole recruiting system, saying one of his main goals throughout the process is to “eliminate every unknown.”

He was much less forthcoming on the question of which players will redshirt or receive playing time next year.
“I don’t decide on who redshirts,” Fitzgerald said. “The young men decide on who redshirts. If they’re not ready to play, they’re going to redshirt. I’m not going to waste their year in the kicking game.”

Given NU’s strong crop of wide receiver recruits this year, Fitzgerald also addressed the issue of next year’s starting quarterback. Redshirt freshman Matt Alviti split time with junior Zack Oliver at the end of last season, and true freshman Clayton Thorson will enter the fray during spring practices.

“It’s going to be wide open,” Fitzgerald said. “We have three guys who are going to compete … until somebody, or multiple guys, separate themselves. … I know all three guys want the job.”

Email: robertpillote2017@u.northwestern.edu
Twitter: @BobbyPillote