Coaching movement is a ubiquitous aspect of college football. Big teams who failed to meet expectations look for hot commodities at mid-tier programs to return to their former glory. After the powerhouses take their pick of the available options, less glamorous schools pick up the pieces, either to fill the shoes of a coach who’s left for greener pastures or to replace one who wasn’t up to par.

The same story plays out year after year, and, as with most parts of the top-heavy sport, it leaves football’s middle class in limbo. Play too poorly and you’ll be forced to fire your coach and start over. Play too well and the coach who got you to that level will likely be poached away.

Northwestern is a decidedly mid-level Big Ten school and is certainly one of the lower-profile jobs in the Power-5 conferences. But thanks to coach Pat Fitzgerald, it’s avoided the coaching churn and enjoyed a rare quality in college football: consistency at the head of the team.

Fitzgerald is in his 11th season at the helm in Evanston. He’s the second-longest tenured coach in the Big Ten, after Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz. It stands in stark contrast with other Big Ten schools like Illinois, which has had five different coaches, including interims, since Fitzgerald took over the Wildcats in 2006.

Fitzgerald has his flaws, but he’s done well enough (and better than almost every other coach in NU history) with a combined record of 74-60 and six bowl appearances. He’s adapted his style to the teams he had, leaning on his offense and defense alternately as time has passed. He recruits solidly, he usually makes the right choices during games and, outside of some Cats’ unionization efforts in 2014, he’s attracted little unwanted attention off the field.

But Fitzgerald’s best quality might be his commitment to the job. For more than a decade, NU hasn’t had to spend time in transition or scrambling to hold onto a recruiting class with a new coach. And when the Cats find success, as in Fitzgerald’s two 10-win seasons in 2012 and 2015, they haven’t had to deal with a coaching search in the offseason.

Fitzgerald’s name is often floated when big openings arise. He was rumored to be a target of Michigan’s search for a replacement for Rich Rodriguez in 2011 and was connected to Texas a few years ago. But now, 11 years in and with a contract that runs until 2020, it seems unlikely that Fitzgerald is going anywhere for a long time. If he’s not a Northwestern man, nobody is.

NU will never have the talent or resources to expect to contend with the country’s best teams year in and year out. At most, the stars will align every so often for the Cats to put together a special season.

But with Fitzgerald’s steady presence at the helm, NU will never squander one of those chances to break through while adjusting to a new coach. Given the circumstances of his hire following Randy Walker’s passing, the Cats couldn’t have done much better.

Nobody knows just what motivates Fitzgerald except the man himself, and maybe some blue-blood school will come calling with an offer he can’t refuse in the near future. But at 41-years-old, he’s already cemented himself as a fixture at NU, and that’s the best thing the team has going for it today.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @maxschuman28

Max Schuman is a McCormick junior. He can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected].
The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.