Fitz ‘one-million percent’ confident Cats will be back

EVANSTON-Here are five takeaways from today’s press conference with Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald and Wildcat players.

Fitz is confident the Cats “will be back”: Fitzgerald was defiant in the face of a 1-7 season, saying he is “one-million percent confident” that the Wildcats will return to a “championship-level program.”

And soon.

“I’ve got a track record of success here. Kicking ass and taking names. We’ll get back to that,” he said.

Fitzgerald said that off the field, the program has never been better. Recruiting, the program’s 100% graduation rate and the new, state-of-the-art Walter Athletics Center are proof of that in his mind.

He said that the problem is “on the field,” and he has no doubt that things will get fixed.

“I hope (opponents) are enjoying the time now,” he said. “We will be back.”

Northwestern absorbed a couple more injury hits to its defense on Saturday. Fitzgerald announced that starting CB Greg Newsome and starting DE Samdup Miller will be out for the remainder of the season.

The defensive line, and defensive end in particular, have been hit hard by injuries this year. DEs Earnest Brown is out for the year and Devin O’Rourke hasn’t played in several weeks. As a result, true freshman Tommy Adebawore has been promoted to first team at DE and Trent Goens, who has been moved back to DE from SB, is his backup.

When asked about Goens’ move, Fitzgerald said, “We’ve had some injuries, brother. Do you have any eligibility left?”

The good news this week is that fifth-year senior captain Trae Williams is back in the lineup. He will replace Newsome as the starting cornerback, while Cameron Ruiz will continue to man the other side.

Trey Pugh is also back on the depth chart for the first time this season at SB. He replaces Goens as the No. 2 SB behind starter Charlie Mangieri.

Johnson is day-to-day: Fitzgerald said that QB Hunter Johnson is day-to-day after getting injured on a hit against Indiana that “in my opinion, was unnecessary.”

Fitzgerald said that Johnson and Aidan Smith have been splitting reps “about 50/50” in practice in recent weeks, and he expects that to continue if Johnson is healthy enough to carry the load in practice.

Normally, he said the split would be more like “70/30” if the Wildcats’ had a clear-cut No. 1 quarterback. “We don’t have that,” he said.

The future is now for Adebawore: Fitzgerald likes what he’s seen from the 6-foot-2, 260-pound freshman Adebawore, who registered a sack against Indiana on Saturday and is now a starting DE.

Adebawore has “great power, good getoff and uses his hands well,” said Fitzgerald. DT Jake Saunders, who is now starting at DT, is also an admirer, saying that Adebawore is “super strong, super athletic. He wasn’t expected to play, but since he has, he’s really stepped up.”

If Fitzgerald had his druthers, he probably would have redshirted Adebawore, who has already played in four games and will officially use his first year of eligibility against Purdue on Saturday. But he laughed at having a plan in the face of the Wildcats’ injury situation. “Plans are plans,” he said. “It’s day-to-day.”

Fitzgerald said that Adebawore has a bright future, but that “unfortunately for him, the future is now.”

Staying positive is a challenge: Middle linebacker Paddy Fisher acknowledged that it’s difficult to stay positive in the locker room “when everything around you is negative.” But he said that he hasn’t seen any evidence that is team has thrown in the towel and that they’re still “fighting every day.”

For his part, Fitzgerald said that his biggest challenge is keeping the team focused on going 1-0 and trusting themselves, even though, as he put it “we haven’t scored a touchdown since Kennedy was president.”

He thinks his players are “in their own skulls” and thinking too much, rather than just playing. The problem, as he’s said several times this season, has been taking what happens in practice to the games.

The 14th-year head coach also remarked that this season hasn’t even been the most difficult of his career personally. “It’s an awesome group to work with,” he said, adding that he thought he would be talking about them as the school’s all-time winningest class at this point of the year. “I would never have predicted this prior to the season.”

But Fitzgerald has no time to mull over all the ways the season has gone off the rails. “I didn’t get here by pouting,” he said. “I got here by fighting.”