Win or lose, Fitz is gonna Fitz

If you were hoping to hear a fire-and-brimstone speech from a coach humiliated by a home loss to FCS Southern Illinois, you came to the wrong place. There would be none of that on Monday’s Northwestern football press conference Zoom call.

That wasn’t the case around the country. Nebraska fired its second coach in as many weeks after a second straight loss. Michigan State head coach Mel Tucker called himself “a horse(bleep) football coach” and said personnel changes were coming soon after a loss to Washington.

But it was business-as-usual at the Walter Athletic Center. Drastic steps are not head coach Pat Fitzgerald’s style.

Instead, he called the loss “very disappointing” and didn’t name an offensive or defensive player of the week. He didn’t bang the side of the podium or use any expletives.

Fitzgerald seemed to even deny there was a problem to correct. When asked what lessons he could take from previous years to right the ship this season, he wouldn’t even acknowledge that the ship was off course.

“The ship is fine,” he said. “I’ll be clear with that. We haven’t won a couple of games.”

Then he went on to talk about the same old Fitz platitudes, like playing more consistently, being more disciplined in preparation, and the horror of turnovers.

There are two ways to look at Fitzgerald’s approach. You can chalk it up to the statements of a coach who has no accountability and maybe has gotten too comfortable under what basically amounts to a lifetime contract. Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

Or you can look at it as the confident words of a coach who knows what he is talking about, and has done this before. Because, of course, he has. Not too long ago, in fact. You don’t have to go back too far because, as he says, “it hasn’t been all roses here.”

Just six years ago, in 2016, the Wildcats came out of the gate and did a face plant, losing their first two games of the season, at home, to a MAC team (Western Michigan) and a mediocre FCS team (Illinois State). That NU squad turned the tables, went 5-4 in Big Ten play and upset Pitt in the Pinstripe Bowl.

Then, in 2018, the Cats opened the season 1-3, including an ugly home loss to an Akron team that finished 4-8. Northwestern again did an about-face, ripping off seven straight conference wins to capture the Big Ten West title, and then the Holiday Bowl. That performance earned Fitzgerald the Big Ten Coach of the Year award.

So Fitz isn’t going to push the panic button just yet. He’s not going to fire any coaches after three games. He’s not going to throw any players under the bus. He’s going to stay the course, as boring as it sounds.

What did the Wildcats do on Monday, after one of the worst losses of Fitzgerald’s tenure? Coaches showed the players the mistakes they made and what they were going to do to correct them. That’s it.

“There’s great belief and confidence, No. 1, from our coaching staff and our players,” he said. Those 2016 and 2018 teams, he said, “didn’t listen to noise, they didn’t listen to outside things. They stayed focused, they worked diligently to improve the things we could control.”

He thinks the same can work for this team. Well, that and – tell me if you’ve heard this before – taking better care of the football.

“You lose the turnover ratio, you don’t give yourself a chance to win games,” he said. “You can occasionally get lightning in a bottle. We’ve got to take care of the ball and we’ve got to take the ball away more… That’s the No. 1 correlation to victory in football, no matter what level you’re at.”

Check the numbers. Northwestern was plus-2 in turnovers in its win over Nebraska. In the two losses to Duke and SIU, they were a combined minus-5. The Cats lost the turnover battle 4-1 against SIU.

That's why, as Fitzgerald said, "I think we're three or four plays away from being 0-3, and I think we're three or four more plays away from being 3-0."

But Fitzgerald doesn't have all the answers up his sleeve. His teams in 2019 and 2021 got off to slow starts, too, and then never improved. They both finished 3-9 and last in the Big Ten West. They both finished well into the red in turnover margin, too.

The point is that there is no secret formula with Fitzgerald. There is no special sauce. His players and coaches are just going to keep working to methodically correct their mistakes and drill fundamentals until the team’s play improves, no matter what irate fans say on Twitter. He does it when they win. He does it when they lose.

“The teams that do that get better,” he said.

The funny thing is, the potential for a turnaround is there. As bad as they’ve looked, they’re still 1-0 in the Big Ten and leading a West division that is as open as a 7-Eleven. The offense, at times, has looked more explosive than it has in several years. All of their goals, as Fitzgerald is so fond is saying, are still in front of them.

So Fitzgerald isn’t changing who he is or what he does. You can decide if that’s good or bad, but he’s the same guy, doing the same things, that have won him more games than any coach in Northwestern history. He’s earned that right.

Of course, you can also argue that Fitzgerald makes more money and has better facilities than anyone before him had, so that should be expected. You wouldn’t be wrong.

We’ll see what happens with this team over the next several weeks and find out whether they are primed for a 2018-style resurrection, in which case Fitzgerald will be lauded as a genius; or a 2021-style implosion, in which case there will likely be a shakeup on his staff.

They are only a quarter into the season. Fitzgerald’s history suggests that you shouldn’t count the Wildcats out just yet.

“You just got to keep the pedal down,” he said, “and I promise you I’ll do that.”