Pat Fitzgerald’s Overall Positive Coaching Effects

It really was the largest “Meet the Team” event that I have ever attended. The first time was when Randy Walker was still the coach and it was easy to gain access to such star players as QB Brett Basanez then for autographs or handshakes. I can also recall that in the past the entire team was marched up the stairs to the Terrace and introduced individually to the fans. Last night, that simply was not possible. Only the four captains were introduced.

While there were numerous activities for those fans with children, overall, I would say that the announcements were much briefer than in former years, possibly on account of the large size of the crowd. The people working the event had to keep the lines moving.

The West Parking Lot was certainly more crowded than it was in the past for similar events and it appeared that Mustard’s Last Stand was doing a fair amount of business with impatient NU fans who had tired of waiting in line for food atop of Randy Walker Terrace. It was a good showing.

The reason NU gets better results than the quality of recruits would indicate is very simple: we have had a series of outstanding QB’s from Basenez continuing with Bacher, Kafka and now Persa. Obviously in college football the QB position is so important that an outstanding QB can be the difference between a horrible team and one that posts a winning record with a lot of close wins. It also creates the illusion that a team or program is progressing when in fact it isn’t. Look what happened last year when Persa went down. I hope that the powers that be at NU realize that the long term solution is not to keep finding great QB’s to shore up a weak program but to improve the level of quality of recruits at all positions. Otherwise NU is and will remain a pretender; a program that will not be taken seriously.

@LTP – yes, please clarify “struggle to walk off the stage” – that does not sound good, but the way you buried it makes it seem like it’s not a big deal.

Fitzgerald is Eighteen wins and twenty two losses vs Big 10 competition and used mostly Walkers recruits. to achieve this. Very average coach

I have a rehab question for the LTP masses: With Persa doing multiple rehab sessions a day (on top of practices) will, or is it in his best interest physically, get time off before saturday’s game? This isn’t a swipe at his conditioning or anything, I’m thinking more along the lines of power lifting/distance running, taking a day or two to fully rest/recover to peak when needed. Persa’s a freak of an athlete and I trust the med staff to do their thing and rein him in as needed (or not), but I’m just curious if anyone has any idea how this game is played.

@ Philip R-R – Scout.com has our 2012 class ranked #42 which is 7th in the B1G. This better than other years and shows improvement but it is not going to help us catch up with traditional powers in the conference like OSU, PSU and now Nebraska. Since there will be no more sharing titles we may never see another one. I’m not excited about a 50 percent won/loss as being a yearly goal for NU in the B1G.

Granted Fitz is a good coach and the staff gets as much as possible out of the material but that’s it. Our hopes have been raised up so we want more than moral victories from here on. Just think how great Fitz could be with the material other programs have to work with.

Several weeks ago there was a discussion here about major programs like Notre Dame reducing entrance requirements to get top recruits. This is apparently the trend everywhere including the B1G but of course not at NU. I simply wondered how long can we afford to not do what our competition is doing and expect to have success. Many top athletes are in school only to play sports. The top national football programs have many such players that would never be candidates to go to a school like NU. Maybe we should bend a little too. Or, maybe all of college football should recognize the hypocracy of the current system.

If we are going to have success on the field like our future opponent ND expects to have then the powers that be at NU should look at what changes we might have to make in recruiting.

Far too many schools cave into “sports above all” alumni pressure to water down academic standards, and create a big gulf between “student” athletes and the rest of the student body. Fortunately, I don’t see NU listening to those voices, and I’m glad to see they’re in the minority on this and other NU fanboards.