Just hire Jim Leonard PJ!

Donate To GopherHole
Maybe being close to Pat Fitzgerald nowadays is probable not a good thing. Needless to say, when that news came out about the scandal at Northwestern really shocked me, never say that coming. Similar to the coach at Penn State, Joe Paterno many years ago.
 


DRJ said:
Maybe being close to Pat Fitzgerald nowadays is probable not a good thing. Needless to say, when that news came out about the scandal at Northwestern really shocked me, never say that coming. Similar to the coach at Penn State, Joe Paterno many years ago.
Click to expand...
The thing that bothers me about the Pat thing is that if he knew yeah fire him fine with me.

But was he the ONLY coach there who knew about players hazing each other? That seems way unlikely but they kept all of them ... and the players were adults hazing each other ... they didn't toss any players that I saw.

So the HC goes but a pass for every other coach and players who did the thing?

That's a whole lot of ... not personal responsibility.
 

FUFleckHaters said:
Widely rumored he will be the next DC of the Packers after they fire Joe Berry at the end of the year. Also heard he had major hip surgery and that is why he didn’t take a job this year.
Click to expand...
He’s already turned down Gutekunst for the job once. I’m not so sure he gets a second bite at that apple.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
The thing that bothers me about the Pat thing is that if he knew yeah fire him fine with me.

But was he the ONLY coach there who knew about players hazing each other? That seems way unlikely but they kept all of them ... and the players were adults hazing each other ... they didn't toss any players that I saw.

So the HC goes but a pass for every other coach and players who did the thing?

That's a whole lot of ... not personal responsibility.
Click to expand...
I find it very difficult that no other coaches were not aware of what was going on. It is hard to keep secrets like that, no way. Other coaches had to know and obviously many players knew what was going on. People talk. I agree with you about the head coach, if he knew, he should have stopped it. And if he did not know, in some ways, that is worst because maybe other coaches were protecting him from finding out!!!! Not a good situation anyway you look at it. The football locker room is an interesting subject. I played small college football many years ago and we had about 115-120 players on our team. You do not really get to know all your teammates that well, except for your same year classmates and especially your teammates that play your position. I was a DB and you get to know those guys plus the defensive players pretty well, because you have drills and special practice sessions with them. In addition, I majored in business and accounting and there was not one other player that had my major, so I never went to class with any of them. I hung with other business and accounting majors for the most part, plus I lived off campus, I hated the dorms. Too loud, people never slept. Damn, fifty years have passed already!! Time passed by quickly!! My best memory about small college football was that we played Yankton College out of South Dakota. They had a guy named Lyle Alzado, who went on to play professional football Cleveland, Denver and then Oakland. He was all pro many times. We defeated his team 7 to zero. He ended up dying from overuse of drugs and steroids. In his last days, he put out a letter about his mistake about overuse of drugs and steroids. Life is too short.
 


A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
The thing that bothers me about the Pat thing is that if he knew yeah fire him fine with me.

But was he the ONLY coach there who knew about players hazing each other? That seems way unlikely but they kept all of them ... and the players were adults hazing each other ... they didn't toss any players that I saw.

So the HC goes but a pass for every other coach and players who did the thing?

That's a whole lot of ... not personal responsibility.
Click to expand...
The thing that bothers me about Pat Fitzgerald is that excluding Covid year he was
3-24 his last 27 big ten games


Including Covid he was 9-26 his last 35 big ten games.
 

Just cut to the chase and hire Leonhard to be head coach already!!!
 

Some guy said:
The thing that bothers me about Pat Fitzgerald is that excluding Covid year he was
3-24 his last 27 big ten games


Including Covid he was 9-26 his last 35 big ten games.
Click to expand...
He was falling behind the times of conservative offensive philosophy, being hesitant to let go underperforming assistants (those sound familiar?), but even he could not get admissions to give much leeway and was not a fan of pay for play NIL.
 

Catechol said:
He was falling behind the times of conservative offensive philosophy, being hesitant to let go underperforming assistants (those sound familiar?), but even he could not get admissions to give much leeway and was not a fan of pay for play NIL.
Click to expand...
He wasn’t that conservative ImO
Being bad is not the same thing as being conservative
 









Goldmember said:
Yeah, if you believe everything you read on the internet posted by people who have no idea what they’re talking about.
Click to expand...
Yeah I'm a little skeptical of the kind of rumors that:

1. Fans would LOVE to repeat and believe.
2. There's no reason anyone would say anything to deny it.
3. Coach's (even hometown heroes) I think keep their options open a lot more than fans like to think ... but saying it is a bad idea.

Maybe it is all true, who knows, it doesn't matter, but it's one of those tidbits that folks will repeat and froth over and re-enforces itself with all the repetition ... and you wouldn't ever hear someone deny it even if it wasn't entirely true.
 

Some guy said:
He wasn’t that conservative ImO
Being bad is not the same thing as being conservative
Click to expand...
Northwestern ran a pretty innovative offense when they had Colter and Siemian. They were also pretty wide open with Thorson under center.
 

Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0 said:
Unfortunately, also a PR nightmare!
Click to expand...
Not legitimately.

The media here would try like hell to make something out of it. But Fitz clearly got hosed. He pretty obviously had zero involvement in whatever went on. And he was just held responsible for it because it he was HC at the time. As a coordinator, he isn’t running a program, so it’s a non-issue.
 

tikited said:
Now that I have your attention. I was wondering if you had some time to hear about this great opportunity I would like share with you?
Click to expand...
Will I get free gopher basketball tickets if I attend your pitch?
 

Goldmember said:
Not legitimately.

The media here would try like hell to make something out of it. But Fitz clearly got hosed. He pretty obviously had zero involvement in whatever went on. And he was just held responsible for it because it he was HC at the time. As a coordinator, he isn’t running a program, so it’s a non-issue.
Click to expand...
Good luck with that line of reasoning!
 


A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
The thing that bothers me about the Pat thing is that if he knew yeah fire him fine with me.

But was he the ONLY coach there who knew about players hazing each other? That seems way unlikely but they kept all of them ... and the players were adults hazing each other ... they didn't toss any players that I saw.

So the HC goes but a pass for every other coach and players who did the thing?

That's a whole lot of ... not personal responsibility.
Click to expand...
Others most likely knew, but only the head coach has paperwork saying he is responsible for whatever happens in the program, even if he had no knowledge of it. Since no assistants have that wording, it's harder to go after them. Same with players - there is no legal doc out their holding them responsible....
 


Goldmember said:
Northwestern has no evidence Fitz knew anything about what went on that was over the line. They’re going to have to settle for a ridiculous amount, that will ostensibly admit as much.
Click to expand...
They aren’t going to have to settle for any more than the buyout
 

GopherTheJugular said:
Others most likely knew, but only the head coach has paperwork saying he is responsible for whatever happens in the program, even if he had no knowledge of it. Since no assistants have that wording, it's harder to go after them. Same with players - there is no legal doc out their holding them responsible....
Click to expand...
Eh I don't buy that. Knowledge of kids abusing each other that they coach and not doing anything / not reporting would be enough to fire anyone ...
 


DRJ said:
Matt Rhule and PJ Fleck are pretty close as well, and the former coach at Northwestern, Pat Fitzgerald were close also.
Click to expand...
IIRC you can add Coach Franklin to that list as well.
 

Goldmember said:
Northwestern has no evidence Fitz knew anything about what went on that was over the line. They’re going to have to settle for a ridiculous amount, that will ostensibly admit as much.
Click to expand...
I don't think that's stellar defense you think it is

If he didn't know it's a sign he's incompetent and lost control of his team

I don't believe for one second he didn't know
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
The thing that bothers me about the Pat thing is that if he knew yeah fire him fine with me.

But was he the ONLY coach there who knew about players hazing each other? That seems way unlikely but they kept all of them ... and the players were adults hazing each other ... they didn't toss any players that I saw.

So the HC goes but a pass for every other coach and players who did the thing?

That's a whole lot of ... not personal responsibility.
Click to expand...
My understanding was that they terminated only Fitz, not the assistants, because the season was going to start soon and they couldn't remove the entire staff and still field a squad. It was widely anticipated that they would clean house at the end of the season. However, that was in large part based on the assumption that they would win a game or two and the new coach would be an external hire who would want to bring in his own staff anyway. Now that they have elevated the interim guy, I am curious to see what happens.
 

2nd Degree Gopher said:
My understanding was that they terminated only Fitz, not the assistants, because the season was going to start soon and they couldn't remove the entire staff and still field a squad. It was widely anticipated that they would clean house at the end of the season. However, that was in large part based on the assumption that they would win a game or two and the new coach would be an external hire who would want to bring in his own staff anyway. Now that they have elevated the interim guy, I am curious to see what happens.
Click to expand...
Sports is often very inconvenient when it comes to having consequences.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Maybe he is some sort of defensive genius but for his resume that’s a big jump.
Click to expand...
There are lots of NFL DCs who have fewer qualifications. He played in the league for a decade under guys like Rex Ryan, understudied for Dave Aranda, and ran a consistently top 5 college defense. Would NFL head coaches like a little more NFL coaching experience? Yes, but he's been a player - he's qualified.
 

formerlybis said:
There are lots of NFL DCs who have fewer qualifications. He played in the league for a decade under guys like Rex Ryan, understudied for Dave Aranda, and ran a consistently top 5 college defense. Would NFL head coaches like a little more NFL coaching experience? Yes, but he's been a player - he's qualified.
Click to expand...
If he gets a job and does well then I'll know.

It's still a fast leap / not a lot of experience.

To be clear I don't know the guy's qualification, he may be amazing. Just not a lot on that resume.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom