Northwestern fired long-time Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald earlier this week in light of former players detailing hazing within the program.
Fitzgerald had been head coach at Northwestern since 2006, that after playing for the program from 1993-1996. If you ask any Big Ten football fan, or fan of the sport in general for that matter, what is synonymous with Northwestern football, I can guarantee Fitzgerald is answer No. 1 every time. He is Northwestern football, and it’ll be weird to see someone else roaming the sidelines in Evanston this fall.
One of the many ramifications of Fitzgerald’s firing is the Wildcats now need a new head coach.
Bruce Feldman of The Athletic put together an article with nine potential candidates yesterday. Among those listed: former Wisconsin head coach Paul Chryst.
“Chryst could be the biggest potential wildcard in this search,” Feldman writes. “The 57-year-old former Badgers QB, now a Texas offensive analyst, knows what it takes to win in the Big Ten. He went 67-26 before getting fired last fall in a stunning move. In the previous seven full seasons he had in Madison, the Badgers won at least 10 games four times. They won eight games in his worst non-pandemic year. How badly would Chryst want back in college football? We’ll see after a season behind the scenes in the Big 12.”
This situation is multi-layered for so many reasons. There’s a real question about whether Chryst wants another coaching job, and a larger one about whether Northwestern fits what he would want. After all, the Wildcat program has only four wins in the last two seasons, two total in-conference, and does not seem well-equipped to succeed in the new era of college football.
If you ask me, Chryst would be a perfect fit. He knows the region, has shown an ability to excel on the field regardless of the talent level and he’d do a phenomenal job at staying out of the media.
But expectations in Evanston should be different than at other Big Ten schools once the divisions are eliminated. Becoming bowl-eligible and somehow finishing with a winning record should be celebrated. It’s hard to say whether that standard would appeal to a highly-successful coach like Chryst.
Nevertheless, it would be entertaining if Chryst took the job. Wisconsin takes a 180-degree turn by hiring Luke Fickell and Phil Longo while former Badger head coaches Chryst and Bret Bielema are on the opposing sidelines. Sign me up for that world. Then we would just need Jim Leonhard at Iowa somehow to have a non-Wisconsin chunk of the Big Ten coached by the Barry Alvarez tree.