{"id":361544,"date":"2025-11-07T06:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T06:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/361544\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T06:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T06:05:11","slug":"pat-fitzgerald-describes-his-best-fit-to-get-back-into-coaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/361544\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Fitzgerald describes his best fit to get back into coaching"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former\u00a0Northwestern<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0head coach\u00a0Pat Fitzgerald<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0was a Wildcat through and through before he was fired in July 2023. Fitzgerald, who played for the program from 1993-96 and coached the program from 2006-2022, was let go after an investigation concluded that he was aware of hazing incidents that took place around the program.<\/p>\n

His firing actually came after he had agreed to serve a two-week offseason suspension, at which point the coach hired outside legal counsel. Following his firing, Fitzgerald sued the school for $130 million.\u00a0Northwestern<\/strong>\u00a0reportedly settled the lawsuit last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In the three months since the lawsuit was settled, Fitzgerald has returned to the national spotlight as he looks to begin coaching at the FBS level once again. He joined\u00a0ESPN\u2018s\u00a0Rece Davis<\/strong>\u00a0on this week\u2019s edition of the \u2018College GameDay Podcast<\/a>,\u2019 where he revealed his best fit to get back into coaching.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think my fit is at a school that has a lot of linemen,\u201d Fitzgerald said. \u201cI say that because with Jim Phillips<\/strong>, who is now the Commissioner of the ACC, we had alignment moving out of the athletic department through our board up through the presidents office. We were competing and winning championships. We were rolling. As some things change, it changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, that\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to evaluate on my end. I want to be in a fox-hole together with an AD where we are doing this as partner\u2019s together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greg McElroy tabbed Fitzgerald as candidate for Penn State job<\/p>\n

Over his 17 seasons in charge, Fitzgerald led\u00a0Northwestern<\/strong>\u00a0to a 110-101 (65-76) record with a 5-5 bowl record. This included a 35-19 win over\u00a0Auburn<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in the 2021 Citrus Bowl, capping off a 7-2 COVID-shortened season in 2020 in which the Wildcats finished ranked No. 10 in the final AP Poll.<\/p>\n

ESPN\u2019s\u00a0Greg McElroy<\/strong>\u00a0revealed last month that he believes that Fitzgerald is a name to watch in the\u00a0Penn State<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0coaching search. Fitzgerald did \u2018more with less\u2019, and McElroy noted this could be an interesting partnership with\u00a0Penn State<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust throwing it out there. Remember the name\u00a0Pat Fitzgerald<\/strong>, just saying,\u201d\u00a0McElroy said on\u00a0Always College Football<\/a>. \u201cRemember the name. With what transpired, and he got paid, actually, by Northwestern because of how that all went down. He\u2019s available, has Big Ten experience, has done more with less for a very long time, which is the exact opposite of what\u00a0James Franklin<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0did.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did less with more. So we\u2019ll see what happens. But that\u2019s a name, by the way. Little nugget. Keep it in (mind).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former\u00a0Northwestern\u00a0head coach\u00a0Pat Fitzgerald\u00a0was a Wildcat through and through before he was fired in July 2023. Fitzgerald, who played…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":361545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1318,1317,1315,1316,21802,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-361544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-pat-fitzgerald","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115506913424724905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}