Pat Fitzgerald reveals his one regret from Northwestern scandal

Former Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald was 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.

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. Northwestern reportedly settled the lawsuit last month.

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 ESPN‘s Rece Davis on this week’s edition of the ‘College GameDay Podcast,’ where he revealed that his one regret from the situation that resulted in him losing his job.

“I think as the head coach, and again, that’s why I accepted a two-week suspension,” Fitzgerald said. “I take full responsibility. Never said that I did anything wrong or the staff, but that’s what the leader does. I took responsibility and I took the two-week suspension as the leader to say ‘we’re going to get this fixed’. We firmly still believed that we had cutting-edge in the way you should monitor things.

“I have three boys, and I wish I knew what they did every minute of every day. I don’t. But we feel like we educated our sons and educated our sons to do the right things continually to do the right things, and I feel we did the same in our program with our administration and the University.

“We had a zero-tolerance policy for hazing within the program. I educated the guys. We used our resources within the athletic department within the University, and as I look back, there were some behaviors by the guys that I’ve seen after we’ve gone through the investigation and litigation process. The behavior was inappropriate. Just like other issues that arose over my 17 years in leadership, we dealt with those head on. Guys were held accountable. When there were staff issues, guys were held accountable.

“When you didn’t live up to the standard of being a Wildcat, you were gonna be held accountable. I was looking forward to doing that, but I was not given that opportunity. That is a regret I have. I was looking forward to doing that.”

Greg McElroy tabbed Fitzgerald as candidate for Penn State job

Over his 17 seasons in charge, Fitzgerald led Northwestern to a 110-101 (65-76) record with a 5-5 bowl record. This included a 35-19 win over Auburn in 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.

ESPN’s Greg McElroy revealed last month that he believes that Fitzgerald is a name to watch in the Penn State coaching search. Fitzgerald did ‘more with less’, and McElroy noted this could be an interesting partnership with Penn State.

“Just throwing it out there. Remember the name Pat Fitzgerald, just saying,” McElroy said on Always College Football. “Remember the name. With what transpired, and he got paid, actually, by Northwestern because of how that all went down. He’s available, has Big Ten experience, has done more with less for a very long time, which is the exact opposite of what James Franklin did.

“He did less with more. So we’ll see what happens. But that’s a name, by the way. Little nugget. Keep it in (mind).”