I don’t see how Northwestern could have fielded a team in 2023 if they fired the entire coaching and support staff in mid-July.
But I think there will be a major housecleaning at the end of the season, and Dr. Gragg probably made that pretty clear to the staff yesterday.
Anybody who’s been around a coaching change already knew that when the head coach is fired, the new guy usually gets to decide which assistants and other staff members he wants to keep, so they already knew their jobs were likely to end in November, and probably suspect that they might have trouble finding new ones quickly if they’re all considered damaged goods by other schools.
Similarly, suppose they had a list of every player who was involved in any hazing activities, should they dismiss them all from the team?
We found out during COVID that if the available scholarship player count drops below some number, around 56, you can’t even play the game.
There could be a Colorado-scale player roster upheaval heading into 2024. And maybe sooner than that if a lot of players enter the transfer portal in the 30 day window that opened on Monday. (But if you were a football coach at some other school, would you want to bring in a Northwestern transfer player in July who might have been part of this mess? The players may also be considered damaged goods by other schools, even if they say they weren’t involved.)
We haven’t seen the full report, just the carefully written executive summary. As I understand it, Fitz and his attorney haven’t seen the full report yet, either.
By all accounts, they checked their sources. Another player corroborated everything they printed. And they obtained pictures and videos that also corroborated aspects of what they printed. And what they printed was consistent with what the investigation revealed. While we technically didn’t know that at the time, the University has said as much since and certainly hasn’t denied it. There was no new information that came to light over the weekend, it doesn’t seem. It just became public when the University apparently hoped it might not (obviously a miscalculation, in hindsight at least).
I don’t think we will find out that the whole mess was the result of the Daily reporters failing to check their sources.
I think you may be putting a little too much weight on Dan Webb’s puffery. I suspect Fitz can make a case that he wasn’t actually terminated for “cause.” The strength of that case will depend in part on what his contract actually says. I don’t think Webb has said what the contract says. The separate “oral agreement” argument seems to be a red herring. Optically it provides some force to Fitz’s case, but I don’t see what it does legally.
I don’t buy the “suffered severe damage to his reputation” claim at all. What legal theory is that based on? Webb hasn’t said. Defamation? If so, what statement did the University make that was false? Schill’s statement even said he had no credible evidence that Fitz knew about the hazing. Under Illinois law, I’m not sure a defamation claim would even survive a motion to dismiss based on the actual statements that were made.
I think the objective is to quickly extract the largest settlement possible. Neither side wants a trial. It would be costly and damaging for everyone.
But again, this whole thing is so unexpected, what happens next is anyone’s guess.
Dan Webb is interested in trying this in the court of public opinion.
To that end, he is free to put his own narrative out there in hopes that it will portray Fitz as the victim of an inept and cowardly administration.
It’s early, but so far it appears that he is making progress.
At this point, the message is clear. If Northwestern wants this all to go away, they should be prepared to write a big check. Otherwise, it promises to be a very public and messy divorce. Fitz is tied so closely to the University’s public image that attempts to tear down Fitz’s reputation are going to inevitably do at least as much damage to NU too.
If whomever has run the show for NU so far, remains in charge, it is going to cost at least Gragg and maybe Schill their jobs too.
One 40,000 feet above observation is that I’m glad all this banter from our list and elsewhere about the firing of Fitz , is due to discussions about knowledge and/ or responsibility of the head coach for alleged transgressions ,but hardly a word or 2 about a desire to fire Fitz for leading a team the past few years to only 2 Conference wins in 2 years.
I think Fitz’s record over the last few years was largely due to not adjusting to the transfer portal/NIL era. Nobody had him on the hot seat list for 2023, but if all this hadn’t happened and he had another 1-11 season, he might have been there for 2024.
Kafka was mentioned as a possible replacement for Fitz in another topic, he has no experience with the transfer portal or NIL, either. And the assistant coaches he knows are likely to be ones in the NFL.
I have been wondering when the NU athletic department, or top NU administration, is going to communicate something about this directly to alumni/donors, etc.
I’m a 3x alum, have been a (SMALL) donor to NU athletics for decades, and normally receive multiple emails each week about one topic or another from somewhere at Northwestern. In the past week alone I’ve received perfunctory emails from the Alumni Association, Weinburg, and NU Club of Virginia. But the athletic department has gone silent, as has the top level administration.
I am not surprised, Northwestern has never really been very good at communicating in a crisis, but that is far from unusual for organizations facing a crisis.
I suspect the Trustees are well aware of how much the Athletic Department and top administration are in communication with the greater Northwestern community. There are enough people on this list alone (and we’re small fish in a big sea) who have channels to one or more Trustees, that I’m sure they’re hearing an earful.
The week before this story broke I got the usual phone call from a Northwestern student wanting to ‘update records’, a veiled request for donations. I didn’t answer that call, but they usually call back several times and that hasn’t happened.