I wonder if the exact same thing had occurred at Alabama or Ohio State if it would have made such a splash?
At this point I really doubt Fitz can survive this. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are already negotiations taking place as to the buyout of the balance of his contract.
The question I have is whether any of the assistant coaches should also be sanctioned, I think they’re likely to have know more about it than Fitz says he did. But you can’t fire the whole coaching staff in July, can you?
It might do far more than put the program in the toilet for another 4 years. Think about how many decades it took for SMU to get back to anything close to respectable football after the Death Penalty year. And that pretty much killed the SWC.
In a full-out game of conference musical chairs, the Cats could be left standing when the music stops.
As I suggested in a previous post it’s possible that the allegations that the law firm investigated and concluded that were pretty much validated, might be different than the player, Carl Richardson, is now telling the Daily or ESPN Or maybe it’s the same. I think at this point we don’t know
I will tell you with so many of the players parents writing to Schill asking that Fitz stay because they think he is doing a great job training their kids for life , that this could possibly save his job
Adam Rittenberg, who has reported this story since January for ESPN, appeared on NBC Chicago tonight and said that, other than varying “he said, he said” versions, NU management hadn’t really heard much new since the sanctions were announced on Friday.
Rittenberg’s opinion is that it would be a “big leap” from current sanctions to firing Fitz. He believes that penalties may escalate instead to game(s) suspensions or missing a half season. It’s just his opinion.
We may find out a lot more substance before too long.
There is a rumor floating around that Hilinski has a recording of the player ,( who made the accusations) saying he wants to take Fitz down and hope he goes to jail
So far we have hazing, some of which involved overtly sexual acts, and racism. All we’re missing is infidelity and financial corruption.
The fact that this latest claim is a decade old makes it worse. This isn’t something that just popped up. In 2013 Kain Colter and Siemian were the QB’s and there were known racial issues with that team. That blossomed into the first efforts the following year to form a players union which further splintered the team. Fitz decided to take a strong institutional stand which probably also alienated some players.
But that isn’t why this is all coming out now.
It is all coming out now because those who have had issues with Fitz over the years are finally able to speak out and be confident that their stories are going to be told. So it is ALL going to come out.
I don’t know if we will ever get to hear the whole story. But I’m also not sure that there is anything that Fitz could say right now that could mitigate the damage.
I never heard of any racial issues during the Siemean /Colter era. That is not to say there weren’t any; I just never heard of any either through this forum or any other. Of course the recent events do allow the floodgates to open ; there is now alleged bullying by the coach on the NU baseball team
Regarding the union and Fitz’ position : again I will post that I never heard from anyone on the inside that the split amongst yes or no votes caused team dissension . Several on our list have claimed that it did , but that was the extent of it I would be open to hearing if any player or coach suggested it hurt the team, knowing it would have been very unlikely that anyone on the team would have been around long enough for the final resolution to have worked through the legal and NLRB process. (Thus unlike other union votes in the workplace, player votes would not really have mattered to “employees” , except in principle or if KC had become head of such a union )
