Quick Hits

• New poll, new opportunity to make it look like I have readers. I voted for Syracuse. I'm a little concerned about winning in the dome, to be honest. In our last poll, as you can still see, Patty Fitz won 25-16 over Bill Carmody. An astute, anonymous commenter brought up the very good point that if Fitz coached basketball at NU, the football team would probably drop in quality as he'd have to split his time. As someone who cares more about basketball than many other things in life, I could live with that, if it attracted a higher level of recruit - I could see Fitz as a Calipari-esque coach without the skeeziness and abandoned wins, someone who might know less about basketball than Carmody forgot yesterday but could get higher-caliber recruits, and keep someone who actually knows how to coach on the payroll, and win a few more games than under Carmody. Obviously, the poll was sarcastic - but think about it: The program might actually be better off. 
• Kyle Rowley's enormous left foot is fractured. Feet aren't meant to support seven-footers, regardless of their size, and Kyle is big, even for someone his height. I hope this isn't the type of thing which nags at him throughout his career, because he could turn out nicely. I've said this once, I'll say it a thousand times, Rowley needs work on his basic fundamentals. Give him a red tee, let him fully recuperate, practice with the team when he's ready, and just focus on school and basketball without the extra worry of being a Big Ten center. I'm sure the work ethic is there, but he needs time, and even if next year is now for NU basketball, Rowley will contribute to the team more in three years than he will this year, so, hand Mirkovic the starting spot and let Rowley recover. The worst thing would be for Rowley to think he's okay and then refracture the thing and need whatever surgery Yao got this offseason while he's still under 20 years old, costing NU a potential prospect.
• Football's 16 days away. I checked up on Coach Fitz's twitter again, to see how his usage of the exclamation point is going, and in doing so, gain valuable insight into the mindframe of the world's most intense human. It turns out, it's actually decreased: over his last 20 posts, he's used 20 exclamation points, a perfect one !pp (exclamation point per post) thanks to my apple+f research abilities. I credit the slight downslide to two different reasons: 

First, Fitz has learned to lean on the caps lock much more than he used to. I theorize that this has led to a decrease in exclamation point usage without signifying a decrease in Coach Fitz's actual intensity, as he's just using a different method of portraying the same intensity. Where that post might have read "Just had an extremely productive team meeting" it now reads "Just had an EXTREMELY productive staff meeting".

Next, it's important to note that Fitz's exclamation point usage has become limited to fewer posts. Of his last 20, only 11 feature exclamation points. This means that Fitz's use of the single exclamation point has virtually died out - when he's using exclamation points, he's using multiple. 

My psychological analysis of this evidence is this: With football season fast approaching, Coach Fitz's intensity has given way to to a calmer, focused state. However, when he receives stimuli from the outside world that prompt his intensity to surface, it surfaces in a higher magnitude than when Fitz is at his normal state. 

• So that's it for now. Vote in the poll, and give a reason if you're voting for a team other than Syracuse in the comments section - I'm genuinely curious as to why you'd pick, let's say, Eastern Michigan. 

And the winner is....

Bill Carmody! 

Carmody wins a 30-27 thriller, coming from behind in dramatic fashion.

Wet Paper Bag coughed up a seemingly secure 24-21 lead, meaning you'd rather have Bill Carmody as the head coach of NU basketball than an inanimate object. 

And, look, I know the expression is "Bill Carmody couldn't coach his way out of a wet paper bag", but I thought putting him head to head against the bag would be more interesting. First off, I think we all know Carmody could coach his way out of any sort of bag - with the amount of hilarious overdramatic arm motions he uses to signify various zone defenses, I have a funny feeling he'd penetrate the bag interior and claw his way to freedom. 

But as someone who generally truly loves NU sports, I have difficulty comprehending why Bill Carmody is still our coach. If you do anything for eight years, and in your eighth year, you are 6% successful at that thing, you have no upside. You have failed, and there's no logical way to believe that you will someday be successful. Bill Carmody did that by going 1-17 two presidential terms into his administration. I don't care if he can out-coach John Wooden while blindfolded. Change has gotta come.

The fact that Pat Fitzgerald is universally respected, and won his poll (which asked if the best coach in the nation was "Pat Fitzgerald" or "other") something like 13-2 and Carmody barely beat out Wet Paper Bag is meaningful insight into the way NU fans feel about each guy respectively even if we were overexaggerating a bit with each poll. 

There's gonna be another poll up soon - vote or die!

Since I wanna make this joint as reader-friendly as possible, I'm going to take my time to respond to things people comment every once in a while, and now's one of those times. 

First off, for those of you wondering how to use the comments section, NorthwesternHighlights has got it down. I giggled at his comment on the Craig Moore post. Giggled.

 

Two people sufficiently deaded me in my safeties post, and I feel compelled to respond.

First off, Closso, who contends that Brad Phillips didn't go helmet-to-helmet on Shonn Greene. Now, Closso, you're without a doubt the runaway leader in the "Rodger's favorite commenter" award, mainly for posting a link to this site in LTP's comment section, but, trust me, I've seen that video my fair share of times. Either that was helmet-to-helmet or Brad Phillip's chest is made out of some sort of graphite-titanium composite that they make golf clubs out of, which isn't totally out of the question, but it sure looks like he's leading with his head while Greene is already off-balance a bit and falling head-first. Then again, I thought our fight song went "hit em high" instead of "hit em hard" for about two months, and kept asking people why our fight song condoned things that would likely get 15-yard personal foul penalties, so I'm probably not the guy to trust when it comes to matters of tackling people above the waist.

There was also a guy saying that Brendan Smith isn't as good in pass coverage as I portrayed him to be, citing the OSU game. Well, you're probably right, anonymous guy. To be honest, I remember very little of the OSU game after we tied it up at seven, other than the inability to feel my lower legs and the fact that my mom kept complaining about how cold it was. I was a little hesitant to include a sentence describing Smith as good at pass coverage, but I remembered his two interceptions for touchdowns this past year and decided to throw it in, one of those was a deflection, and one of those was a terrible throw into double coverage where he was just waiting to run it back against Syracuse, both were probably more indicative that he's a good return man than he is a lockdown defender.  

I already called out run-on sentence guy, and the rest of the comments were like "hey, nice blog" or on posts too far back for me to mention here, so, basically, in summary, thanks for reading, thanks for commenting, and thanks for voting in the polls. Ask about my reader-friendliness policies, folks. 

Coach Fitz!!!

I wrote last week a little bit about how excitable Coach Pat Fitzgerald is. I think there's no better display of this than his twitter feed, which is handily linked to in the links column on the right side, but which, to be honest, I hadn't really analyzed, or checked, that much, until I got curious today.

As Twitters go, it's a pretty decent one - few spelling mistakes, clearly done by Fitz himself, and extremely Fitz-like. It's filled with all-caps, and most of all, exclamation points.

In his last 20 posts, the man has 24 exclamation points. (!) That's 1.2 per post. Although it drops off a bit as the posts get older - he only has 91 in his last 100 posts, then again, maybe that's because most of his recent posts are about his induction to the hall of fame, which would get me pretty hyped and exclamation point-y - he's still a freakin' prolific exclaimer.

Considering one of the main reasons Fitz is an NU folk hero is his preposterous intensity quotient, it's good to see his online persona punctuates things exactly the way I picture him talking.

Here's to Coach Fitz.

Today, as you probably done heard, is Pat Fitzgerald's big day. Our coach is getting inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame for his service to NU as a linebacker back in 1995-96, when, as you also probably know, he led NU's defense to two of the best seasons in NU history, and certainly the best two defensive seasons. 

Unfortunately, I'm only 19. I barely understood football when Fitz was domineering opposing running backs, and didn't pay attention to NU football for at least ten years after his days in purple were over. I know him as a coach. I've already offered my views on Fitz the coach in picture form, so allow me to do so in words.

Even if Pat Fitzgerald was Carmody bad at running a program, I'd still probably like him a lot. He's young, extremely passionate, easily excitable, friendly and likable, he stands up for his players and they love him back for it, and it genuinely seems like he loves Northwestern. 

Luckily for us, that's not a problem. Fitz might be the best recruiter in NU history, and we've seen steady improvements each year he's coached, and, small sample size be damned, the man actually has a winning record as an NU football coach. He probably has close to a 100% approval rating among NU students, as evidenced by his close to mythical status among us and by the extraordinarily high percentage of people who kept those disembodied PTI Pat Fitzgerald heads on sticks they gave out at the Purdue game and put them somewhere in their room. 

Some people talk about Coach Fitz becoming NU's personal Joe Paterno, others talk about him being lured away to some other school by a few extra million. To be honest, as much as other schools are probably willing to shell out for him, I'd be surprised (and betrayed) if he went anywhere else. Fitz is genuinely in love with Northwestern, and is still grateful for getting recruited by NU and for the fact that we gave him a chance as a coach. And I think we'll see him here for decades to come. Hopefully, he'll age more gracefully than Joe Pa. 

So, Coach Fitz, congratulations, and thanks. 

Pat Fitzgerald will be our coach until 2015

My reaction: