3 replacements for Northwestern after firing Pat Fitzgerald

Northwestern fired Pat Fitzgerald after hazing and culture issues came to light. With the season approaching, these hires would get them back on track.

Pat Fitzgerald was a Northwestern institution, first as a player, then as a coach. He had his hands in the Wildcat program for the last 20 years. Now he’s out.

Allegations of hazing, racism and overall culture issues resulted in Fitzgerald’s firing on Monday.

Now Northwestern has a seemingly impossible task on its hands: They need to hire a new head coach to lead them through the 2023 season with just a couple of months before Week 1 kicks off.

The simplest move would be to promote an assistant as an interim head coach. Both offensive coordinator Mike Bajakian and defensive coordinator David Braun could be options.

But if the Wildcats want to bring in an outside voice to clean up the program, the options aren’t too shabby actually.

No. 3 Northwestern option to replace Pat Fitzgerald: David Shaw

David Shaw resigned as Stanford’s head coach after 12 seasons. He was 96-54 with six ranked finishes at a Power 5 program with high academic standards.

The parallels between Stanford and Northwestern as football programs are pretty clear. It wouldn’t be so different for Shaw to begin the next stage of his career in Chicago.

It’s not clear how interested Shaw actually is in coaching at the major college football level, to be fair. He had expressed frustration with the direction of the sport in recent years. Still, Northwestern would be wise to reach out.