Northwestern Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald News Conference Comments

Opening statement:
“To everyone at the Outback; thanks for the opportunity to be here. It’s been a couple of days, about 50 degrees warmer than it’s been in Chicago, so it’s been a lot of fun for our young men, especially to see the sun today. It’s the first time we’ve seen that baby in about two weeks based on the weather we’ve had up in Chicago. It’s been a fun couple of days for us to work; we needed the work. We’ve had to practice indoors almost exclusively up in Chicagoland. To get outside and catch kicks and do different things that we needed to accomplish here early in the week has gone well. I want to echo the same statements as Gene has made; it’s just been an incredible couple of days for our program. Our families have had a great time, our coaches have had a great time, and our players have had a blast. Now they get an opportunity to go to Busch Gardens and then we’ll wrap things up with more excitement as our entire football nation comes on down here from all over the country. They will be down here tomorrow and obviously then it will be about focus. The great thing about being at the Outback Bowl in Tampa is there is so much to do. We try to balance having a great time by making sure that we focus on what’s important in this specific scenario. What was important this morning was that we got great meetings and a great practice in. We accomplished that. Now we’ll go have some fun and enjoy the rest of the day. We’re just very fortunate to be here.”

On the status of defensive line coach Marty Long:
“We got some great news today, he’s feeling better and improving every day He had a little bit of double vision, that’s now gone away. As I said yesterday to Teddy up in Chicago, we’re going to dedicate this game to him. It breaks our heart that he cannot be here with us, but we’re thinking about him and praying for his speeding recovery. We fully anticipate and expect a full recovery.”

On what it takes to be a successful program at Northwestern:
“Number one it’s from a leadership standpoint. We’ve got a great president and great support from our administration. Our alumni and donors have been more supportive than maybe in any other time in our program’s history. We’ve been able to attract and recruit high-quality and world-class student athletes to our university. To our coaching staff’s credit they have embraced and believe in what we are and what we stand for. We try to develop world-class student athletes and give a world-class student athlete experience. With that comes the expectation that we’re going to do well in the classroom. Add 54 players above a 3.0 and a team gpa of a 2.98 and win eight football games and go 5-3 in our league shows that you can have that balance. You can have the best of both worlds, but it starts and ends with recruiting. We’ve got to attract the right kind of young man that fits our football program. Our coaching staff has done a tremendous job. Once you have that it’s kind of a vacuum that pulls everybody up. The culture within our locker room is to do the right thing, not just on the field, not just socially, not just in the classroom, but all areas combined, and I’m very proud of that. It starts and ends with the way our young men are raised in their home and the way they go about their business in high school, and hopefully we can just put the finishing touches on developing them when they come to our university.”

On the similarities in tempo between Northwestern and Auburn:
“I don’t want to speak for Gene, but there are two defensive guys sitting up here. I think we know what gives defenses problems. The way we look at our program, we want to find a way to put our players in the best formations and execute the plays they can do in all three phases, and tempo is a big part of it. As Gene stated, there’s a right time and a wrong time. To be a no huddle team, and to be a fast tempo team, you can also do a lot of damage to your defense and your kicking game. So you’ve got to be smart, you’ve got to pick your poison, and you’ve got to use it to your advantage.”

On the keys to wide receiver Zeke Markshausen’s success:
“It starts with his work ethic. He is just a tremendous worker. He’s been diligent in the way he’s gone about learning the offense, improving himself from a strength and speed standpoint, and then the way he competes every day in practice. I don’t believe the young man has had a bad practice in his entire career. He catches everything that’s thrown to him. He’s very devout in his faith, he’s grown in his faith, and he uses that as his strength. He’s just really unflappable. He’s always positive, always upbeat, and does just a tremendous job leading that wide receiver room. You talk about one of the best stories in America. A young man that went to a small school in Wisconsin and says, ‘I think I can play big time football.’ He calls the coach and says, ‘Can I transfer, can I walk on?’ And now, 80 receptions later, one of the best years ever as a wide receiver in Northwestern football history while being an electrical engineering major. He’s just the full package, and I look forward to him donating a lot of money back to Northwestern because he’s going to be very successful.”

On buying into the current offensive philosophy:
“I bought into it right away. I thought it made the defense defend the entire field horizontally and vertically. It made the defense defend a tempo. It made the defense defend for verticals and the speed option all in the same formation. It’s one thing to be one-dimensional and just be a running team, but I really thought if you had a good quarterback you could spread the ball out and use a lot of different weapons. Philosophically, trying to defend it, I thought it was the right offense for us to run.”

On the value of quarterback Mike Kafka:
“When you talk about most valuable players you typically talk about the player that means the most to his team. If you were to remove Mike from the season we had, it was just a magical season for him. To throw for almost 70 percent, the efficiency really led our offense. More importantly, off the field the leadership qualities that Michael has; he’s a member of our leadership council and voted captain by his teammates. He’s just done a tremendous job. Mike’s been in every role. As a redshirt freshman he started for us, then was injured. He had to overcome the injury to get back on the field to compete. As he gets healthy, C.J. Bachér had two magical years for us. This year now he’s back as a starter. He’s kind of seen every role the quarterback may have. I think that’s really taught him and he appreciates the opportunity that he has. Mike means a lot to our football program. While he’s done all that he’s mentored Danny Persa and Evan Watkins and helped the next generation in our program get ready. That’s why I think he’s the MVP, not just for what he’s done on the field.”

On taking over the Northwestern program after the death of Randy Walker:
“To go back in time and think about the circumstances, I didn’t think a whole lot about myself. I thought a whole lot more about Tammy and the Walker family and about coach and how I could help our players and coaching staff through that time period. When Mark Murphy came over to my house and said, ‘We believe that you’re the right person to help get our program through this.’ The first thing I said was give me a day to think about it, I want to sleep on it. Not that I didn’t want to have the opportunity to help our program through that and everything I just mentioned, but I wanted to make sure it was right. I slept on it and thought about some things and I spent some time talking with my wife. The challenges that you have to be a head football coach and our roles pale in comparison to what it means to be a father and to be a husband and to be a friend. That was what was important during that time period. We got through it. It wasn’t easy; it’s still ongoing. We think and pray about coach every day. He’s with us every day at practice, what we do and how we do things are molded in a lot of the values that coach taught all of us. That’s why this game is so special to our football family. We’ve got 21 great seniors. The fifth-year players are the last group to be recruited, coached and mentored by Randy Walker. To have them be in this opportunity on New Year’s Day I think speaks volumes for what they’ve been able to overcome and the adversity they’ve got to fight through, the real life adversity they’ve been able to fight through. I couldn’t be more proud of them. It’s not been easy, but it will be lessons that they’ll take with them the rest of their lives as they move forward and become husbands and fathers.”