Northwestern Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald News Conference Quotes
December 31, 2009
Opening statement:
“It’s been an incredible week for our football family and now it’s here in the 48-hour business trip of game preparation. I think we had focused and well-executed practices in Evanston and we’ve brought that down with us here to Tampa and now it’s going to be critically important that we eliminate the distractions and focus on what’s important now as we prepare to play a great Auburn team. Like I say, it’s been a tremendous week.”
On the importance of the current bowl system:
“Based on our fans being here, I think this game is pretty important to our football family. We were commenting on that yesterday. To see the amount of people that were down in the Channelside area and everything, I believe these bowl make a huge impact on communities. We get an opportunity to have the Auburn nation and the Wildcat nation come down into an area we probably wouldn’t be in if it weren’t for our football teams colliding here on January 1st. I’m a believer in the bowl system. Maybe it’s just because I’m an old-school young guy that grew up in Big Ten country. To me it’s about the right thing, it’s about the kids and the experience. We’re going to have 64 teams, 32 of which will be champions after their play their bowl games. And yeah, one will be crowned national champion, and good for them, and we hope to be there someday, but we still have an opportunity to be a champion and I believe that’s what every team wants to be called.”
On breaking Northwestern’s bowl victory drought:
“It’s kind of like that 800 pound gorilla sitting over there in the corner of the room; I’m really looking forward to getting off our back and then you guys will stop talking about it. Since day one the goal has been to win a bowl game, and that number one goal in our program is right here in front of us. Our young men have earned the opportunity and now they’re going to have to earn the win. It’s not going to be easy; it’s going to be against the best team we’ve played all year.”
On the Auburn Tigers offense:
“Gene (Chizik) and his staff in year one have done a tremendous job, I believe, of molding their philosophy into their players. They play extremely well as a team. They’re very talented in all three phases. (Ben) Tate is as good of a running back as we’ve seen; he reminds me a lot of (John) Clay and you saw the game that he had against Miami the other night. We’re going to have our hands full as a defense. Gus (Malzahn) and his staff do a great job of using multiple formations, motions and shifts to try to take advantage and outflank the defense. So we need to be sound, we need to execute.”
On the Outback Bowl kicking off at 11 a.m.:
“It’s routine for us. On the Big Ten Network we play at 11 o’clock it seems like every week. For those of you that don’t cover us on a regular basis, we practice in the morning, so we typically are in meetings at 6:50. So 11 o’clock, shoot, we’re getting off the practice field at 11 o’clock. We’re used to getting up early in the morning.”
On safety Brendan Smith playing in the Outback Bowl:
“It’s been great having him out there all month. I’ve been so happy for him; he’s been through so much. He’ll be the first player in our program’s history to play in three bowl games. It means the world to him to have this opportunity again. He’ll play with a cast on his thumb. To have him out there as leadership, his playmaking ability will be a huge lift to our defensive secondary.”
