Plenty of names will be rumored with Virginia Tech's head coaching opening over the coming months as the Hokies look to make the right hire at a critical moment. Tech has missed on their past two coaches as Justin Fuente had two strong years to start but had a program that declined in talent over his tenure while Pry improved the talent but was simply not a good enough coach.
So as Virginia Tech's search starts to get rolling now that the Hokies have an eight-member committee appointed (headlined by Bruce Arians, Bud Foster, and Eddie Royal), let's begin our dive into various head coaching candidates starting with former Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald.
Part of why we're starting with Fitzgerald is because of the fact that he is out of coaching at the moment and his resume isn't changing between now and the time VT makes a coaching hire.
Before we get into the positives and the concerns, let's note that Fitzgerald's lawsuit against Northwestern was settled in August and included a statement where Northwestern acknowledged that Fitzgerald did not have knowledge of the hazing scandal that led to his dismissal. Here's part of the statement Northwestern put out there with the settlement, per ESPN.
"While the litigation brought to light highly inappropriate conduct in the football program and the harm it caused, the evidence uncovered during extensive discovery did not establish that any player reported hazing to Coach Fitzgerald or that Coach Fitzgerald condoned or directed any hazing," the statement read. "Moreover, when presented with the details of the conduct, he was incredibly upset and saddened by the negative impact this conduct had on players within the program."
I'll discuss that more later on but it's important to establish that before we get into the positives and concerns regarding the former Northwestern head coach.
So let's dive into the potential candidacy of Pat Fitzgerald.
Positives
Proven Winner at The Highest Ranks
Any case for Fitzgerald starts with the fact that he is a proven winner who won at an insanely high level at Northwestern.
His record of 110-101 gives him the highest winning percentage (.521) for a Northwestern coach since Dick Hanley went 36-27-4 (.576) from 1927-1934. This came at a time where Northwestern was consistently one of, if not the, least resourced program in the Big 10.
