... or "Pat Fitzgerald Bites The Hand That Feeds Him."
At his Signing Day press conference, Coach Fitz used part of his opening statement to lay into the recruiting services/websites. It was seemingly meant more in jest than anything else, but it was a little over the top and unnecessary.
The catharsis is understandable. As a head coach, you are constantly second-guessed publicly for everything you do by media people who have little-to-no knowledge of either football or the things that go on behind-the-scenes in the program. Idiot bloggers like those on that little-updated Spread Far The Fame blog are further away from the behind-the-scenes dealings of the program, and often try to tell you how to do your job without ever showing their faces. Angry casual fans and message board regulars are even worse. It undoubtedly feels great to start firing shots back for once.
That being said, it came off as petty and in poor taste on a day that should have been all about the 21 new student-athletes joining the Northwestern family.
It is easy to just say that recruiting "rankings" are BS. Most of them involve some super-secret "formula" that may or may not involve the number of fan subscribers to the particular school's recruiting website, and not all prospects get the same attention and scouting (or even seen live by someone responsible for rating them). They are most definitely not a reliable indicator of how a prospect will play at the next level-- every team's fan message board has at least one "superfan" with nothing to better to do who always has a list of every single lowly-rated high school prospect since the beginning of time who excelled in college/the pros on standby just in case someone wants to get excited about a highly-rated prospect or complain about how poorly recruiting looks. Coach himself gives the example of the lowly-rated classes that produced the 1995-96 seasons.
However, when you open your press conference by saying recruiting rankings are BS, rip the two reporters from the recruiting sites sitting there in front of you... and then go ahead and list the rankings first in your description of every prospect, it feels pretty hypocritical.
The sense that a coach owes fans "nothing" is ridiculous. These fans support the program with money, attendance, eyeballs on television screens, booster clubs-- they are the "revenue" in "revenue sport." Surely Coach does not feel that way, but to consistently give media (and by extension, the fanbase-- smart Northwestern alums who can see through the crap) nothing and/or misinformation is just silly.
In a media world that only really cares about the "big boys," and a conference that contains many of said "big boys," Northwestern needs the media a heck of a lot more than the media needs them, especially with an incredibly small fanbase and on the heels of a 6-7 season. I do not advocate bowing down to the media or kissing their ass, but avoiding "unforced errors" like picking meaningless fights and settling scores is probably the right thing to do, even if you can get away with it.
Although not the point I think he was ultimately making, recruiting websites and media coverage of sports in general has gotten out of control. ESPNU's wall-to-wall coverage of signing day was embarrassing. The glorification of high school athletes is not healthy and needs to stop. It is one of the great things about Coach Fitz that he seemingly does not stroke egos or use that alarming trend to his advantage in an attempt to get recruits to come to Evanston. It separates him from a lot of the other used car salesmen out there and results in the commitments of some smart, talented, driven kids with their heads on straight that we can be proud to have represent our school on the field and off.
Filed under: Football
Tags: football, Media, northwestern, Signing Day
