IMAGINE THE FALLOUT: NORTHWESTERN MAKES $50 MILLION EVERY SEASON
An 18-team conference needs a No. 18 entry, and with massive incomes arriving every year, the silly gods in Evanston realize a football record could be 1-11 or 0-12 with no influence in money burdens
Imagine the nuclear violence. Northwestern can lose repulsively each season, to Rutgers in a New Jersey burg not worthy of a Springsteen or Bon Jovi lyric, and keep posting a 24-7 dog trail in those record books. It won’t be a Big Ten matchup. It won’t be a national TV gig more than minor scrubs playing unscrupulously large.
Yet, by juking and maneuvering with the new conference alignment, the school will continue to make at least $50 MILLION A SEASON.
Where does that insane fortune go, should we ask president Michael Schill? No wonder athletic director Derrick Gragg assumed before the Sunday afternoon debacle, “We're moving forward, we're excited about this year, and we have a great deal of inner support. I'm excited about being the leader here." The school is keeping that TV-generated windfall for no reason other than, oh, supporting hazing training and behaving for parents. Who cares if they lose every game in what could be 1-11 or 0-12 campaigns?
So what you saw in Piscataway is the future of NU. Unlike the past, when Pat Fitzgerald and Gary Barnett attempted to win before wicked scandals interfered, there is no chance of anything but a lawn mower caught with its leaves hitched. As the Scarlet Knights discard their dregs elsewhere, the Wildcats also will be devoured by the Wolverines, Buckeyes, Nittany Lions, Trojans, Ducks, Huskies and etc. Anyone who thinks they have any blowtorch in an 18-team league knows their struggles were difficult enough in previous reigns.
Oh, they’ll hire a new coach not likely to be interim David Braun, who strangely has kept the group intact after “collective resilience” in recent weeks. Remember the t-shirts worn by staff and players, prompting 86 former NU athletes to send a letter on Aug. 21 that criticized both for working to “incite public opinion against his own program” and said the AD “fosters and environment of uncertainty, distrust and censorship.” Suddenly, Gragg says those days are gone, in an ESPN interview, or he smells a football about to be kicked in the air on Sept. 3.
“When you're in a position like this, leadership on this level, you have to come to expect scrutiny, criticism," Gragg said. “There's a lot of emotion, again, a lot of relationships that are tied into this situation, and I understand that. ... At the end of the day, whether people are supportive of the leadership or not, or the decisions that were made, I always go right back to the student-athletes. They really need our support right now. Their lives have changed dramatically.”
But in due time, the search for Fitzgerald’s successor begins soon. The school will pay $5 million — why not? And a wise fellow will keep everyone in gear, even if too many bad seasons run him out, following a firm run by former college athletes Dan Beebe and Mike McCall. “They have done everything we’ve asked them to do,” said Gragg, adding, “It was an intensive three-hour-session and (the consultants) said after about the first 10, 15 minutes, guys were relaxed, participating, understanding what they were supposed to do, and did everything that they were asked to do. I think everybody understands the importance of conducting themselves in a first-class manner, as it relates to being representatives of themselves, and their families and to this university. I think they took it very seriously.”
Or, at least, until, the second day of workouts happens. Meaning, the slew of lawsuits from former players in July and early August has slowed. The school’s prominent benefactor, Pat Ryan, has every interest in funding the new stadium plan — fitting right in and “still very interested in moving forward with the project,” Gragg said. Anyone have any hazing fodder for the ballpark name? Think about it all: Jerry Reinsdorf is one of sport’s wackiest business messes, while humiliating and strenuous hazing is a hot campus word. And Jerry — remember Chris Getz giving Omar Vizquel a reprieve? — had his own issues. The Daily Northwestern, keep in mind, blew this hazing story into the sky. Sunday, I read sports editor Alex Cervantes: “The loss to the Scarlet Knights marks the 12th consecutive defeat.” Or how about SB Nation’s Jake Mozarsky: “Bad, bad, and bad.”
At some level of the new Big (Whatever), someone probably would like to ditch Northwestern. The next man won’t be Fitzgerald — in red shirt, black pants, white cap — while coaching his two children at Loyola Academy as a parent volunteer. He is guilty of hazing in his program for a very long time, picked up from his days playing for Barnett. He says he did nothing wrong, but the idea of pummeling the university is internally askew. He is moving on, likely to an NFL assistant’s career. Until then, we have Braun searching for answers in the shortest term. “Totally not OK with the result,” he said. “But the way our guys will move forward? I have no doubt about that.”
Until then, start assembling those 24-7 finishes. Every 18-team league needs an 18th team, and with $50 million to toss around, just cash in.
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.