Ad Disclosure
Pat Fitzgerald confident Wildcats will ‘keep winning’ despite lack of respect nationally
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Don’t tell Pat Fitzgerald the Wildcats are supposed to take a step back in 2019.
Northwestern was one of the surprise teams last season after rolling off an impressive string of wins. Fitzgerald and the Wildcats finished with an 8-4 record in the regular season and captured the B1G West title.
A common thread throughout the year was that Northwestern was seemingly an underdog in every game it played. That theme is likely to continue this year as ESPN’s FPI is favoring the Wildcats in just four of their games to start 2019.
Fitzgerald’s squad is likely getting used to the underdog role. However, that doesn’t mean they have to like it. He spoke with the media on Wednesday about expectations, and Fitzgerald made it very clear that this team believes it will keep on winning despite a lack of respect nationally:
Fitz says team will 'keep winning' and believes the lack of national respect for the team is because he didn't know the team needed to win by 80 rather than 1.
— Inside NU (@insidenu) August 7, 2019
If that wasn’t clear enough, Fitzgerald went on to say that the internal expectations for this Northwestern team do not match the expectations nationally:
Fitz: The expectations of this team nationally are nowhere near the expectations of this team internally
— Inside NU (@insidenu) August 7, 2019
It should be noted that Northwestern has finished with a winning record in four consecutive seasons. The Wildcats have won at least nine games three of those years and are currently on a three-game bowl winning streak.
Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.