While Pat Fitzgerald’s name has been linked to the Penn State football job only a few times in the past few months, most notably by Fox’s Joel Klatt, he aligns with the notion that some fans have that a decision on the coach needs to be made soon.

Fitzgerald is currently taking a break from the college game, having worked as a volunteer assistant at Loyola Academy in Illinois since 2023.

The issue with Fitzgerald is the uncertainty about his past. The Bronko Nagurski Trophy award winner was fired from Northwestern due to a hazing scandal that some believe he knew about. Regardless of whether he knew, though, the head coach is not known for culture building, something highly thought of at Penn State.

“It’s a shocking experience as a freshman to see your fellow freshman teammates get ran, but then you see everybody bystanding in the locker room,” a former Northwestern player told The Daily Northwestern. “It’s just a really abrasive and barbaric culture that has permeated throughout that program for years on end now.”

The running referred to was the hazing and often did not involve running. If a player was “ran,” they would be restrained by a group of upperclassmen, who dressed in purge masks, and “dry humped.” This was allegedly done to players who made mistakes on or off the field.

When Fitzgerald was fired, he denied any knowledge of the incidents and said he was “very disappointed.”

“Coach Fitzgerald is not only responsible for what happens within the program but also must take great care to uphold our institutional commitment to the student experience and our priority to ensure all students — undergraduate and graduate — can thrive,” Northwestern University President Michael Schill wrote in the statement. “Clearly, he failed to uphold that commitment, and I failed to sufficiently consider that failure in levying a sanction.

Fitzgerald doubled down on his assertion of not knowing about the hazing, suing the schools for wrongful termination. While the case took two years, the school and the coach eventually settled for an undisclosed amount in August.

In terms of coaching, though, Fitzgerald fits the Penn State build. The former All-America linebacker is known for his hard-nosed, blue-collar identity. He focuses on development and has a defense-first mindset that matches those of former Penn State coaches.

Fitzgerald has also proven he can win in the Big Ten. With the Wildcats, he led the team to multiple 10-win seasons, including multiple ranked victories. In 2013, Fitzgerald was even able to bring College GameDay to his matchup against No. 4 Ohio State.

History

Fitzgerald began his Big Ten journey as an elite linebacker for Northwestern. Playing from 1993 to 1996, he went on to win the Bronko Nagurski Trophy and the Chuck Bednarik Award twice. The Chuck Bednarik Award is given to the nation’s best defensive player.

The linebacker helped lead his team to back-to-back Big Ten Championships in 1995 and 1996. His team would lose in the Rose Bowl and Citrus Bowl to end those two seasons. He was named a Consensus All-America in both seasons.

The former Wildcat head coach took his first role after playing as a grad assistant for Maryland in 1998. The following season, he moved to Colorado, where he held the same role. The move was largely due to former Northwestern coach Gary Barnett, who took a job with the Buffaloes.

In 2000, Fitzgerald took a brief stint as the Idaho linebackers and safeties coach to propel him back to his alma mater in 2001.

When he first arrived back where he played, Fitzgerald worked as a defensive back coach. In 2002, he made the move to linebackers coach, and in 2004, he added the duty of recruiting coordinator on top of that.

Fitzgerald remained as a linebackers coach and recruiting coordinator until the 2006 season, when the death of Randy Walker saw him promoted to head coach after just six years of positional coaching work.

Despite being thrown into the fire, Northwestern steadily improved every season under the former All-America. In his first season, the Wildcats went 4-8, in the second 6-6, and in the third 8-5.

In the 2009 season, Northwestern took down No. 8 Iowa and No. 17 Wisconsin on its way to an Outback Bowl loss to Auburn. In just his third season at the helm, Northwestern had won its highest-ranked game in program history.

Fitzgerald continued to impress, leading Northwestern to multiple 10-win seasons. The backbone of the team’s success was beating teams ranked ahead of them. While the Wildcats did not prevail often against top-five or top-10 teams, consistently beating teams ranked 10-25 at Northwestern is impressive.

Fitzgerald remained at his post until he was fired in 2023 for the aforementioned hazing allegations.

Is It Realistic?

If media personalities like Klatt are talking about the possibility of Fitzgerald moving to Penn State, Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Pat Kraft has seen it. It’s his job to give everyone a strong look before making his decision, and Fitzgerald deserves the same treatment.

With that being said, the former Northwestern man has been out of coaching for over two seasons. He never experienced the blunt of the transfer portal, he has never recruited in the NIL era, and he hasn’t proved he can build a culture to fight the constant changes in college athletics.

If the reports are true that Kraft said no to college football legend and three-time national championship winner Urban Meyer over an NIL disagreement, I doubt Kraft would go after a less proven man.

College football is just as much about roster building in 2025 as it is drawing up plays on the field. If Kraft doesn’t want to wash the 2026 season, he will likely go for someone who can bring players in right away and hit the ground running in terms of recruiting and NIL.