Pat Fitzgerald is back in the Big Ten, back on a sideline, and back in a spot where every move will be watched. Michigan State’s new coach arrives for Rutgers’ final opponent carrying a name that once meant Northwestern football, but now comes with a much heavier layer of baggage and scrutiny.
Fitzgerald, 52, has returned to coaching after a three-year hiatus. He was fired by Northwestern on July 10, 2023, three days after university president Michael Schill initially suspended him over allegations from November 2022 involving player hazing and sexual assault tied to that hazing.
The law firm handling the investigation was led by former Illinois inspector general Maggie Hickey, whose findings said the player accusations were “largely supported by evidence”. After 17 seasons as Northwestern’s head coach, Fitzgerald was done there.
He later sued the school for $130 million and settled the case in August 2025 before a planned trial.
In the meantime, Fitzgerald was out of the college game and serving as a parent volunteer with Loyola Academy’s football team. His son, Ryan, was the team’s starting quarterback in the 2023 season.
The coaching record he left behind at Northwestern was mixed. Fitzgerald went 110-101 across 17 seasons, with seven years at .500 or worse.
That stretch included the last two seasons, when the Wildcats went 3-9 in 2021 and 1-11 in 2022. The allegations surfaced during that 2022 season.
Still, his Northwestern tenure wasn’t just defined by the finish. Fitzgerald also had five seasons in which his teams placed third or better in their division, including two western division titles, and he guided the Wildcats to 10 bowl games, going 5-5 in those appearances.
Before coaching, Fitzgerald was a Northwestern legend as a player. He was a two-time Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year and a two-time Consensus All-American.
He also won the Bronko Nagurski Trophy, the Chuck Bednarik Award and the Jack Lambert Trophy, becoming the first two-time winner of both the Nagurski and Bednarik. That production helped lead Northwestern to a Rose Bowl berth, though a broken leg kept him out of the game.
He did, however, play in the Citrus Bowl the following year.
His coaching path started as an assistant at Maryland, then took him to Colorado under his former Northwestern coach Gary Barnett. He spent one year at Idaho before returning to Evanston and joining the defensive staff. Then came the sudden promotion after Randy Walker’s unexpected death in June 2006.
Rutgers and Michigan State have played 16 times, including 11 conference matchups, and this will be the first meeting with Fitzgerald on the Spartans’ sideline. He was 2-0 against Rutgers while at Northwestern and 1-0 against Greg Schiano. Their last meeting came in 2021, when Northwestern beat Rutgers 21-7 in Evanston.
Michigan State is also trying to move past its own list of headlines. University president resigned in June, blaming the Board of Trustees for creating and revisiting old issues.
Before that, Mel Tucker became one of the highest-paid coaches in college football history in November 2021 with a guaranteed 10-year, $95 million deal, only to be fired in September 2023 after allegations of sexual harassment. And the school’s name has also been tied to Larry Nasser, the disgraced gymnastics doctor.
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