Pat Fitzgerald, a coaching retread with lots of dirt in the grooves, is about to get another Big 10 gig.
Among the bigger stories on the latest Bloody Sunday for college football coaches was Michigan State’s allegedly imminent hiring of Fitzgerald, the allegedly disgraced former Northwestern coach. The rumors swirled immediately after MSU fired Jonathan Smith, who went 9-15 in his two years in East Lansing, and Fitzgerald's hire became official on Monday.
Fitzgerald's only other head coaching job to date came at Northwestern, where he went 110–101 over 17 years at his alma mater. During Fitzgerald's final two seasons in Evanston, the Wildcats were a combined 4–20. He got fired in 2023 amid allegations of widespread hazing in his program.
Fitzgerald was a legend in Evanston. In the mid-1990s, he became the most decorated player in school history. The former NU linebacker was a two-time All-American and national defensive player of the year, as well as the star of the Wildcats team that made the 1996 Rose Bowl, their first bowl appearance since the 1940s. He won awards for allegedly being a good dude off the field, too, getting the Big 10 Medal of Honor for hitting the books as hard as he did ball carriers.
His superstar status helped him get hired as head coach by Northwestern in July 2006, within days of the sudden death of Randy Walker. Fitzgerald, who was an assistant on Walker’s staff, was only 31 years old at the time, and was hailed as the youngest Division I FBS head football coach in the country. He went on to be the winningest and longest tenured head coach in Northwestern history, which is the kind of accolade a career record just over .500 can get you at a non-football school.
But Fitzgerald’s 26-year run as a player and coach at the school ended in absolute shame in July 2023. External investigations of the program and lawsuits from former players painted Fitzgerald’s program as being rife with hazing rituals, including many that relied on sexual humiliation. Some of the bullying schemes even had names. A suit from a player who left Northwestern in 2022 described a locker room routine called “carwash,” in which freshmen were forced “to rub up against” a gauntlet of naked, spinning teammates just to get to the showers. Fitzgerald was aware of the hazing, according to the suits.
When the accusations surfaced, Fitzgerald was initially given a two-week suspension by Northwestern president Michael Schill. But the sophomoric and sadistic behaviors of Wildcats players quickly became a big national news story. And while under pressure, Schill upgraded the punishment and fired Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald sued the school in October 2023 for breach of contract. He claimed to have no knowledge of any hazing that went on while he was running the program, and said he was owed $43 million in salary and more than $130 million in compensatory damages by the school for having “irreparably and permanently damaged” his chances to find future work in the football industrial complex.
Fitzgerald’s suit was settled in August 2025. Terms were not released, but the school’s settlement announcement said its investigations “did not establish that any player reported hazing to Coach Fitzgerald or that Coach Fitzgerald condoned or directed any hazing.” The school’s statement said its former coach was “incredibly upset and saddened” to learn of the “negative impact” all the abuse had on his players.
Schill was out as Northwestern president just two weeks after the settlement was publicly disclosed.
Fitzgerald told ESPN in November 2025 that he was back on the prowl for a new job. Based on his hiring at MSU, Northwestern hadn’t actually caused Fitzgerald any permanent damage. But his backstory makes him a curious pick for the Spartans, given the high-profile awfulness that’s come out about MSU athletics over the last decade.
You’d have to go back to the McMartin Preschool to find an educational institution as linked to sexual impropriety as MSU. In 2018, the school paid victims of staff sports doctor Larry Nassar $500 million to settle claims of assault and abuse primarily leveled by Spartans gymnasts. Then in September 2023, just two games into the football season and two months after Fitzgerald’s firing, the Big 10 had another sordid scandal that resulted in the firing of MSU football coach Mel Tucker.
Tucker was stripped of his $95 million contract, which was called the third-richest pact in college football history when he signed it, after a sexual abuse victims advocate contracted by the school to work with Tucker’s team accused him of sexual harassment. Among the contractor’s allegations: Tucker masturbated while on the phone with her. The victims advocate filed a lawsuit of her own against the school for, among other things, leaking her name to the media without her consent during what she believed was a confidential investigation of her claims against Tucker.
Tucker has yet to find football work.
As for why Michigan State is so eager to invest in a head coach who posted a .250 winning percentage during his last two seasons on the job, The Athletic can provide some clarity: "The feeling around Michigan State is this hire has re-activated a donor base that had lost faith in Smith." The donors tend to get what they want, and in this case it appears they demanded putting a bit of disgrace back into the program.
