Fitzgerald to USC or Texas?

No way. I'd be equally surprised at Fitzgerald taking one of those jobs as I would be with Hoke taking one of them. At this point he pretty much is Northwestern football.

Petersen to USC

Strong to Texas

Gary Patterson's name will be toss in the mix for both as well.

maybe a bit less so. He's an NU alum who apparently loves the school and has his system setup. If he wants to climb the ranks there are obviously institutional limitations with Northwestern but I don't think he'd leave.

OTOH, if he does leave, I see it being a Richrod-level disaster for the school in question. Fitzgerald has a niche at NU, not sure how well it would translate to a big time school like Texas or USC

Coach Fitzgerald's roots at Northwestern and in Chicago run incredibly - almost ridiculously - deep.

He was born in Orland Park, a near suburb of Chicago. He graduated from high school there. He married his high school, hometown sweetheart. Chicago is where his family still lives, where her family still lives, and Pat and Stacy Fitzgerald's three sons have never known any other home but Chicago, where they were born and are being raised.

Pat Fitzgerald didn't just play for Northwestern - he is the *only* Northwestern player, ever, to be honored with a major national player award (winning the Bednarik Award and the Nagurksi Award back to back in '95 & '96). Fitzgerald later became the first Northwestern player  to win a place in the College Football Hall of Fame since Ron Burton's senior season in 1959. I was an undergrad (HPME) at Northwestern for the epic '95 and '96 seasons before coming home to Michigan for MD/PhD, and I can tell you Pat Fitzgerald was a hero at Northwestern as a player.  Think of how Nebraska fans felt about Ndamukong Suh, and you get how Northwestern students felt about Fitzgerald. Except imagine if Nebraska had gone 47 years without ever making it to any Bowl game whatsoever and then Suh leads them to the Rose and Citrus. *47* years waiting.

Pat Fitzgerald's first two one-year coaching positions were under former NU coaches (then at Maryland and at Colorado) before heading to Idaho for a year - and as soon as Northwestern offered him, he came straight back. Northwestern was the first long-term position (as linebacker coach) that he ever held, before his mentor and friend Randy Walker suddenly died of a heart attack two months before the '06 season began.  That's when Northwestern chose to pass up both the OC and DC to make Fitzgerald, the hero of the epic '95/'96 seasons, the new HC. And then he went on to be the winningest coach and first bowl game winner in Northwestern history.

Northwestern's current administration is smart enough to know what they've got in Fitzgerald and has the will and the money to do something about it.  Everybody talks about $TEXAS money? UT only has a six billion dollar endowment. Northwestern has *seven*. Northwestern may be the smallest school in the B1G but only Michigan has a bigger financial warchest: behind UM and NU; third place U. Minnesota checks in at barely a *third* the size. Northwestern has more in the bank than Iowa, Nebraska, MSU, Indiana and Illinois *combined*. And Northwestern's spending it - $220 million on a new athletics complex that will headquarter the football team on a spectacularly beautiful stretch of beachfront Lake Michigan from which you can watch the Chicago skyline light up at night. 

As we all know, Schembechler turned down the chance to become the richest coach in college football history at Texas A&M, to stay at Michigan. Now imagine if Schembechler had been born and raised and married in Washtenaw County, won the Heisman two years running for U. Michigan as a player, and had been Bernie Oosterbaan's protege instead of Woody Hayes'. *That's* what Fitzgerald means to Northwestern, and what Northwestern means to Fitzgerald.  We're talking about a coach born in Chicago, raised in Chicago, met and married his wife in Chicago, raised all his kids in Chicago, has never had any long-term coaching position anywhere but Northwestern, is the biggest player hero in living Northwestern memory, is the biggest *coach* hero in living Northwestern memory, and has an administration who both has the will and the financial means to keep him happy.

Nothing is impossible; but if you had to create from scratch the biography of a coach that is *least* likely to be poachable, Pat Fitzgerald is it.  I suppose it's possible some school might be able to poach him; but I think it's more likely that thirty years from now, they name the football practice facility Fitzgerald Hall. 

I don't think Pat Fitzgerald wants to be the next Bill Walsh or Jim Harbaugh. I think Pat Fitzgerald wants to be the next Tom Osborne - or Bo Schembechler. And I think the B1G is richer and better for it.