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“Patience is a virtue.”
The quote is most earliest attributed to an English poet named William Langland. It’s clear that Mr. Langland didn’t watch much college football. Granted, it was in the 1300s, so it’s tough to tell what his options were if he wanted to.
Michigan and Northwestern get together for a tangle this weekend, the top two scoring defenses in college football, which obviously we all saw coming at this time. Not bad for two teams that won a combined 10 games last season and are already guaranteed to tie that mark this Saturday when they meet.
Their paths to this point are starkly different, proving there are multiple ways to skin a cat (another cliche) but there’s no real point to skinning a cat since you can’t eat it (I don’t think?).
Both are stark reminders that there is no one defined blueprint for building a successful program, and both paths can lead you to spectacular and prolonged failure just as easily. It’s also a reminder that you’d best know your damn customer, or you’ll be finding a new job.
For Northwestern, Pat Fitzgerald took over after the horrific passing of Randy Walker. At the time, Fitzgerald was a young Wildcat football alum with a love for the school who cut his teeth as a player back when no one expected Northwestern to win more than three games a year… until the Wildcats went 10-1 in the regular season in 1995 and to the Rose Bowl in 1996, forever one of the great stories in college football history.
Fitzgerald was the face of a scruffy, lunch pail defense of unheralded recruits. Upon his hire, Northwestern had expectations far higher than when he played there. Things started off rough, taking until his third season to get to a bowl game (which qualifies as “rough” these days).
It was the start of five straight bowl seasons before the team fell on hard times, breaking in youth, having the cloud of the “unionization of college athletes” converging over their university, all of which culminated in subsequent one- and three-win Big Ten seasons the last two years. Both came without bowls.
Still, Fitzgerald has been Teflon Pat through it all, routinely thought of as one of the brightest young minds in the game regardless of record. Northwestern fans always have to hear about him being on some team’s “wish list” every off season as jobs open up.
A little of it is because no matter what happens, the big money donors and students aren’t pushing anyone to fire him, because football isn’t at the core identity of Northwestern. The other part of it is that no matter what the records are, Northwestern feels lucky to still have Teflon Pat.
Patience is a virtue.
Which brings us to the Wildcats’ opponent this Saturday.
Michigan’s story has been rehashed a million times. Not content with simply winning around nine games a year and going to bowl games, the school pushed out Lloyd Carr by way of a publicity stunt some of us call, “retiring.”
Wolverine fans found out the grass isn’t always greener on the other side, as Rich Rodriguez and all of his bells and whistles came in, but those who hired him never understood their customer. Michigan fans understood there may be a transition period, but they weren’t prepared for tradition changes and the end of the hallowed consecutive bowl streak, which was a definite point of pride in Ann Arbor.
After three seasons, Michigan had enough of Rich Rod, and with a new athletic director coming in, didn’t need much convincing that a change was needed.
Enter the next leg of “screw patience.”
Brady Hoke came in with no fanfare whatsoever. He was AD Dave Brandon’s guy, and many around Michigan felt the job was gifted to him regardless of outside interest. No matter, Hoke started off guns blazing, going for 11 wins and a BCS bowl victory over Virginia Tech, not to mention defeating Ohio State.
Hoke was screwed at that point. Expectations were sky high. If it happened in Year One with all of the previous coach’s players, surely it could be that way every year with hand-picked recruits gradually infusing the roster.
It obviously didn’t, and Hoke was fired amid one of the ugliest portions of Michigan football history, when Brandon was so hated that the fan base actively debated boycotting games, booed the team during bad stretches, and rallied for people’s pink slips on President Mark Schlissel’s lawn.
Schlissel, who cares as much about football as the person reading this does about making sure they time their DVR to record “Project Runway Junior” in a few weeks, didn’t come from the Ivy League to hear people carp and moan about football.
Ergo, bye, bye, Dave Brandon.
Schlissel did, however, as far as football goes, find Jim Harbaugh as someone he wanted around. Not that it would have mattered if he didn’t or was ambivalent; Harbaugh came from Stanford and had been openly critical of Michigan’s academics with student athletes in the past. Academics? The prez was all ears.
Long story short, Michigan got its guy, and considering that in spite of the recent downturn, the recruiting had stayed at a top-shelf level. Harbaugh stepped into talent and amassed an impressive slew of assistant coaches. Now, Michigan is back to being Michigan, with the ceiling higher than ever.
It’s impossible to overstate how difficult it is to transition in any business, especially college sports, when millions of people drop any common sense they have in their normal lives come the time your product is front and center on television.
The most important part is the same as any business: “understand your customer.”
Northwestern can be patient because the customer will be unaffected either way.
Michigan, as it learned, cannot.
Either way, both converge in the midst of their best success in several seasons, rejuvenated, competing for a conference championship. Both converge from different ends of the program-building world.
Both are coming off shutouts; in Michigan’s case, two. The last time that happened was 2000, when the Wolverines played Northwestern and gave up 54.
That won’t happen this time around. Michigan will win. Northwestern will suffer its first loss. Never mind all of that. There’s more than one way to skin a (Wild)cat. Or, I suppose, a Wolverine. In this story, however, they both come back baring teeth.
