Northwestern Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald Goes Behind the Scenes on What Went Into ‘Fighting Rece Davises’
On today's Pardon My Take, it was a twofer Thanksgiving Special. We previewed the college basketball season with recurring guest Mark Titus, and got into some college football with Northwestern Head Coach Pat Fitzgerald. The man at the helm for the Wildcats discussed Mr. Cat's take that he is the most disrespected coach in America, Big J's out of Northwestern, and yes, the team's big win over the Wisconsin Badgers.
But in case you have not heard, the Wildcats played with some extra motivation over the weekend. Naturally, Fitzgerald and company used that to their advantage to help pull off the upset in Evanston, as he explained on today's show:
Mr. Cat: So, the game against Wisconsin, and more importantly, the "Fighting Rece Davises," the comment that Joey Galloway made, basically talking that Northwestern isn't sexy, they don't have a lot of athleticism, they have "Fighting Rece Davises." As a football coach, when a member of the media says something like that, do your eyes light up? Did you bring that to your guys or do your guys hear that anyway? Because it was clear afterwards that you use that as a rallying cry, and I actually think it was unfair that Joey Galloway did that to Wisconsin and the game is under protest.
Pat Fitzgerald: Well, I don't think you're going to get anything for the protest. I know Joey and I know Rece well. They're both great guys. I didn't hear it. I didn't know it. Kyric McGowan, our wide receiver, sent kind of a group text to our Unity Council, and said, "What's this all about? Fighting Rece Davises."
Pat Fitzgerald: And so I think it kind of hit like wildfire into our locker room. And our guys had fun with it the next day at practice. And I actually kind of got coached up a little bit by the guys, but they had heard and so we just ran with it. I don't think it was a rallying cry. I think it was more to have some fun and, you know, just enjoy the heck out of it. And we had Rece come on and Zoom bomb the squad on Monday when we went over our players of the game and our highlights for the game. You know, I think about Zoom bombs, I think about Coach Duggs coming on. I don't think we've lost since Duggs gave us that motivational speech this summer.
Mr. Cat: Oh no, I did do that.
Mr. Commenter: You brought Northwestern back to eliminate Wisconsin.
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Mr. Cat: I did it to myself. No, but I just always... I love the human element of sports and seeing that, and it was very clear that the guys took that personally. And I guess maybe that's where the disrespect of you as a coach comes in, that you probably have to keep the element of like we are underdogs, we're not Ohio State, we're not Wisconsin, we're not Michigan, we're not like, these big time, you know, larger Big Ten schools.
It was great to see Mr. Cat and Coach Fitzgerald put their team allegiances to the side and come together for today's Pardon My Take. No matter what team you root for, it is easy to see that Coach Fitzgerald continues to build something special with this Northwestern program, as he has his Wildcats inside the Top 10 in the first edition of the College Football Playoff rankings.