NU Football: Program on the rise
By Justin Schecker
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Viewed 1109 times.
In their last New Year's Day Bowl, the Wildcats lost to Tennessee in Peyton Manning’s final college game. That was the 1997 Citrus Bowl in Orlando.
So when Athletic Director Jim Phillips learned Northwestern was returning to Florida for the first time in 13 years, he had reason to be ecstatic. Phillips got the call from the Outback Bowl committee while driving home from a Bears game on Lakeshore Drive.
"Kind of took both hands off the steering wheel in a moment of celebration to tell them how excited we were,” Phillips said, “and honestly almost wrecked my car.”
The Outback Bowl passed over Northwestern last year. But this season, the 8-4 Wildcats represented the Big Ten in Tampa, instead of a 9-win Wisconsin team known for its large fan base.
"We were able to use what we did going to the Alamo Bowl and the amount of people that travelled down there as a way to state our case emphatically this year,” Phillips said. “But in the end it was really about the team, Coach Fitzgerald and the players that have gotten us to Tampa.
While Northwestern fans are used to the ‘Cardiac Cat’ brand of football, a national audience on New Year’s Day was able to watch an exciting game that went down to the wire.
“It’s just another step in the process of our maturation as a program,” Phillips said.
Playing in a Florida bowl also increases Northwestern’s exposure in a region that produces some of the nation’s top football recruits.
“For us to be able to come down here as a team, as a university, I think it will resonate well in the high school communities in this area,” Phillips said.
While the Cats’ 61-year bowl drought lives on, both Fitzgerald and Phillips are optimistic.
"We’ll be on the road as coaches recruiting, finishing up a great class, maybe the best class we've had and I can't wait to get to winter work outs here in a couple of weeks,” Fitzgerald said at the postgame press conference.
In Fitzgerald's four years as head coach, the Wildcats have a 27-23 record.
“I think the best is yet to come, I really do,” Phillips said. “I think we're enjoying a great moment right now but there's no reason and nothing that I've seen that prohibits us from continuing this ascension.”
Last updated: 2010-01-07 14:32:12 by