Northwestern wants a bowl game
(from Sporting News) EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) -- Northwestern Football head coach Pat Fitzgerald heads into his third year leading the Wildcats with one goal in mind. Win a bowl game.
Northwestern, which hasn't won a bowl game since beating California in the 1948 Rose Bowl, is coming off a 6-6 season that had plenty of highs and lows.
The team opened 2007 with two straight wins before losing its next three. The Wildcats then won their next three before dropping three of four to close the year.
The midseason winning streak coincided with some spectacular play from then-junior quarterback C.J. Bacher. In a pair of overtime wins, Bacher threw for 990 yards and nine touchdowns with zero interceptions.
He set a Northwestern single-season record with 3,656 passing yards and threw for 19 touchdowns. But he also threw 19 interceptions, including 15 in the Wildcat's six losses.
"You think about six wins last year, (Bacher had) 15 touchdowns and four interceptions. That's an All-Big Ten year," said Fitzgerald at Northwestern's media day on Thursday. "In the other six games, obviously, the consistency is critical."
To help the fifth-year senior, the team brought in Mick McCall, formerly of Bowling Green, to be Northwestern's offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. McCall coached two All-American quarterbacks, Josh Harris and Omar Jacobs, with the Falcons.
"The way that Mick goes about his daily teaching for our quarterbacks, I think he and C.J. have meshed really well," Fitzgerald said. "He's grown, he's really matured and I hope he takes the steps like the previous quarterbacks that we've had at the end of their careers."
Fitzgerald said he likes Bacher's gunslinger mind-set but hopes that the 6-foot-2, 210 pound passer will try to use a little more discretion.
"It's not always about having an 85 percent completion percentage," Fitzgerald said. "Sometimes the best throw is the one that ends up in the front row."
If Bacher and his teammates can perform more consistently this season, Fitzgerald believes the Wildcats will have a good shot at winning their first bowl game in six decades.
"What's in our control is to win a bowl game," he said. "That's something that hasn't happened here in a long, long time. We've changed the attitude and we've changed the expectations. Now it's time we take the next step and win a bowl game."
