Pat Fitzgerald brings a program with momentum to Minneapolis this week for the game tomorrow between his Northwestern Wildcats and the Gophers.  Fitzgerald, 35, is coaching a 4-0 Northwestern team and dating back to the start of the 2008 Big Ten season the Wildcats have won a league best nine road games.

Northwestern was on any list of the nation’s worst football teams for much of three decades before Gary Barnett took over as head coach in 1992 and players like Fitzgerald started arriving in Evanston.  Fitzgerald was a superb linebacker on Northwestern’s Big Ten championship teams in 1995 and 1996.  His heroics helped send the Wildcats to their first Rose Bowl since 1949.

Fitzgerald, who is in the College Football Hall of Fame, became an assistant coach with the Wildcats in 2001.  No one could have known then that at age 31 he would succeed head coach Randy Walker after Walker died form a heart attack in June of 2006.

Fitzgerald didn’t have to come home to take the job.  A native of the Chicago area and member of the coaching staff who once had been the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year, Fitzgerald bled Northwestern purple like few people ever will.  It may have taken the Northwestern administration five minutes to figure Fitzgerald was the perfect fit to succeed Walker.  The passionate Fitzgerald might have needed all of five seconds to say yes.

If a have not football program like private school Northwestern, with limited resources including facilities and fan following, ever hired the right coach it’s Fitzgerald.  He’s demonstrated he can coach and because of his passion is much less likely to wander off to a highfalutin job some place else.

Fitzgerald, who has coached the Wildcats to four bowl games in the last five years, has a 31-23 record.  He is the first Northwestern coach in almost 50 years to be eight games over .500!

The Fitzgerald era has been characterized by efficient but underrated quarterbacks and the team’s ability to win close games.  The latest project, new starter Dan Persa, leads all Division I quarterbacks in completion percentage at 80.2.  The Wildcats have won two of their four nonconference games by five points or less.

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Adam Weber is one of the Gophers leaders and was frustrated when he walked to the sideline near the end of last Saturday’s game against Northern Illinois, a third consecutive loss for Minnesota.  Waiting to provide encouragement was coach Tim Brewster, who despite being the target of “Fire Brewster” chants from the stands, was thinking about his quarterback.

“I feel bad for coach Brew as well,” Weber said.  “The one thing that is amazing is that he’s (got) very broad shoulders. …He’s a wonderful person and I am just fortunate he’s always had my back.”

The Gophers, 1-3, have given up 107 points in three consecutive losses.  Most of the points are the result of a troubled defense with tackling problems.  Linebacker Keanon Cooper said adjustments needed to perform better are simple but the defense must play together and execute.  “We know exactly what we have to do,” he said.

Project organizer Bruce Krinke reported via email that artist Ivan Whillock’ s bust of Gopher Heisman Trophy winner Bruce Smith is at a foundry and will be completed in about five weeks.  Plans are for the bust to be on display in Smith’s hometown of Faribault before it’s presented to the University of Minnesota.  Smith won the Heisman in 1941, helping the Gophers to a national championship.  He’s the only Gopher to ever win the award.

Despite the resurgence in St. Thomas football success in recent seasons, Saint John’s has defeated the Tommies 12 consecutive games.  The two nationally ranked Division III powers meet tomorrow in Collegeville.

Among those to follow in the game are two players from Saint John’s who were last week’s MIAC Offensive and Defensive Players of the week, senior quarterback Joe Boyle and sophomore defensive back Alex Powell.  Tommie All-American senior center Josh Ostrue will start his 38th career game on Saturday.  St. Thomas junior All-American wide receiver Fritz Waldvogel has scored 23 touchdowns in 27 games during his career, including at least one via pass, rush, lateral, punt return and kickoff return.

Saint John’s head coach John Gagliardi has 450 victories in 58 seasons with the Johnnies.  He is looking for career coaching win No. 475 tomorrow against St. Thomas.

“The Lindsay Whalen Story,” written by local author R.S. Oatman, will be in area book stores next week. The 170-page book tells of Whalen’s development from a young hockey player to a grown basketball legend.  Whalen, a native Minnesotan who has played for both the Gophers and Lynx, will have local book signings including on Thursday, October 7 when she will be at the Mall of America Barnes & Noble.

Former Wolves player and executive Fred Hoiberg, now head coach at Iowa State, will be among the speakers tomorrow at Tartan High School for the HoopsNet Twin Cities Basketball Coaches Clinic.  Also speaking will be new Dakota County Technical College coach Jay Pivec who is a member of the NJCAA Basketball Hall of Fame.

Dean Lombardi, the former North Stars executive and now Los Angeles hockey boss, deserves credit for helping make the Kings a 2011 Stanley Cup favorite.

Former Wild defenseman Willie Mitchell added depth to the Kings defense when he signed with the team this summer.

Ex-Wild and New Jersey coach Jacques Lemaire, 65, is working for the Devils as a special assignment coach/scout, according to the The Fischler Report.

Newly signed Wild prospect Colton Jobke is a cousin of Mets outfielder Jason Bay.

The Wild were scheduled to leave for Finland immediately following last night’s preseason game against the Blue Jackets.  After a nine hour flight the team is scheduled to arrive in Helsinki at 4 p.m. Finland time.  The Wild will open the NHL regular season in Finland on Thursday, October 7.

Minnesota schools hold three of the first six spots in the AVCA Division II national women’s volleyball rankings.  The schools are No. 1 Minnesota Duluth, No. 3 Southwest Minnesota State and No. 6 Concordia-St. Paul.  All are members of the NSIC.

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There have been two extraordinary turnarounds of Big Ten football programs in the last 20 years.  Both happened in the coach’s fourth season.

Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez took over a Badger program in 1990 that had been 3-8, 1-10 and 2-9 in the three previous seasons.  By 1993 the Badgers were 10-1-1 and Big Ten champs.

Northwestern had been a punch line and punching bag for decades until Gary Barnett came along in 1992.  The three previous seasons the Wildcats were 0-11, 2-9 and 3-8.  By 1995 Northwestern had won the first of two consecutive conference championships.

At Minnesota the heat is on fourth year coach Tim Brewster who is off to a 1-3 start that includes losses to South Dakota and Northern Illinois.  His career record is 15-27.

Barnett was asked by Sports Headliners if his success means any Big Ten program has the potential to be a winner.  “Well, I think that’s the message that comes across, but it wasn’t easy,” he said.  “I had a lot of sleepless nights and gut aches, but it came down to just a combination of kids and coaches.  We really were a tight knit group.  We had a special bond. …”

Barnett, 64, would consider coaching again at the “right” place.  These days he’s a color man on Sports USA for college football and was in Minneapolis earlier this month to work a Gophers game.

Barnett left Northwestern to become head coach at Colorado, a program he had known for several years as an assistant.  He had success coaching the Buffaloes but off-field problems forced him out.

What’s the right place?  He said it’s an institution where the athletic director, chancellor and president are supportive of athletics.  At Colorado, he said, the faculty set the tone for athletics.

Barnett said a football coach is in a “war” trying to win games and be successful in all the ways a coach must perform.  It’s vital that the coach like the people he’s working for and have their support.  “They’re (the administrators) in that trench with you,” Barnett said. “They’re not on the outside looking down saying, ‘Good luck.’…”

Is Minnesota a good job?  Barnett said this is a “great city” and he likes the facilities here, but then said, “Facilities aren’t the issue.  It’s the people that are in the facilities that generally decide whether or not you’re going to win.  I don’t know enough about the inner workings of the University…to be able to answer (whether Minnesota is a good job).”

How did Barnett turnaround a laughing stock program at Northwestern, the conference’s only private school and a laggard regarding facilities?  Well, he obviously had the support of the administration in various ways, but there’s more.

“We didn’t lose a player in those four years,” Barnett said. “They all stayed and they drank the ‘Kool-Aid’. …

“We addressed our problems.  We didn’t try to solve problems that would fit for another place.  We looked at what we were running into, and we prioritized things that we needed to work on and change, and we were able to do it.  And we sent a constant message.”

Although Barnett had extraordinary success in his fourth season he said it does take time for a new coach to put his system, players and coaches in place.  He believes it’s better to evaluate a coach in the fifth season.

“Around the fifth or sixth year you ought to be able to have an impact if you have done the right things, and kept the players and developed them, and those sort of things,” he said.  “You ought to be in a position to at least be in the upper division in the fifth or sixth year.  Fourth year I think is still probably a little early.”

The Northwestern program Barnett brought back to life is still successful.  The 4-0 Wildcats play the Gophers here on Saturday.

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