Fitzgerald: ‘I feel like we kind of got our edge back;’ preparing for mystery Husker offense a challenge

Pat Fitzgerald isn’t quite sure what the heck the remodeled Huskers are going to come out doing on offense.

So, no, Northwestern’s coach wasn’t going to give anything away himself, like confirming his starting quarterback for Saturday’s game against Nebraska in Dublin, Ireland.

“I’ve been thinking about this all night and I’m not going to tell you anything. How about that?” Fitzgerald joked Monday during a video call session with reporters.

With last year’s experience in the program under his belt, some might consider Ryan Hilinski as the favorite to be the QB starter for the Wildcats. The 6-foot-3, 225-pound signal caller led Northwestern with 978 yards passing in nine games last year. It was his first in the Northwestern program after spending two seasons at South Carolina. But while Hilinski has the edge in snaps taken right now, he is being pushed by Brendan Sullivan and Carl Richardson.

No shock Fitzgerald isn’t giving out any crumbs.

While Nebraska to little surprise named Casey Thompson publicly as its starting quarterback, Fitzgerald spoke Monday about the challenge of getting ready for all the other unknowns the Husker offense brings with a revamped coaching staff and many new key parts at the skilled spots.

Then again, Fitzgerald said his Northwestern staff has played out this scenario many times prior to a season opener.

“This is like the absolute norm for my staff. It seems like every year in the opener, it’s a new head coach or multiple new coordinators. We’re kind of used to this,” he said. “So you don’t start in August, right? This starts way back when in January. You do your offseason studies. You kind of put together your preliminary game plans. You go through spring ball. See what the new pieces look like and then kind of tweak that plan over the summer. And then you go through training camp and see if there’s any freshmen that can get into the mix. It’s a lot. A lot of organization.”

Yes, he agreed, that “you have to be careful of paralysis by analysis.” Still, you look for all the clues you can.

You pop on the LSU tape and find Trey Palmer. You pop on the Texas tape and look at Thompson and wide receiver Marcus Washington. You pop on the Pitt tape and see what offensive coordinator Mark Whipple was cooking last year.

He’s interested just like all the Husker fans in how Whipple will merge his ideas with what Scott Frost offenses have done in the past.

“We’re going to have our hands full, especially in the first quarter in how they’re going to marry that together, what they’re going to do and how things are going to go, and then we’re just going to have to plan to adjust with poise.”

Even with the surprises, it comes down to controlling what you can control with your execution, the turnover ratio, and the kick game, he said.

A year ago Nebraska beat Northwestern 56-7 in Lincoln, but Frost downplayed that on Sunday, saying it was just one of those everything-goes-right days for the Huskers and a bad outing for a Wildcats team he expects to be hungry just like his.

“We didn’t play very well and they played outstanding,” Fitzgerald said. “I think across the board, you look at the talent, there are some very impressive, impressive players. That’s been a huge challenge for our defense, right? We’ve had to go back and watch guys at their previous institutions as players. We obviously had to go back and study Coach Whipple and not only what he did at Pitt, but UMass, and other stops along the way. And take a look at some of their other new assistants on offense to see if there’s anything schematically that we need to be prepared for.”

Not uncommon these days across college football, Nebraska did not unveil a public depth chart heading into the opening game week. And there’s not much any foe could gain from the Spring Game tape, in which the Huskers didn’t offer anything up to outsiders but two scoops of vanilla.

“As opposed to talking about individual pieces, it’s been more macro-level stuff that we’ve had to really study…” Fitzgerald said. “They’ve got a deep running back room. They’ve brought in some new weapons on the outside at wide receiver that it sounds like they’re excited about. Their tight end is big, he’s physical, he can run. And their O-line got after us a year ago. I know they’ll have a couple new pieces but they really got after us a year ago.”

Nebraska was in the air on Monday night for Dublin, with the hope most players could sleep on the plane. There’d be a brief workout after arrival and going through customs, but a lot of sleep on Tuesday, with the hope to wake up Wednesday morning with body clocks well adjusted.

Northwestern will be flying out on Tuesday and also hopes to be feeling settled by Wednesday. While the Wildcats have been picked last in the Big Ten’s West Division in a lot of preseason guesswork, it’s not a program used to back-to-back losing seasons. It has happened just once in the Fitzgerald era (2013-14). They usually offer a solid counterpunch.

Fitzgerald sees some of those capabilities perhaps forming for this squad to do that.

“I feel great about it, No. 1, because of the way they worked this offseason…” he said. “Coming into spring ball we looked like a different squad. I was here all but about a couple days this summer and the way we went through the summer workouts, I felt like we had our squad back – if that makes sense. And the kind of solid trajectory that we’ve been on the last 10 to 12 years with a couple hiccups … I feel like we kind of got our edge back, kind of who we are, our identity back.

“But now we’re going to face adversity here for the first time in Dublin. The trip. We’re going to have things not go our way in the game and that will be I think a great challenge for our leadership, which I think is in a great place now. But that leadership really has got to step when you face adversity.”

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