Big Ten Football: 3 most overpaid head coaches ahead of 2022

1. Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern ($5.75 million)

Like Indiana, it’s not easy to win at Northwestern and the expectations for the Wildcats aren’t exactly sky-high on the football field. When you’re an academic powerhouse like Northwestern, sports kind of fall on the backburner but Pat Fitzgerald has done a solid job of conjuring some excitement within the program.

The problem? That excitement only truly happens once every 3-4 years.

In fact, all but one of Fitzgerald’s 10-win seasons have been followed up by disappointment. In 2012, he went 10-3 and then followed that up with two 5-7 seasons. In 2015, he went 10-3 and followed it up with a 7-6 campaign. He bucked that trend in 2017 when he went 10-3 and then 9-5 with a division title in 2018.

But how did Fitzgerald follow up a division title-winning season? He went 3-9 in 2019. He won the division again in a COVID-19-shortened 2020 season but then went 3-9 yet again in 2021.

Fitzgerald is inconsistent, but in Northwestern fans’ eyes, he can do no wrong. That doesn’t mean he’s worth $5.75 million, making him the 14th-highest-paid head coach in the country.