David Shaw would be perfect for Northwestern Football

A bunch of names have gotten teased as potential head coaching candidates for Northwestern football but David Shaw makes sense to me. 

Things got really ugly quickly for the Northwestern football program as Pat Fitzgerald got embroiled in a hazing scandal that led to his termination.

Fitzgerald has hired an attorney. It means he’ll be fighting the school for the rest of the money it owes on his contract, with a settlement probably being the final resolution.

He’ll never coach for the Wildcats again though. Northwestern football has announced David Braun wil serve as the interim head coach. He was formerly at NDSU and helped the Bison win some FCS national championships but I don’t see him keeping the job.

At the very least, it would take a winning season and probably more than that to get the interim tag removed. Northwestern football is a Big Ten program and therefore, it should have the resources to go after a big-name head coach.

Well, big-name to a point. Michigan and Ohio State assistants Sherrone Moore and Brian Hartline have been connected to the job — just through opinions and speculation — but I don’t see either leaving their school for this job.

I get that it will pay well, but it’s going to be a tough job. Greg Schiano is getting paid well at Rutgers too. My point is that Northwestern football has some unique challenges.

In terms of recruiting, academics can be a hindrance. There are high standards and that goes for during the season too. It’s a little something different than a program like Georgia or Alabama. I’m not saying academics don’t matter but they aren’t the No. 1 priority.

Essentially, you have to be able to do more with less. Fitzgerald was great at doing that for years. He recruited a certain type of player, mostly three-stars, and developed them.

Northwestern football tended to be successful in finding NFL offensive linemen and the program was going along well before the 2021 season, when the wheels fell off.

Ed Orgeron wants to throw his hat in the ring according to reports, but I don’t see him as the best fit to coach somewhere fresh off a huge scandal.

However, one name that makes sense to me is David Shaw.

For one, he knows how to win at a place that has high academic standards (Stanford). Yes, he inherited the program Jim Harbaugh built, yet let’s not forget that Shaw strung together eight consecutive nine-win seasons to open his tenure.

The Cardinal had losing campaigns in three of the past four years. That doesn’t mean Shaw is a bad coach. He’s not and maybe after a year off, he would be ready to take on the difficult challenge that will be rebuilding Northwestern.

Shaw won 64 percent of his game at Stanford which also included a 5-3 mark in bowl games — another sign of a solid head coach.

Not every coach is going to understand how to recruit and win at Northwestern — Shaw will. It’s not the same animal as Michigan, Ohio State, or Penn State.

The two programs — Stanford and Northwestern — have much more in common and that’s why if Shaw wants to be a head coach again, Northwestern should seriously consider him.