The exodus might have just started for the Northwestern Wildcats amid the Pat Fitzgerald firing. Four-star recruit and freshman linebacker Nigel Glover has reportedly entered the transfer portal, making him the first Northwestern football player to do so since the dismissal of Fitzgerald, as noted by Matt Zenitz of On3.
This is not a good sign for Northwestern football, which has a total of 19 commits for the 2023 college football season, especially since Glover was the highest-ranked player of that Wildcats recruitment class. Glover is the only four-star recruit of the Wildcats for 2023, and his looming departure could portend that more players will follow suit.
According to his On3 profile, Glover is ranked 306th nationally and 31st overall among linebacker recruits. He is also ranked 10th overall among recruits from Ohio. Before committing to Northwestern football, Glover received offers from the likes of the Illinois Fighting Illini, Miami (Ohio) RedHawks, West Virginia Mountaineers, Washington Huskies, Kentucky Wildcats, Duke Blue Devils, Michigan Wolverines, and Purdue Boilermakers among others.
The firing of Fitzgerald on July 10 meant that undergraduate Northwestern football players have a 30-day period to enter the transfer portal. Seeing Glover pack his bags might have just encouraged other Wildcats recruits to take their talents somewhere else, making a tense offseason even more stressfull for Northwestern.
The Wildcats have yet to hire a permanent head coach to succeed Fitzgerald, but they have already promoted defensive coordinator David Braun to an interim role.
Northwestern finished with a 1-11 record in 2022 and has won just four games against 20 losses in the final two years of Fitzgerald on the job.
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