In his 13 seasons, Northwestern's Pat Fitzgerald has built up an institution that was often overlooked when it came to football. It's a blueprint that Matt Rhule may find to be an interesting read as he looks to do the same with Baylor.

When you are on a path to greatness, how do you stay focused on the goal? The journey is long when the mundane has to be endured in a hurricane of the unknown. The examples and experiences of your peers are what can be used as a compass to chart the best course to success.

The Baylor football program is on their second go-around this decade in redefining championship success; this time it is with coach Matt Rhule at the helm. The athletic department has been so handicapped over the last few years that these Bears are now basically pushing a boulder back to the top of the mountain with their nose.

Back when Baylor reached the summit with coach Art Briles, the Bears produced an explosive offensive output that broke all sorts of records. Briles modeled his program after a combination of the 1980s SMU Mustangs and Miami Hurricanes as well as USC of the early 2000s: a thunder and lightning ground game paired with elite QBs and adorned with flashy wide receivers.

And for just how fast and big the Bears got in the short span of eight years, their demise on the national landscape of college football was swifter and harder. For all the positive characteristics that Baylor paralleled with those powerhouses on the field, they also shared the drastic and dramatic negative consequences from their off the field scandals.

Now Rhule is looking to re-build the program back to championship heights; to lay a stronger, sturdier foundation in Waco. With any good Fixer Upper, Rhule will need some inspiration, and there is one program that coach Rhule and Baylor should use as a new role model.

That program is Northwestern up in Evanston, Illinois.

There are seven discussion points as to how the two schools are eerily similar to each other and why Baylor should continue to look up to, compare and evaluate themselves against Northwestern.

Small and Private

Both the Bears and the Wildcats are small, private universities in the Big XII and Big Ten conferences respectively. Both used to be the lone private school in each conference until TCU joined the Big XII in 2012. Both compete with the all-powerful Longhorns and the Sooners and the Michigans and the Ohio States of the world.

Historically, it put both schools at a tremendous disadvantage when the bigger universities could just pass out scholarships like hotcakes to ensure that even the second best players did not go elsewhere. There are now rules to address this, but they are still outnumbered, which keeps them relegated as consistent underdogs.

The Underdog Role

It’s really fun as a fan to watch the progression of a team as they rise from doormat to underdog to champion. The satisfaction and gratification of the hard work and proving people wrong has to be a thrill.

For years and years, teams walk all over you and then finally the team is competitive to be in every game to the point to where the stars align for a championship. Both schools have experience in this, but none more than Northwestern.

The Wildcats have the NCAA records for both the longest losing streak—34 straight games from 1979 to 1982—and the biggest blown lead—35 points to Michigan State in 2006[1]—in college football history.[2]

They have worked to become consistently competitive with the best of the best in the Big Ten. They began to beat ranked teams annually beginning in the 1990s such as Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan and Michigan State (they have never quite solved Ohio State though) and have even secured a few titles of their own.

Coaching

The biggest attribute for this consistency and success on the field is the coaching. Pat Fitzgerald for Northwestern has established tremendous consistency for his program, and it is a blueprint that Matt Rhule would do well to mimic at Baylor.

Both were studs in the ‘90s at the linebacker position for what turned out to be dominant Big Ten teams. Rhule walked on at ‘Linebacker U’ or Penn State and became a scholar-athlete and Academic All-Big Ten. Fitzgerald helped lead the Wildcats to back-to-back Big Ten titles, a Rose Bowl berth and claimed consecutive All-Americans and national Defensive Player of the Year awards.

Both coaches are have proven they can accomplish re-building jobs and claim championship-level success. They act the same way during press conferences: thankful, honest, blunt, and caring. They are both fierce competitors and also love their kids of the field. In Fitzgerald’s 13 years, he has only finished below .500 three times.[3]

Defense

Fitzgerald has molded his teams to be defensive stalwarts in the Big Ten, which is why Northwestern often finds themselves locked in close games with their ranked, and usually favored, opponents.

Coach Rhule is looking to do the same thing in Waco with Baylor in the Big XII. Laugh all you want, but the Baylor defense is getting better using a bend, don’t break style. In 2018, the Bears were 77th in allowing 413 yards per game and 87th in allowing 31.2 points per game.

Meanwhile, Northwestern ranked 62nd in allowing 391 yards per game and 40th in the country by allowing 23.5 points per game. This was largely due to the fact that in their 10 Big Ten conference games (including the title game verses Ohio State) only two teams were able to score more than 30 points. What was most impressive was holding Iowa to 10 points in Iowa City.

Baylor had some impressive defensive performances in 2018—TCU, Texas Tech, Texas, and Iowa State all scored under 30 points. Take out Oklahoma and West Virginia and the Bears allowed 23.2 points per Big XII game. The point is, keep being tough and develop the defense to give your team a shot in the fourth quarter.

Lake Front Real Estate

Both schools have received the support from their administrations to approve, fundraise and construct multi-million dollar athletic complexes that sit right on the bodies of water that are found on campus.

Baylor started it in 2014 with the 266 million dollar McLane Stadium that places a football stadium on campus for the first time, right on the Brazos River. Northwestern just completed constructing their football practice facilities on Lake Michigan for 270 million dollars this year.

But what Northwestern also completed was a total athletics complex overhaul—football, basketball, offices, etc—that went to the tune of 400 million dollars. It is something that Baylor is now trying to match as they have announced a 1.1 billion dollar fundraising campaign that includes new football facilities, a basketball Fieldhouse and other athletic and academic needs.

Fitzgerald and Northwestern have been able to use their rise and new toys to lure recruits by branding themselves as ‘Chicago’s Big Ten team.’ Baylor needs to keep exploiting their waterfront property and convince recruits that Baylor is the best football brand in the state of Texas. For God’s sake, Chip and Joanna Gains live here.

Sustain Bowl Success

Northwestern won the Rose Bowl in 1949, and did not get back to Pasadena until 1996. It was not just the Rose Bowl; the Cats did not get to any bowl game. For 47 years they sat dormant. In fact, in 14 years that the legendary Gary Barnett and Randy Walker coached, Northwestern made only five bowl games.

Since Fitzgerald assumed the position amidst tragedy as the youngest head coach in 2006, he has lead the Cats to nine bowl games in 13 years. It also includes their first bowl win in 64 years, and an active two-year bowl win streak.

Baylor will be making their eighth bowl appearance in the last nine years, which is an impressive feat for a program that before this streak began saw their last bowl berth in 1994 and last bowl victory in ’92. It is now time for Rhule to commence his string of bowl berths for the Bears and beyond.

Dark Horse Championship Potential

No matter what, Northwestern is unquestionably in the game at any time and any place that they take the field. Ask Stanford in 2015 about how a trip to Evanston kept the Cardinal from making the College Football Playoff.

Unfortunately, this can sometimes include being too close against MAC or FCS opponents; however, it also means that even the powerhouses hate to see the calendar date that is written in purple.

It’s how Northwestern was able to go into West Lafayette, East Lansing and Iowa City in 2018 and literally squeeze out wins. Winning the West Division for the first time ever this season should be a huge boost of confidence, as they will continue to get back to Indianapolis and actually win the title game.

Baylor’s next step is to get to the point where everyone knows exactly what you are getting when they take the field no matter where it is or who it is against. In 2018, Baylor was too much of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde show as no one ever knew which units would be good or bad and for how long.

For the Bears, it led to some exciting victories like the last second win against Oklahoma State. Yet, it also produced some head-scratching losses like the one to Duke early in the season.

Baylor should consider themselves lucky, they are smack-dab in the middle of a cesspool of recruiting talent that is centrally located in both Texas and the nation with state of the art facilities that Baylor has produced on prime Fixer-Upper real estate.

Coach Rhule knows exactly how to build a championship team, he’s proved it at Temple and has quickly gotten Baylor bowl eligible again. Most likely, Rhule does not need a new blueprint.

However, if he wants to add another plan to his office wall to benchmark the success his new team is having in Waco it probably would not be a bad idea to jot down some notes of how his Big Ten linebacker friend, and coaching peer, is doing things on Lake Michigan.

Because Northwestern and Baylor, they are more similar in their histories, foundations and trajectories than you may realize.

[1] And TCU fans thought they had it rough with their lousy 21-point blown lead in that 61-58 game.

[2] Baylor has that really, really bad loss as well—you know the one—back in 1999.

[3] And 2006 cannot really count, just like Rhule’s 2017 campaign cannot really count.