The Cats have proved easy to like under charismatic coach Pat Fitzgerald, but now the program sits on the precipice of being more than just a feel-good story.

Duke is no longer the ACC’s pinata, and ditto for Stanford in the Pac-10.

(“When I got here in ‘93,” he joked, “if we had one guy out for one game, we were dead.”) And this staff sure deserves a few more years to further raise the program.

No amount of energy, at no time of day, can change the idea that success doesn’t breed success at Northwestern the same way it can at Washington or West Virginia or most places in between.

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/30159598/