Northwestern announced the news on Wednesday that Wildcat fans were waiting for.

Head coach Pat Fitzgerald signed a new 10-year contract that would replace his current deal and keep him in Evanston through 2030.

It was a welcome development after a few weeks of speculation about the possibility of Fitzgerald jumping to the NFL. It also was a worthy topper to a 2020 season that resulted in a Big Ten West division title and a VRBO Citrus Bowl win over Auburn.

"From the moment I stepped on campus as an undergraduate, I have believed this is the finest University in the country, with the potential to offer an unmatched student-athlete experience," said Fitzgerald in a statement. He added, "We all have a lot to be proud of, but our best is yet to come."

Here are seven thoughts about Fitzgerald’s signing:

All the NFL talk was just leverage: You didn’t really believe that Fitzgerald was going to take an NFL job in Detroit, Houston, New York or Jacksonville, did you? If you turn down the Green Bay Packers, you’re not going to jump to the Jets or the Jaguars (sorry, Coach Meyer).

Fitzgerald was said to be “in play” for a number of openings, and he no doubt allowed his name to be put out there. But he never took an interview, nor did he have any real desire for any of those jobs. He just wanted to use them for bargaining power.

Terms of the contract were not disclosed, but you can be sure that Fitzgerald got himself a raise, and, more importantly in his eyes, increased the salary pool for his assistants. Northwestern historically lagged behind its Big Ten counterparts in assistant salaries but has made up a lot of ground in recent years.

You can also be confident that he got a commitment from the administration to renovate Ryan Field. (More on that in a moment.)

It was a nice going-away present from Phillips: Talk about going out with a bang.

Dr. Jim Phillips, who has been Northwestern’s athletic director since 2008, is leaving to take the ACC commissioner’s job in February. And what a farewell he gave to the Wildcats, locking up their most valuable asset for the next decade.

Despite it being a semi-annual occurrence, the reason the Fitz-to-the-NFL talk created some angst among the Wildcat community this time around was that they knew Phillips was leaving. Fitzgerald and Phillips worked very well together, and Fitzgerald has praised him as “the best boss in America” every chance he got. So his imminent departure gave some credence to the argument that if Fitzgerald was ever going to leave Northwestern, now was the time to do it. The argument made some sense, but, in the end, turned out to be much ado about nothing.

Northwestern will miss Phillips dearly, but, with Fitzgerald under contract, he is leaving the athletic department in great shape.

Expect Ryan Field to be renovated soon: The renovation of Northwestern’s home stadium has been a priority for Fitzgerald since the Walter Athletic Center opened in the spring of 2018. While Ryan Field has added several amenities and perks over the last several years – new scoreboards, paved parking lots, the locker room building in the end zone – it hasn’t undergone a major renovation since 1997.

How long ago was that? Fitzgerald had just graduated from Northwestern the previous June.

Fitzgerald has several times decried the program’s game-day experience in private, and it’s something that he has to recruit against constantly. The Wildcat program can offer prospects a track record of success, a degree from one of the Top 10 academic institutions in the country and state-of-the-art facilities. But when it comes to home games on Saturdays, they are still light years behind the competition.

Fitzgerald believes that a new, modern stadium with all the bells-and-whistles will help get fans dressed in Purple to fill the stands (once social distancing rules are lifted, of course), create a home-field advantage for his team and keep even more money flowing into the program. It will also be something to show off to high school prospects.

When he signed his last contract, in the spring of 2017, the new practice facility was the focal point. Now that they have that built, Fitzgerald is turning his eyes to Ryan Field. And what Fitz wants, Fitz gets – in large part because he’s the guy raising a lot of the money.

This contract is a win-win: This is the definition of mutually beneficial deal.

Fitzgerald gets the long-term stability he’s looking for, plus an assumed raise for him and his assistants. He famously said after the 2018 Holiday Bowl that he was a Wildcat for life. Now, he knows that he’ll be in Evanston for at least the next 10 years.

And you can bet that Fitzgerald will use his new contract in recruiting. He can say, “I’ve turned down Michigan, Notre Dame and several NFL franchises over the last few years. You and your family can rest assured that I’ll be the only coach your son has during his career at Northwestern.”

For the school, it’s an even better deal. They know what Fitzgerald means to the program, and there’s no way they’re going to let him go. He’s worth every penny of the salary he draws. There is not a program in the Big Ten that doesn’t envy Northwestern’s coaching situation. (Iowa has had Kirk Ferentz since 1999, but he’s 19 years older than Fitzgerald and doesn’t have too many years left.)

Plus, they locked Fitzgerald in during a time of relative instability, when Phillips is on his way out, president Morty Schapiro is 67 and probably nearing retirement, and major donor Patrick Ryan is 83.

Fitz’s next contract could be his last: Fitzgerald will turn 56 in 2030, when the term of his contract is up. He will have coached 25 seasons at Northwestern.

At that point, he will either sign a lifetime contract with Northwestern or, if he’s at all interested, pursue a career in the NFL. That could be the time for him to try his hand at the highest level. He’d still be young enough and he will have spent a quarter century leading the program that he loves. Plus, if they so choose, he will have already had the chance to live out his dream and coach his boys at Northwestern.

However, we think Fitz is more likely to ride into the sunset at Northwestern at the time of his choosing. Several people who know Fitzgerald best say that he doesn’t hold much interest in coaching in the NFL. He thinks of himself as a college coach. He enjoys recruiting and sees himself as more of a molder of young men.

And if he’s going to remain a college coach, there’s only one place he’s going to do that.

This is another championship commitment: In 2018, when the $270-million “Fitz-Carlton” first opened its doors, Fitzgerald called it a “championship commitment” from the Northwestern administration. He even went so far as to say it was time for the program to start winning championships.

Well, three years later, Fitzgerald still hasn’t won that Big Ten title – about the only thing that has eluded him so far. But he did win the West division in two of the last three years, so we’ll give him a pass.

Still, there’s no question that his failure to capture the program’s biggest prize sticks in Fitzgerald’s craw, especially since the two guys before him won it. Every day this offseason, when he goes into his office, he’ll walk past a glass case that has the trophy for winning the West and the trophy for winning the Citrus Bowl. But there won’t be one in the spot reserved for the Big Ten championship trophy. It’s an empty hole that needs to be filled – both for the program, and for Fitzgerald personally.

The administration has ponied up for Fitz again. By 2030, he will have to hold up his end of the bargain.

Fitz’s legacy is cemented: Fitzgerald has long admired Ferentz, the only Big Ten coach who has been at his school longer than Fitzgerald has been at his. He also idolized Joe Paterno at Penn State – before the Jerry Sandusky scandal tarnished JoePa’s legacy.

There are precious few coaches who are synonymous with a school. Guys like Paterno, Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, Bobby Bowden, Frank Beamer. Even Nick Saban, for all his championships, won’t have that, as people will forever argue whether he or Bear Bryant best embodied the Alabama program.

Fitzgerald will be one of those guys. His name will be on the stadium one day.

His 106 wins are already more than double the number of Pappy Waldorf, the No. 2 man on Northwestern’s all-time coaching list. He has earned five of the Wildcats’ six all-time bowl wins. He has played on or coached 14 of the 16 bowl teams and four of the five 10-win teams in school history.

We’ve written this before, but Fitzgerald isn’t just the face of Northwestern football. He is Northwestern football.