Pat Fitzgerald's terrible locker room culture fumes the internet, with fans asking for his immediate dismissal: "If true fire everybody"

For the last couple of days, Wildcats head coach Pat Fitzgerald has been all over the news. He had received a sanction placing him on a 2-week suspension without pay following allegations of hazing in the football team.

The scandal has taken on a new life, however, as two anonymous whistleblowers revealed more gruesome details about the hazing culture within the team. The accounts of these two insiders were published on Saturday by The Daily Northwestern student newspaper.

According to the first account, the hazing rituals practiced in the team involved acts of sexual coercion. The anonymous source further described the basic form of hazing done in the team called “running.” It involved acts of restraining the victim by senior players while he would be dry-humped in a dark locker room.

The source continued, stating how the senior players would point out individuals for “running”, adding that coach Pat Fitzgerald sometimes did the singling out. Another detail of the hazing ritual involved forcing freshmen to strip naked and perform a ritual called the “carwash”. The “carwash” is an act involving two naked players being forced to brush past each other and then sprayed with a hose.

The allegations were confirmed by a second anonymous source within the team. Both sources also described another ritual that involved freshmen quarterbacks being forced to take a snap from the center while naked.

The report has had many people enraged on social media, particularly Twitter, with Tweeps calling for everybody on the team to be fired.

What does this mean for Pat Fitzgerald's future?

Although Fitzgerald himself has come out to deny any knowledge of the hazing incidents, it becomes hard to believe in light of the newspaper report. And the punishment already meted out to him may seem very insignificant after all.

The school had also banned off-campus practice as part of measures to check hazing behavior. It appointed a supervisor who doesn’t report to Fitzgerald to observe the locker room as an added measure.

Pat Fitzgerald has led the Wildcats to some of their best seasons in the program's history. But he came under pressure after leading them to a 1-11 finish last season. It is fair to say his future at Northwestern now hangs in the balance, although the university authorities have not reacted to the new whistleblowers' accounts.