Pat Fitzgerald was vilified, then vindicated. His truth comes out at last | Exclusive

EAST LANSING, MI – This was 33 months in the making, in case you’ve lost count. There’s zero chance he can contain himself now, much less take the high road. He didn’t wait nearly three years to allow someone behind the wall, behind the safety and sanity of truth on your side , without knowing this day was coming.

Where for the first time, someone outside Pat Fitzgerald’s inner circle is hearing his side of the story — the unvarnished truth rising from months of misinformation, disinformation and finally, beautifully, sweet vindication — and he can barely hold it in. “I feel like Andy Dufresne in 'Shawshank Redemption ,'” Fitzgerald says, and while the exclusive interview with USA TODAY Sports has just begun, he hasn’t even settled in behind his desk at Michigan State and the words are racing out of his mouth. “I crawled all the way through that s---, and came out cleaner on the other side.

” We’ll get to the new job soon enough, the perfect fit of blue collar, hard-working, wildly successful coach, and the blue collar, hard-working Michigan State program that not so long ago had control of the Big Ten . But we’ve got other business to take care of first. Specifically, the business of truth and reality from Fitzgerald’s ugly and unfair firing by his beloved alma mater Northwestern nearly three summers ago.

How every allegation and shock headline of player mistreatment, every leaked story and false narrative, never broke Fitzgerald and his family. But you better believe it damn near did. This isn’t about money and the multi-million dollar settlement from Northwestern, or most important, the public statement from the university completely exonerating Fitzgerald from player mistreatment allegations.