Would be a surprise to Sumlin apparently. Lol. "A resolute Sumlin on Tuesday at his weekly press conference said that he expects to be A&M's coach next season. "Why wouldn't I?" he said in response to a question from the Chronicle about his future."
TIFWIW but a poster on a Re: Strong thread on Reddit posted the below. Normally wouldn't post stuff like this but wouldn't surprise me one bit. Also goes with what Ray Guy award finalist Michael Dickson said that Strong didn't look like he knew who he was when he reported. "I was a backup punter behind Dickson under Charlie's time at Texas. No. No special teams coach. We were told to go off to the side field and "get out of the way". Any development had to come from our own initiative to try and improve. It created a fairly toxic special teams environment with cliques and no real leadership." Special teams and penalties was an absolute abomination at UT and its continuing at USF as the most penalized team in the nation.
There was a time when Jeff Fisher was like a poor man's Jon Gruden as far as college coaching rumors go, particularly with jobs on the west coast.
Have to think it's UCLA or nothing for Chip Kelly, and don't underestimate the chances that he does nothing. Sure, coaches have competitive desire and itch to get back into the game a lot of times, but TV jobs for these ex-coaches are better than ever. Dan LeBatard always reminds his listeners, for example, that he is ESPN's highest-paid on-air personality. I'm sure Bill Cowher is paid handsomely as well. You combine that with the fact that leashes for head coaches only gets shorter with each passing season and you have a recipe for these guys looking to make a living doing something else.
Coaching is a tough business, and perhaps it's just considered the cost of being so well paid in the profession, but it's pretty crappy that they told Bielema he was fired as he walked off the field. The guy isn't dumb. He probably knew that he was getting canned. At least have the decency to tell him after he meets with his team after a last-second loss.
Scuttlebutt on Twitter this evening is that Oregon State plans to name Cal offensive coordinator and former Eastern Washington head coach Beau Baldwin their head coach. Good, solid hire. He's helped Cal to a much better season this year than anyone would have predicted, and his work at EWU speaks for itself. Personally, I was kind of rooting for Ken Niumatalolo to get this job, primarily because I'm dying to see how a program that runs the option really, really well could do in a major conference in today's game.
Good riddance to garbage. He was Barry Alvarez's hand picked successor at Wisconsin and was set up for years of success. Then he ran away like a chump. Hope he enjoys all his money. I hope he doesn't get hired again....but I'm guessing he will.
Looks like there's a lot of smoke surrounding Chip Kelly to UCLA this morning, and it feels different than some of the Kelly to Florida rumors you saw earlier this week. Those seemed to mostly come from message board types and those you doubted had any real connection, whereas the UCLA reporting is coming from some of the well-connected national media. Bringing in Kelly should do wonders for UCLA holding together what's left of a pretty good recruiting class that started to fall apart a little bit when it was becoming more and more clear that Mora was on the hot seat. One player who is probably ecstatic is Dorian Thompson-Robinson, a four-star QB from Las Vegas' Bishop Gorman who looks to be a perfect fit for the type of offense Kelly likes to run.
Looks like we also have movement at Nebraska. I follow a few Nebraska writers on Twitter and their AM meeting today is being covered like a red carpet special before an awards how. There's a tweet every time a new set of players arrives. EDIT: Looks like Mike Riley has been fired. Not a shock, and gives both sides a chance to kind of press the reset button. Riley and Nebraska was just a poor fit from the start.
Mike Leach is my pick for Nebraska. Despite the ties, Scott Frost has to see Nebraska is a mediocre situation, at best.
I'm actually starting to think (again) that Frost ends up at Florida. You heard a week or so ago that Nebraska and Frost (or more likely, Frost's people) were working on a deal, but that's kind of quieted down in recent days, and I wonder if that has something to do with it becoming clear that Chip Kelly wasn't going to end up at UF. The pull to come back "home" is very real, I'm sure, but coaches are competitive, ambitious individuals. If he thinks Florida gives him a better chance to make more money and win national titles, he'll probably end up at Florida.
Georgia Tech with Paul Johnson is an interesting situation I'm surprised doesn't get talked about more, although I suppose that's just because they get swallowed up by the local pro teams and SEC programs. On one hand, running the triple option system probably allows them to compete at a higher level than their talent otherwise would allow. But on the other hand, with the right hire and the right level of commitment to the program, you get the sense that GT could be better than they have been. They just got beaten by Georgia, which brings them to 5-7. Unless they get bailed out by the need for an APR-aided 5-7 bowl team, they're going to miss a bowl for the second time in three years. Just three years ago, though, they finished in the top ten. That season came after a period where they won no more than eight games in four straight seasons. They just feel kind of caught in between. It's a risk to move on from Johnson because the program is in better shape now than it has been since at least the late-90s, but I'm dubious of their chances to have any extended peak.
