What was wrong with the staff he had around him? And as CEO, wouldn't the corporate dysfunction that caused not 1 not 2, but 3 high profile QB's to leave the program be on him?
The right staff was never there together at the right time IMO. You had Kingsbury running a dominant offense, then leaving. Then they finally got their DC, but by that time they had cycled through mediocre OC's and Co-OC's and the depth of talent wasn't there on defense. I have no clue what happened with those 3 QB's (I actually think it was more, Hill, Murray, Allen, Martell), but sure, it might be on Sumlin, that doesn't change the fact that he can recruit at a high level.
Playing kiss ass was the least of Strong's problems IMO. Losing David Ash after the first game was a big blow but Strong's UT teams were highly undisciplined and just got bowled more often than not. Special teams and penalties were also a huge issue and it's followed him to USF. He also made poor decisions regarding his staff throughout his tenure.
Looks like ULL is set to hire Arizona State OC Billy Napier for their head coach opening. It's been mentioned all over college football Twitter this morning, but this makes the Herm Edwards hire look even more dubious. Part of the pitch for Edwards coming on was that it was going to promote continuity by holding on to the current coordinators, but since the announcement of Edwards's hiring, DC Phil Bennett has decided to leave (apparently without a landing spot, mind you) and now Napier is gone to be the head coach at ULL. So they're basically starting over after all. On top of it, ASU has lost half a dozen or so recruits since the announcement. That's not altogether out of the ordinary; recruits are going to de-commit anytime there's a change in head coach, but the optics of this particular situation are so bad that it's getting more attention.
Gotta agree with you. Hiring Herm Edwards seems like a guaranteed failure for ASU. He's an older coach with nil recent experience in college football.
With their set up, the Coordinators and Assistants will bear all of the workload and all of the blame. Don't see how these guys could've been all that happy on the road recruiting while watching Herm on t.v. talking about the Bears vs. 49ers.
The thing about it is that I can totally see what they were going for by hiring Edwards, but I just think it was a faulty premise to begin with. Putting aside the obvious conflict of interest situation stemming from Edwards being a former client of the AD, ASU wanted Herm to basically come in, do in-home recruiting visits where he wins over the family with his famous "don't hit send" and "nothing good happens after 2 AM" talking points we've all seen and heard in his work with the NFL's rookies, give a good press conference after games, and then have that be enough because the assistants are coaching up the players on the field and doing the game planning. I'm not saying he adds nothing from an on-field standpoint. He may not have been the best NFL coach, but he did have some success and he was knowledgable enough to become an NFL coach, which is an achievement in and of itself, but in my opinion, the college coaching game is waaaaaaaay too involved for a figurehead coach to be all that successful, particularly one without any recent experience in the college game.
Welp, just when you thought the carousel was done spinning, it cranks back up. News just came down that Arizona has fired Rich Rodriguez. I have to admit I have dug into the details yet, but barring off-the-field factors, it seems like a strange move. They weren't expected to be very good this year, and he started the season very much on the hot seat, but they ended up having a surprisingly nice season. EDIT: Just read that sexual harassment allegations are at the heart of the decision.
Congratulations to Rich Rod. I didn't know he was still coaching, well he isn't anymore... but congrats to fooling someone into employing you for so long!!
Michigan fan? Sounds like it was a good time to cut bait. He has floundered the last few years after peaking in 2014 and this year would have been another complete bust had Tate not had a ridiculous stretch of games.
The job opening itself might just be a blip on the radar, but how the NCAA handles the incoming freshmen who just signed NLIs a couple of weeks ago will have far-reaching implications. I assume many of them would like to re-open their recruitment and may petition to do so. If the NCAA denies that request, probably on the grounds that Rich Rod was officially fired without cause, as I assume they will, I think the effect will be two-fold. For one, I think you might get more programs holding on to coaches long enough to hold together recruiting classes past the early signing date and then finding reasons to fire them afterward. Maybe not in the case of coaches who have driven a program into the tank where there is little to lose recruiting-wise, but maybe in situations where it could have gone either way as far as firing the coach goes. But more importantly, if the NCAA holds them to their NLIs, I think the phenomenon we saw this year of the vast majority of the top recruits signing on the early date will be a one-year phenomenon. I think there will be much more caution on their part about that. However, if the NCAA does release them from NLIs in this case, it opens up pandora’s box on situations where players can get out of NLIs, which have traditionally been pretty iron-clad.
A&M single handedly changed the coordinator payscale this afternoon and yet still in the market for their DC. If you're A&M's next target, how do you not ask for $2M right off the bat?
That is so ridiculous it makes my head explode! Paying college coaches obscene money like this but not allowing athletes to profit from their ability is a morally bankrupt position that cannot be allowed to continue. At this point, I'm now rooting for someone to legally blow up this unfair system. I don't give a care how much disruption and chaos it causes. This is my breaking point. I don't care if it kills college football as we know it.
