College Football – Musical Chairs for Coaches
The movie world was saddened this holiday season by the news of the passing of Ann Savage, perhaps the original Femme Fatale. ‘Femme Fatale’ interpreted roughly, means ‘Fatal Woman’. Get too close and you’ll lose your wits, get beaten up, or at least seriously embarrassed. Using the universal laws of attraction, standard methodology includes luring unsuspecting people into listening to seductive language, and ultimately causing some really bad decisions. As college football heads into the annual slump known as winter, it will be hard to rebuild some programs, or at least make dog programs respectable. Coaching candidates offer seductive language, great visions and, in some cases, cause hiring institutions to make really bad decisions.
In the end, schools have to try something radical to turn losers into winners. Witness the University at Buffalo. For years a doormat program, the Bulls achieved an incredible level of success in 2008 with one bowl appearance. Even though the Bulls lost to UConn in the International Bowl, this is a remarkable turnaround for a program that, in the not too distant past, was simply the laughing stock of college football to the east. Congratulations then to the Bulls and to coach Turner Gill. This is what one would refer to as a “good hire.”
What training decisions will turn out to be the bad ones? One never knows for sure, but some strange stories are already forming on the surface of the 2009 season. Iowa State was very lucky to have their 2-10 coach hired by, of all people, Auburn. This saved the school from itself when Cyclone bosses offered the former coach a contract extension. After racking up wins in the 2008 season over South Dakota State and Kent State early in the season, the Cyclones proceeded to lose everything else. Iowa State then replaced their lost head coach with Iowa native Paul Rhoads. Rhoads brings impressive credentials, a commitment to winning at Iowa State and coming to the Cyclones from, of all places, Auburn. 2009 will see which school got the better end of this deal. Stay tuned for this one!
The college football sage (its humble author) wishes Washington coach Steve Sarkisian the best of luck in 2009. Coach Sark likely read the tea leaves in his previous role at USC and determined that his upward mobility will it would benefit better by seeking another institution to make it a winner. Goal Washington? The Huskies finished last season winless, the first perfectly terrible season for a Pac-10 school. If the Huskies do have a few wins in 2009, Coach Sark will really have accomplished something significant. Then look out for the purple dogs in 2012.
The opportunity to turn a loser into a winner will often override a coaching candidate’s better judgment. The Sage hopes New New Mexico State coach DeWayne Walker made a good choice. Walker is the Aggies’ 33rd head coach and has his work cut out for him. The Aggies managed just one conference win last season and likely have the Cornhuskers, Michigan and a variety of other schools trying to get them into their home schedules. If Walker gets a couple of wins, New Mexico State’s biggest challenge will be keeping him.
To the north of Las Cruces, the University of New Mexico also found itself in need of a new head football coach following the resignation of coach and alumnus Rocky Long. Never a powerhouse in the Mountain West Conference, New Mexico needed a recruiting ace to attract decent players to Albuquerque. Interestingly, the Lobos managed to convince Mike Locksley to resign from his position as Offensive Coordinator at Illinois to try to push UNM in the right direction. This will require a bit of pressure. Among Locksley’s ratings, however, is one of Sports Illustrated’s top 25 recruiting ratings. If Locksley attracts better players than have taken the field for the Lobos and gets a few wins at the old UNM stadium, other programs will want to know exactly how he did it. They will also want to hire you. Both football programs in the state of New Mexico need to make generous contract extension offers in case any of their new coaches appear to be turning their respective programs around.
Brady Hoke, a former head coach at Ball State, is now in the same position at San Diego State. It’s true that SDSU could offer things that Ball State couldn’t, like a beach and decent weather. Hoke traded his Ball State Cardinals #12 for one of the worst programs going. If he can turn things around in Southern California, he’ll be one of the best training products. It’s also better for the Aztecs to have a retention plan in case Hoke starts to win. There is no more daunting task than taking over a perennial loser and turning it around, except perhaps to take over a program that is used to winning and keep it that way. Witness Lane Kiffen, the new head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers and former head coach of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders. Here’s a boy who won’t miss church the rest of the year. Getting fired by Al Davis in Oakland isn’t so much a misfortune as a blessing. But then landing in Knoxville? A bowl appearance in 2009 would be the hat trick. However, there is real pressure in Knoxville, and 104,000 fans will be at Neyland Stadium every home game to apply it.
The annual shakeup of the head coaching ranks is all but over now for 2009. Motivational speeches are brewing for the Spring Games heralding a “new way of thinking,” “a winning attitude,” “leaving the past behind and “make something special happen”. These are all great speeches, and they are given to essentially every college-level player with the courage to take the field for a losing program. Next September, we’ll finally see which shows have been lured in with sweet words of victory and which shows actually deliver. The unfortunate part of hiring coaches is that a good decision pays off with a big contract extension. One bad decision puts your show back in the dump.