SleepingGiantsFan

The WAC is slowly but surely dying. Oh, and I love Yoda. It's been a dozen years since the so-called Gang of Five (BYU, Utah, CSU, Wyoming and AFA) dissed Fresno State by not inviting them to leave the WAC for the MWC yet Yoda still feels jilted. Personally, I was dumped by several girlfriends for somebody else but always managed to get over it within a month or so. Unless I miss my bet, Yoda's gravestone is going to read "Fresno State should have stayed in the WAC!"

Just curious. Did you become a season ticket purchaser BECAUSE Todd Dodge was hired? If so, why?

Agree 100%. Mangino must be four bills and change. I also think he's happy just being a "consultant" at Minnesota. Regarding Turner Gill, I agree with Green Mean. I thought he did a great job at one of the absolute worst places in the country in Buffalo and I was hoping he would interview for the SDSU job. However, I heard from an insider that although SDSU contacted him, he passed, with the expectation that, as happened a year later, he got a gig with a school from an AQ conference. I think he made a mistake in hiring Chuck Long to be his OC, however. I think Chuck is a great QB coach as evidenced by his helping turn a modest talent like Jason White into a Heisman winner, plus convincing Bob Stoops go give Sam Bradford a scholarship when word was Stoops was urging Bradford to walk on. Although some think Chuck was also a good OC at Oklahoma, after Chuck was hired a number of Sooners came to our board and said they were glad to see him leave and warned that they thought he would be a terrible head coach. I was very skeptical of them, thinking they were just upset that he left Norman. Turns out I was very wrong and they were very right. Gotta say it, BTW. The more I think about it, the more I think Leavitt would be a great hire for UNT. As Phil Steele says in this year's mag, Leavitt had several opportunities to leave for greener pastures but stayed at USF. One such opportunity was apparently to replace Bill Snyder at KSU but they made the mistake of hiring Ron Prince instead. I haven't investigated Leavitt's circumstances but it sure sounds on the face of it like it was very similar to Mike Leach, though without the interference from an ESPN announcer I consider to be a loser who couldn't keep his nose out of his kid's affairs.

Maybe. But check Kansas' board and you'll see there are a huge amount of fans who would rather see that and a winning team than the svelt, non-booger hunting Turner Gill and a losing team. (Well, except when Gill's opponent is Mr. "This ain't intramurals!")

So noted. As I said, I'm not that knowledgeable about Leavitt and he could very well be a very good choice for you guys. At this point he sure seems to me to be much more qualified than Canales. I also like the fact that like SDSU's Steve Fisher, he has had success at a higher level program and was fired for political reasons rather than a failure to win.

Your final sentence is absolutely correct. As to Franchione, I have a feeling he might be your equivalent of Dennis Erickson at Idaho. Which is to say he would immediately greatly upgrade recruiting and increase season ticket sales but having gotten back into coaching then leave at the first opportunity for a higher-level gig. But would that necessarily be bad? Erickson's successor used a bunch of those recruits, particularly QB Nathan Enderle, to win a bowl game last year. I think Idaho is destined to fall off considerably because Robb Akey is merely mediocre but to me the key would be to know that Franchione would leave after a couple years and have a young up-and-comer waiting in the wings to take over the reins when he does. Boise: They're where they are because of a much better batting average in hiring coaches than is true anywhere else I can think of. Houston Nutt (very good), Dirk Koetter (very good), Dan Hawkins (a good caretaker) and Chris Petersen (a GREAT coach). I'm not sure anybody can replicate that. Utah: For a decade or so they had Ron McBride at the helm, a very good recruiter but a terrible game day coach. When they dumped McBride in favor of a Hall of Famer to be, Urban Meyer, they had the perfect storm for instant success. They then simply had to take Meyer's advice and promote one of his coordinators. To become another Utah, you would need to hire a McBride at this point. TCU: Has a long history of football success, including in the old SWC, which was one of the top conferences in the country back in the day. One of the greatest players in history, Sammy Baugh, was a Horned Frogs. Plus although the school is small, from what I hear they have a solid core of old money, big bucks alumni who donate mucho dinero. So no offense meant but that is apples and oranges. USF: They hit the motherload in gaining admission to an AQ conference in a very short period of time. It's a lot easier to win when you're getting a share of BCS money every year like clockwork. Which is why I'm not quite as enamored of Jim Leavitt as others may be. But maybe he's great, I don't really know. The only thing I would say is I think THIS is the program you guys should try to emulate. UNT is about to be very similar to the USF of 15 years ago or so. Meaning a very large student population located in a state with a bunch of HS football talent and a new on-campus stadium to play in. As I've said, you could become a very good candidate for admission to the MWC, which is on the cusp of gaining AQ status if TCU doesn't bolt for the Big East. However, hiring high school coaches to head up your program? My guess is that must have been very hotly debated on this board at the time. At least I would hope that it was.

Maybe they should ask Hayden Fry. However, if Fry recommends they call Bill Snyder, it should end there. Word is Snyder recommended Chuck Long for the SDSU job.

That could be true. However, things are a bit different now. First there was a respite when they broke the bank to hire Dick Tomey in 2005 and he rewarded them by winning their first bowl game in many years. However, the fans still didn't turn out much that year or the following season and Tomey either retired or was forced out a year ago depending on who you hear from. This year the Spartans drew only 14K for their arch rival Fresno State and my guess would be that at least 4K of those fans were from Fresno. They were able to get by with such terrible attendance in the past because the State of California wasn't broke so they got more revenue from that source and because the WAC had, and continues to have as I type but won't continue to have in the future, Boise St., Fresno St. and Nevada in their conference. The next ESPN deal therefore figures to be a bad one for the WAC.

Assuming you're asserting that's what I said on another thread, that is incorrect. What I said was that I respect Bill King of Rivals Radio and his minimum qualification to be a head coach is substantial experience as either a head coach or an offensive or defensive coordinator at a level at which you have to concern yourself with the awarding of scholarships and APR. Malzahn's background meets King's requirement.

I like Tom Dienhart a lot. However, if you could actually see anything about UNT there, you're a better man than me. That convoluted mess gave me a headache. With due respect, there isn't a chance in the world of Gus Malzahn taking a job with a SBC school. Probably not any school from a non-AQ conference. Malzahn is one of the most respected OC's in the country and is going to be coveted by some of the big boys. And that probably doesn't include Minnesota. My dad's a Minnesota grad so I wish they would get their act together but with the exception of half a dozen years under Lou Holtz and Glen Mason, that football program has been mismanaged for decades. As to Coach Fran, when somebody has that many miles on them, you better be careful to put a low-cost buyout clause in his contract for years four and five in the event he runs out of steam after year two or three.

Yes, it's San DIEGO State. Not that I would expect any of you folks to be aware of it but I think San JOSE State's football program will be nonexistent within five years. Although I never attended SJSU, I'm originally from the Bay Area and still have business there a couple times a year and think the demise of a program which through one 4-year period in the late seventies had a winning record against the couple Pac-10 schools it played annually is a crying shame. However, the Spartans' shrinking fan base refuses to engage in the virtual march on the administration building that SDSU fans did two years ago in demanding that Chuck Long be replaced. Apathy will kill a moribund program and that is exactly what's happening at SJSU. Thank you for the compliment. I've tried to be civil and emulate the various Ohio State posters who have come to our board the several times the Aztecs have played in Columbus. Total class all the way. That would be the polar opposite of half of the Tennessee fans who came to our board before we played them in the NCAAs this year. Lowlife bigoted crackers is the only way to describe them. (Vile jokes about our PG's last name, San Diego's Hispanic population, the couple black kids we have from the inner city of L.A., their Jewish head coach, etc. Just amazing. Intellectually, those guys are still living in the fifties Deep South apparently.) The Ohio State posters have left me with a very favorable impression of their school. The Tennessee fans just the opposite. I don't know how long I'll "stick around" but I would hope that once I leave you will regard me as more like the OSU guys than the trolls from Tennessee.

In other words, if UNT is in fact in contact with somebody on Jimbo Fisher's staff, it's much more likely to be somebody like this: http://www.seminoles.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/gran_eddie00.html

Your concern is legit, I think. Still, if Hawaii had a "no step down" policy, June Jones would never have been hired. And if SDSU had the same, Steve Fisher would never have been hired. Sometimes things just don't work out for a coach somewhere. The key is due diligence in finding out such things. I assume that's why your administration has hired Chuck Neinas.

The gig I underlined made Snyder qualified under Rivals Radio's Bill King's minimum criterion. Which is that nobody should be hired to be the head coach of a DIA university unless they have had substantial experience as either a head coach or offensive or defensive coordinator at a level at which they needed to be concerned with the offering of scholarships and the APR. I've checked on occasion and I think King is correct that in the great majority of cases, those without such experience who have been hired to be DIA head coaches have failed. What amounts to "substantial" is up to interpretation. However, SDSU hired Tom Craft to be its head coach despite that fact that although he had half a dozen spectacular years as a JC head coach, he had no such prior experience at the DIA level and only two years as an OC at the DIA level. Craft proved to be a good game day coach but 52% of his recruits over a 3-year period never played more than one season and the NCAA reduced SDSU's allowable scholarships for his final year and all three years of Chuck Long's tenure as a result of the consequent terrible APR. Oh, and despite bringing in several studs who DID play four years, Craft never qualified for a bowl game.

When Bienemy was UCLA's recruiting coordinator there was much speculation that a significant part of the success of Karl Duh-rell was all the studs Bienemy brought in. Having now also been in the NFL, Bienemy would be a good hire for CU, IMO. Certainly vastly better than McCartney, who apparently has a bunch of old fart supporters that are certain he can duplicate his prior success. Of course to do so, McCartney would have to find some more lowlifes from the inner city of L.A. like Rae Carruth and the other wide receiver Michael somebody (can't recall the last name) who punched out a couple teammates on the Redskins. At least at this point in time McCartney presumably doesn't have any more young daughters who can get knocked up by his players and the Buff Backers booster club has been reined in so it no longer - allegedly - provides strippers (or worse) on recruiting visits.

Neinas recommended Jimbo for the SDSU job, but that was five years ago. Jimbo was then hired by FSU as the so-called Coach in Waiting to replace Bobby Bowden. With all the family connections Mark Stoops has, if you guys could get him it would be a real coup IMO. However, I'm very skeptical about him taking a job with an SBC school. Consider that Mike Stoops jumped into head coaching in the Pac-10.

Released to the where?

I think he would be a great hire for them. However, WSU may not have the money to pay him. SDSU's current AD was hired away from WSU and I've heard he became frustrated with the limited resources available there. Pac-10 TV money is nice but you also need rich alumni to open their wallets and apparently WSU has problems in that area. BTW, the guy who runs the CU Rivals site said on Rivals Radio this morning that he doubts the Buffs will hire Leach. Speculation he's hearing is the leading candidates are Eric Bienemy, who would make sense for a number of reasons, and Bill McCartney, who some influential alumni are supposedly pushing for but who would be an incredibly dumb hire if for no other reason than he's been out of coaching for 16 years. (Insert rolleyes emoticon.)

He hasn't been out of coaching long enough that he's going to consider a job with a SBC school. Right now, I suspect Leach's agent is making informal inquiries about the probable openings at Colorado and ASU. Both are schools in an AQ conference which therefore have money to pay him, both fit his geographical footprint (he's a Mormon guy from Utah originally) and both have hired coaches who weren't exactly known for being squeeky clean, like Neuheisal and Barnett at CU and Erickson at ASU. There was also a rumor several weeks ago that Leach might be interested in the UNM job if they could get together the money to buy out Mike Locksley but Leach put the kibosh on that pretty quickly.

I think your school has considerable potential which is why I've ventured over here. However, with the utmost respect, even if you had the money to pay him, Mike Leach isn't coming to UNT. You want a veteran coach? Think Glen Mason, Terry Bowden, Gary Barnett, Dan McCarney or Jim Donnan. All have warts but none has exactly been an ax murderer and all have been successful to some degree at an AQ school and might be a possibility.

If I were you guys, at this point in time I would be suspicious of the motives of any newbies, including yours truly. "Family members?" Not sure about that but I'll tell you that after SDSU fired Ted Tollner, two of the newbies to our board who looked initially like they might be nothing more than interested bystanders (which I assure you is all I am here) were eventually outed as friends of former San Jose State coach Terry Shea, who had left SJSU after two years for Rutgers and was then fired. I'm not saying Shea had anything to do with that or even knew about it. I'm only saying that, unlike you, I don't think posters who question the objectivity of others should necessarily be labeled "unbelievable."

To me there should be only one absolute requirement for the hiring of a DIA head football coach. As identified by Bill King of Rivals Radio, that is that the guy has significant experience as a head coach and/or as a coordinator working at a level in which he needs to concern himself about the awarding of scholarships and the APR. You can be the greatest game day coach in history but you can't win without players. Tom Craft at SDSU is an example of how wasting scholarships on kids who can't qualify academically and not having in place a solid system to assure that kids who are admitted attend class so the NCAA won't cut your scholarships because of a low APR can cost you big time. (Craft had no such head coach experience and just two years as a coordinator. That's just not enough to be a head coach and it resulted in 52% of the kids in three of his classes not suiting up for more than one year.)

No, as others who have followed my modicum of posts on this board know, that definitely was not me. Further, I apologize if your original intent was not to be a smart ass. However, with due respect, that's how your post read to me.

Steve Fisher is the basketball coach at SDSU because Rick Majerus strung us along in 1998 for several weeks before finally deciding he could continue to function in SLC. (Majerus is not LDS.) Then Fish, who was working as the Sacramento Kings' assistant coach, called SDSU's (doofus) AD and offered his services. Fortunately, that doofus was prone to put all his eggs in one basket and so really had no backup plan once Majerus opted not to come and word is the two met just once and our AD having been at Ohio State when the whole Fab Five debacle came to light knew Fish was not directly involved and he hired him. (Fish was exonerated of blame by the NCAA.) SDSU won exactly two games the year before Fish came. Twelve years later, most pre-season polls now have SDSU at about #23 entering the 2010-2011 season. If Fish was culpable of looking the other way at Michigan, he learned his lesson. He has suspended close to a dozen players for various reasons during his tenure and kicked a couple off the team. If, like the poster who criticized me above, you think I'm talking out of my posterior, just watch how SDSU basketball does this year. Bottom line is that at least IMO, "baggage" is not a reason for a non-BCS school not to hire Dennis Franchione or Terry Bowden.

Well since you gave me a smart ass response, I'll reciprocate. Since you apparently haven't figured it out, hiring a big name head coach who has been successful elsewhere gives people hope that a moribund program will become a winning one. Hiring a no name like Canales . . . well, I'll leave it to you to try to come up with the answer.