2013 College Football coaching carousel

Most shocking part of all this? Bobby Petrino is still sitting around, waiting for somebody to offer him a gig.

 

Why is that shocking? Everyone knows he can't be trusted.

 

I figured he'd have gotten something by now. Surely there's an AD out there who's thinking "This time, he'll be different! And even if he can't, we'll make a ton of money for the few years he's putting a winner on the field."

 

Alvarez will be 66 in three weeks; the football coach is going to have to be able to ride without training wheels.

 

Nope. Seven with the interim coaches for the bowl games.

 

That's simple: I stopped seriously caring about this shit after this school rehired Cheesy Steve Pederson has athletic director, the same Cheesy Steve who was fired by Nebraska for brooming Frank Solich and replacing him with Bill Callahan. If Pitt's not gonna' care there is no sense in me having an aneurysm over it.

 

Based on what happened at my alma mater, I take the opposite view. When Mike Price left WAZZU to meet his Destiny, the Cougs had back-to-back 10-win seasons for the first time ever, including a second Rose Bowl in six years. That was the time to swing for the fences. Instead, AD Jim Sterk laid down the bunt and promoted DC Bill Doba. With a strong senior class coming back, the Cougs won 10 games again the following year but struggled in 2004 and have never gotten back on track.
As for Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl, it doesn't matter. They're playing Stanford. Assuming the Cardinal don't pull a Nebraska and actually do show up, it ought to be ugly.

 

Stanford is not a blowout kind of team. They beat Washington State by seven. They led Cal 21-3 at halftime and 21-3 at the end.

Put it this way: In the last three years, Stanford is 11-3 in one-score games and Wisconsin is 5-9. I expect those records to change to 12-3 and 5-10, and I would be happy to take Wisconsin and the seven points.

 

That's how I was at first, too, but he's really grown on me as the story developed. Auburn was so terrible last season they had trouble keeping fans in the seats, and that shouldn't be a problem with the offense Malzahn runs. They probably won't win right away, but at least they'll be fun to watch. If he could lead Arkansas State to the 19th best offense in the country, then he should be able to duplicate similar results with a deeper SEC talent pool.

Smart might've been a better option, but based on the Scarbinsky story (http://www.al.com/auburnfootball/index.ssf/2012/12/scarbinsky_is_gus_malzahn_stro.html) I read earlier tonight, he justifiably had a pretty big set of demands, including full disclosure on Auburn's NCAA status and having the opportunity to coach Alabama in the BCS title game. Can't blame the Tigers for not caving in, although I'd sure as hell want to know what I'm getting into with NCAA investigations and what not, too.

Personally, I was just hoping they'd go with anyone but Bobby Petrino. Sure, he's a proven winner, but when you have a football program with as terrible of a reputation as Auburn's right now, I thought it would be completely irresponsible to add his baggage to the mix. Still, this is the SEC and the state of Alabama we're talking about. It's silly of me to think anything but winning would matter.

 

WSU peaked under Price and I wonder if they will ever reach that level again. I say that as a fan and one who worked not far from there during the Doba years. No reason why Doba couldn't have picked up the ball and run with it.

Pullman is a tough place to recruit to and it's hard to have the talent base to go head-to-head with the USC, UCLAs, Washingtons and, now, Oregon year-in, year-out. I know WSU reaps a lot of financial benefits from being in the Pac-12, but, man, they face a tough road to be competitive in all sports, even moreso in football.

 

I think elevating the assistant has a few good examples (Phil Fulmer, Lloyd Carr) but mainly in cases of long term assistants and a well-established and semi-successful program...you're better off doing a search and if an assistant comes through the interviews as the top guy. Fine.

 

I think we're approaching this matter from different perspectives.