It's not that I hate the hire for UTEP. Dimel has head coaching experience (a reasonably successful run at Wyoming and a not so successful run at UH), and he's had a nice second act to his career as an assistant at Arizona and Kansas State after taking a few years off at the end of his tenure at UH. It's just not really much of an inspired hire. UTEP is one of the toughest FBS jobs out there, and when that's the case, I think you need to zig when everyone else zags. And hiring Dimel feels like a zag that just about any other low-level FBS program could have made.
Todd Orlando is a candidate for SMU job. https://www.burntorangenation.com/2...mustangs-head-coach-candidate-texas-longhorns
Yeah.... if they knew everything that Dimel did and let his players and staff do at UH, he wouldn’t have even gotten an interview. His tenure at UH was one of the worst in football and I am not even talking about his record.
Jimbo is taking his FSU DC (Charles Kelly) to TAMU I assume? What's his story? Is he any good? Or was he only the DC because FSU was pinching pennies? I know people think Chavis has been slipping, but I wouldn't be against just keeping him.
Chip Brown (TIFWIW) reported that Orlando and SMU talked last night but that Venables is their #1 target and they are also interested in Auburn DC Kevin Steele. Sounds like the AD wants a defensive minded HC in hopes of keeping most of the offensive staff together.
Always got the impression that Venables didn't have an interest in being a Head Coach. Seemed to avoid jobs like Chavis or Foster.
I've heard media members say the same thing and suggest that he might be the type of guy who just wants to call plays for a head coach who lets him do his thing without getting in the way, and it seems like that's what he has with Dabo and Clemson.
South Alabama hires Steve Campbell (FCS Central Arkansas) Oregon removes interim tag from Mario Cristobal
I really like the hiring of Cristobal. I'll always contend that he got the rawest of raw deals when he was the head coach at FIU. The administration there thought they were above going 5-7 on occasion (thanks to what Cristobal had built there, by the way), and boy were they wrong. I know that Bruce Feldman has written before on this topic and about how FIU barely had the bare minimum requirements in terms of facilities to field an FBS program. It was little short of a miracle that Cristobal had gotten them to a bowl game at all, but they decided to move on from him, hire retread Ron Turner in his place, and it was a disaster.
And it's a done deal now. Dunno how I feel about this. Players all wanted our Interim HC to be the new HC.
I'd feel good but not great about it in your shoes. I think he's a high floor, limited ceiling hire. He's won at both of his previous head coaching stops, Louisiana Tech and Cal, but he's also never had a trademark season. His biggest claim to fame is probably taking Cal from 1-11 to 8-5 in three seasons, which was a pretty good accomplishment. But on the other hand, he had the eventual number one overall pick in Jared Goff (no matter how you feel about whether or not Goff was worthy of that pick) and his best season was 8-5. He certainly doesn't strike you as someone who is going to immediately reverse SMU's upward trend, but there also doesn't seem to be much evidence that a ten-win season is right around the corner, either.
Wonder if this says more about Todd Orlando that SMU would take Dykes over him. He was unable to land the Houston job last year nor the opening at SMU this year. Granted he doesn't have any HC experience, he's clearly one of the elite DCs in the nation. Perhaps, he must not be doing well at the interviews or ADs must not see him as a legitimate candidate to truly be able to lead a program.
Apparently Jeff Traylor told SMU that he wouldn't stay on as an OC which probably led Rick Hart to change directions and look for an offensive minded coach. Plus Dykes has HC experience so sure that was a big selling point. As for as the Houston job, no doubt Applewhite would be a good interview but wonder how much the contract terms dictated the hire.
Or just keep bringing in the same level of recruits, and coach them better. A&M has had very good recruiting classes. They just haven't translated to wins.
Was he? I don't think so. Strong was just a bad fit within the UT system, because he hated playing the ass kissing game, plus UT was a mess when he took over. Sumlin took over a great team, that degraded every year he was there.
