Spurrier & O'Leary quitting mid-season. When the going gets tough, quit err resign immediately. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">George O’Leary has resigned as UCF’s football coach, a source told <a href="https://twitter.com/espn">@ESPN</a></p>— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) <a href="https://twitter.com/McMurphyESPN/status/658369903917944832">October 25, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Yep. He's as good as done. Chances are he was done even before getting blown off the field by Clemson, but if they had pulled the upset and then finished the season strong, there could have at least been an argument for keeping him around. Assuming Golden is let go, that will be an interesting hire. I've heard college football writers note that Miami simply isn't likely to be willing to commit to huge, SEC-level salary figures to lure a brand-name coach. If that ends up being the case, they're going to have to find an up-and-comer or a diamond in the rough. One name that was mentioned by Bruce Feldman and Stewart Mandel on their podcast that makes a lot of sense is Mario Cristobal. He's a UM grad who took over an FIU program that was among the worst in FBS football and turned them into a bowl team. In the end, he really got a raw deal there. After back-to-back winning seasons, his team backslid to 3-9 and they cut him loose. It was a clear example of a program having an overgrown sense of who they are by deeming one losing season an abject failure. They promptly hired coaching fossil Ron Turner, who has led the team to 1-11 and 4-8 seasons since then. Perhaps it's just because they're thrifty (to use a kind term), but what was kind of odd about the Miami search that ended with them hiring Al Golden is that there really just didn't seem to be as much rabid interest in the opening as one would assume there would be given Miami's history. As far as UCF goes, they have suffered as precipitous a drop as I can remember. The Bortles years were by far the best of O'Leary's tenure, but even after he moved on, they still went 9-4 last season. It's been strange how they've just completely fallen off the table this season. In an interesting juxtaposition, they may prove to be the opposite of Miami when it comes to their coaching search. Because of their location, their facilities, and what seems like an inevitable upcoming move into a power 5 conference, UCF is one of those jobs that will probably draw more interest than an average AAC job would. And, on top of that, UCF just strikes me as one of those schools that so desperately wants to play with the big boys in college football that they would pony up huge sums of money to bring in someone who would otherwise be overqualified.
Per a kajillion college football writers on Twitter right now, Miami has hired Al Golden. There are going to be tons of big openings this offseason.
Golden officially out. http://www.hurricanesports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=28700&ATCLID=210450744
USC Miami South Carolina Maryland UCF Illinois North Texas Rarely see this many big time openings midway through the season.
Agreed, and don't forget USC. By the offseason, we could see several more. I wouldn't be surprised if one or both of Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech and Bill Snyder at Kansas State steps down. Purdue's Darrell Hazell is probably as good as gone, Paul Rhoades's seat at Iowa State is scalding hot, Mike London at Virginia is likely done, Kevin Wilson at Indiana will probably be fired if they end up missing a bowl game, and depending on how all of their off-field drama shakes out, Kyle Flood at Rutgers could be shown the door. In a tweet earlier tonight, one college football writer said that as many as 30 jobs could be open this offseason. The coaching carousel is going to spin extra fast this time around.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Release: <a href="https://twitter.com/GopherFootball">@GopherFootball</a> Head Coach Jerry Kill stepping down for health reasons. <a href="https://t.co/L79tJWHC6K">https://t.co/L79tJWHC6K</a> <a href="https://t.co/PmoNF4GTjy">pic.twitter.com/PmoNF4GTjy</a></p>— Minnesota Gophers (@GopherSports) <a href="https://twitter.com/GopherSports/status/659350472185122817">October 28, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Surprised he stayed on as long as he did. This offseason is going to be nuts and think we will see more NCAA/NFL crossovers. Should be interesting.
One of the interesting subplots that I saw mentioned the other day was that now, oddly, coaches at lower-tier FBS programs or at Group of 5 programs might have more job security in the face of all these other openings across the country because their schools might not want to go head-to-head for coaching candidates with so many high-profile programs already looking.
There also has to be legitimate concerns if you are the UHs, Memphis, and Toledos. Not sure if Herman would leave after 1 season, but if USC, Miami, and even possibly South Carolina comes calling, he would at least have to listen IMO.
Agreed, particularly in the case of Fuente. Granted, I don't keep up with Memphis football recruiting, so maybe the next class of players is off-the-charts good, but this season has the feeling of the crescendo of Memphis football under Fuente, allowing him to move on to the next stop in his career with everyone feeling pretty good about it. By the end of the season, he will have been at Memphis for four seasons, so he won't have that Todd Graham-esque stigma attached to him, and frankly, passing on one of these jobs this offseason comes with some risk. Just by default, it's highly unlikely that there will be as many big open jobs next offseason, which obviously reduces his options, and then what happens if, when player cycle through the program, he has a 7-5 season or two? Will he suddenly be shopping for jobs in a bit of a lesser neighborhood?
It's looking more and more like Georgia is going to be in the market for a head coach in the offseason, and that's the type of job that is going to draw interest from all four corners of the country. If they had backed their way into the SEC title game because they happened to be less mediocre than the rest of the SEC East, I think Mark Richt probably gets more time, but they got rolled by a Florida team with its backup quarterback today, which means they won't be able to catch the Gators. And beyond just the SEC standings, Richt simply couldn't afford to have his team lay in egg in what was essentially a must-win game to keep their season afloat. Two things that are really interesting to me about this situation. For one, we will truly get to find out if it's fact or fiction that Georgia is an underachieving program. There has always been an assumption that they do less with more, and maybe that's true, but I don't think we can say that for certain. The last time Georgia was better than they have been under Richt was a brief stint in the early-80s under Vince Dooley when they had an undefeated season and a couple of one-loss seasons in a four-year span. The SEC is tougher now than it was then, so maybe Georgia is right about where they should be in the pecking order. The other thing that will be interesting to me is Richt's next move. Clearly, he's a pretty good coach, so he'll have no shortage of options.
I was hoping Richt would never implode like this. Georgia is a superpower waiting to happen with quality coaching. Best recruiting area, amazing campus/facilities, etc. Richt finally let it all fall apart, though.
Given that Vanderbilt knows its place in the SEC and probably knew better than to expect their success under James Franklin to become the new normal, Derek Mason is more than likely safe, but it's going to be a tough sell for the Mason defenders. They're getting rolled 34-0 by Houston. Granted, we all know the Cougars are pretty doggone good this season, but that's terrible optics for Vandy. Had they not run into Missouri when that dumpster fire was burning at its hottest and snuck out with an ugly 10-3 win, things would look even worse.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Source: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/VirginiaTech?src=hash">#VirginiaTech</a> Frank Beamer has told his staff that he's retiring after the season, scheduled to meet with the team this afternoon.</p>— Mike Jurecki (@mikejurecki) <a href="https://twitter.com/mikejurecki/status/660884739318943744">November 1, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Norm Chow fired at Hawaii, effective immediately. Now 10 FBS openings</p>— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) <a href="https://twitter.com/McMurphyESPN/status/660934227018579968">November 1, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Those are two interesting openings to me, for two completely different reasons. With VT, it will be interesting to see what becomes of that program after Beamer. Are the struggles Beamer has had over the last four years a sign that he was slowing down or is it indicative of a power shift in the ACC and the rest of the country at large? Furthermore, will we find out, perhaps like Kansas State did when Snyder retired the first time, that Beamer really was getting the most out of the program, even if the results had slipped a little bit? With Hawaii, I'll be curious to see who they'll be able to get and if they look to make an outside-the-box hire. In my opinion, that is the single most difficult job in FBS football. From a financial standpoint, they aren't going to be able to bring in a big name, and with recent budget cuts, rumors are that their recruiting budget has been slashed over the last couple of years. Their recruiting costs were likely higher than anyone else in the country dollar-for-dollar, and further cutbacks only made it tougher. There was at least semi-serious conversation last year on the islands about whether or not Hawaii should even continue FBS football because of the exorbitant costs that are often unique to their program, such as ridiculous travel costs. It would seem like it would be easy to recruit to Hawaii, but it's actually got to be pretty tough. Every recruit thinks it's a cool idea to play at Hawaii, at least initially, so they all show interest early in the process, only to leave Hawaii off their final list when it gets down to brass tacks. I've often read complaints among their fans that so much time and effort gets wasted on recruits who are only showing interest to get a trip to Hawaii for an official visit. It's easy to see, then, how a coach would be motivated to narrow the scope of their recruiting efforts to only kids they are confident they can get, which leads to fewer home runs in recruiting. I wonder if they might look into taking a similar approach to the one UNLV took when the Rebels hired Tony Sanchez, the coach at Bishop Gorman, a local high school power. There are some really good high school programs on the islands, most notably Saint Louis School, where Marcus Mariota went to high school. Maybe they look to someone local who could lock down all the top talent from Hawaii, grab some additional players from the talent-rich Samoan islands, and build from there.
