http://www.chron.com/sports/cougars/article/UH-to-hire-Tony-Levine-as-head-football-coach-2418593.php
bwaaaahahahaha that's the best UH could do? lmao What the price too high for the coach from St. Thomas high school? bwaaaaahahahahahaha
A Rice fan making fun of a 12-1 team. Dude how silly do you look?? I guess if it took me 3 years to win 12 games I would find something to make me feel better also.
Really This reminds me of an AD who takes the easy way out. Dickey/Levine, surely you could've done better Mac. Let me give you a clue Applewhite/Gillespe would've been much better hires. IMHO
This ain't UT. You can't just get a couple of letters of credit from Rooster Andrews or a Johnson daughter when you want to buy Mackovic's and Penders' contracts out and hire two top-tier coaches in the same freaking school year.
All I know about the guy is what I heard from him in a recent radio interview. The guy sounded completely clueless. It was embarrassing. He went on and on about how he's been so busy. You'd assume he meant that he was preparing for the bowl game. The radio host assumed the same and asked how he had been preparing for the opponent. Instead, Levine went on a spiel about meetings, making decisions like "what shirts to wear", etc... said he hadn't had much time to view tape on PSU. Really?
I was never impressed by any of the outside candidates. Maybe Sonny Dykes a little. But the net wasn't cast very far. Hardly an exhaustive search. I think Mack Rhoades had a pretty good idea that he was going to hire Levine from the start and ran the search in a way that never really presented a better option.
He was asked a question about if Penn State's play calling had changed since Paterno was fired and Levine was commenting on how he'd been watching tape and how every 5 minutes somebody would be at his door asking about BS like the color of warm ups or where they were going to eat in Dallas and how it was interrupting him watching tape. He'd been the interim HC for 2 or 3 days at the time of the interview. It's not as bad as you make it out to be.
Gotta give the guy a shot I guess. I like Dickey's recruiting class coming in next year. I don't know why if you are looking in house and promoting an unproven assistant you don't go with the guy who at least gives Cougar fans warm fuzzies from his playing days...but hopefully they know something I don't. We don't have the luxury of failing. We have to get a facilities upgrade. No one is going to flock to Robertson to see the Coogs take on Rutgers and UConn in football that wouldn't come to see Marshall and Tulsa. The Big East is a very attractive basketball conference, but basketball doesn't drive the bus unless you are Duke, Louisville, Kansas or Kentucky. We can't afford to squander our football momentum any worse than we already did with the loss to Southern Miss.
Levine was the highest paid assistant. He was the assistant head coach. He was the one they named interim head coach. Sumlin and Rhoades must've seen something in the guy even though he was the Special Teams/TE coach and Phillips was the Co-OC. You'd think a move like this means UH hopes to keep its coaching staff, Jason Phillips and Kliff Kingsbury especially, in tact. But Matt Jackson tweeted that both are expected to leave. A lot of UH fans that supported Levine getting the job did so on the assumption that at least one if not both would stay and seem to be wavering at the prospect of both leaving and UH abandoning their high powered offense as a result. It should be interesting to see what happens on that front. The press conference is tomorrow (today) at 10 AM. I'm sure somebody will ask a question about that.
<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/en3JnmndS4g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Rhoades introducing Levine as head coach to the team.
What has Applewhite done that would merit a head coaching position? He's been coaching all of six years, compared to Levine's 16. And even if he's qualified for the job right now, would UH have a realistic chance of prying him away from UT? Levine not have the name recognition of a guy coming from a big time program, but at the end of the day all that matters is wins.
if you could've just waited 15 minutes, then you would've met your r****ded post of the day quota for 12/22 very early! i'm sure you won't disappoint, however.
I wasn't thrilled with the Dickey hire either, but some how he has assembled a top 20 recruiting class and has 2 other top 100 players wanting to sign but there are no scholarships available at this point. If they find a way to get the scholarships they will have a top 10 national class. Dykes is who I wanted to get the job, but I have met Levine a number of times and he is a very hard worker and is well liked by the players. He also has done most of the recruiting. This is not a "safe" hire, Rhodes is really taking a chance... it is will either be a great move or a terrible one.
In the press conference he made it clear that he views the head coach as being a CEO and that he won't be calling plays. The OC will be the head coach of the offense and the same for the DC and the defense. From that perspective, I guess it doesn't matter if he was previously a OC, DC, or special teams coach. But if you're neither an offensive or defensive guy, it makes it even that more crucial that you have really good coordinators. If Matt Jackson is correct and UH loses both OC's and McKinney is promoted, I'm even less optimistic about UH maintaining a high level.
I don't know enough about the guy or the candidates to make a judgement. I really don't care who it is as long as we keep winning and continue to improve on our recruiting classes as a result of winning. UH is a strong enough program to weather this like they weathered losing Briles I think. He was named a top 10 fastest rising assistant coach this year. Here's an old article from November this year on him from CBS sports: http://bruce-feldman.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/31626208/33455617
I also found an in-depth bio on him for those that want to know everything: http://www.uhcougars.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/levine_tony00.html