Two more college coaches on the firing line
 

Dirk Kotter out

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2676742


Chuck Amato out

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2676855

With miami, NC State, ASU, and a few other major conference teams in the hunt likely, this could be a very interesting off-season for coaches.

After what Koetter did to Sam Keller, I think this is absolutely hilarious. All the bad fallout from that move should hopefully stop him from getting another job for quite a while as well... perfect

Chuckie The Chest Red Shoes Amato...

Thank God I will not have to hear his voice anymore...

Wonder if he replaces Jeff Bowden

For old time's sake,

Ode to Chuck the Chest

He'll probably end up an offensive coordinator somewhere. He may be a crappy head coach, but he's still got a reputation on offense.

Heh heh heh.

Thanks, I missed that the first time around.

The one for recently fired UNC coach John Bunting is the funniest:

Miami Twice

Actually, he is known as a good defensive coach that stinks with offense (except the fluke finding of Phillip Rivers). He was a DL and LB coach for like 20 years at Florida State before he got the NC State gig.

Mark Richt was the offensive coordinator for Florida State when they were very good. He coached Ward and Weinke when they won their Heismans.

It would be interesting if Arizona State went after Amato (although there is no real reason to think they will), considering that they just took NC State's basketball coach.

Jim Donnan might be an interesting choice for NC State. He is an alum there and was born nearby. I'm not sure why he got the boot from Georgia, but I don't think it was because of anything improper.

Uhhhh... He was quite obviously talking about Koetter.. hell, it's in the quote he's refering to!! :eek:

And yes, I think Koetter will get an O-Coord job too, but after what he did to Keller (and how dumb was that), he shouldn't.

Donnan is still deeply in bed with UGA.
I really dont think he will coach again.
Last year he did several alumni speaking engagements, some with Richt some without...

Whoops... my bad, Matt. I got up too early today--sorry.

I don't know a lot about Koetter's background, but I agree on blowing the Keller/Carpenter thing. He was fairly well set for the next several seasons and building off of a pretty good 2005 season and totally butchered that situation. If I'm not mistaken, he had just gotten a pretty nice contract extension, as well.

I think it's painfully obvious now that Amato's early success at N. C. State was due to Phillip Rivers and offensive coordinator Norm Chow. Although it's still mind boggling that Amato did as poorly as he did in 2004 and 2005 with all of those high NFL draft picks on the roster.

it is tough to see these guys fired but that's life in coaching. the top names i see are

Mariucci MSU
Peterson- boise St ASU

Kragthorpe- tulsa Miami
Solich- Ex-Nebraska and has done a great job at Ohio U. unfortunately i don't think he will move up but i am glad to see how well he has done.

the defensive coordinator at michigan is also a hot item. i think his name is Ron English. supposed to be great coach and recruiter. This could be the guy for NC State.

Surprisingly i have been talking to someone who is somewhat familiar with Miami and the more i hear i am thinking it is not the prime job that you would think. They have financial problems and the facilities are definitely sub par. That's why i don't think guys like Schiano, Richt are going to be interested in the job. but guys like Kragthorpe will jump at the opportunity.

I would love to have Dirk replace Craig Ver Steg this offseason.

Dola,

Michigan State is set to hire Mark Dantonio from Cincinnati.

Iowa State looks to be leaning toward Brian Kelly from Michigan State.

Dantonio is a good coach. I think Michigan State is a tough job, though.

Agree on both counts.

No way in my mind does ASU go back to boise st for a coach after they got koetter there. He was the HC at boise when peterson was the QB coach and the new colorado coach was the OC. I just dont believe they go back to boise for a new coach, whatever his credentials may be.

Mike Shula out at Alabama too apparently, according to the scout site.

i am really surprised that MSU apparently was not interested in Mariucci. i am assuming that he wants back in as a college coach. i have followed him closely at both Cal and the 49ers and i think he would be a great fit for a college program. i think you have to discount his time in Detroit. when Jim Mora Sr. referred to Michael Vick as a "coach killer" i think he was confused. he was actually referring to Matt Millen.

I really disagree on Peterson at ASU. i don't think the fact that he comes from Boise St. will have anything to do with ASU. They will hire the best coach and most people seem to think that all along Peterson was the offensive genius at Boise. But ASU should be a school that a lot of people would be interested in. i read recently that Phoenix was becoming a real breeding ground for High School athletes.

Who would have thought that Sylvester Croon would be at Miss. State longer than Mike Shula would be at Alabama?

*Raises hand*

:(

Definitely sad to see him go. He has turned around a joke of a program into the best team in the MAC in a short amount of time. At least he didn't end up going to Michigan State.

He didn't find Philip Rivers, Mike O'Cain did. Rivers didn't leave when O'Cain got the boot, going out the same way losing to UNC and ECU.

I love the Skip Holtz talk for the NC State job. That guy left UConn in shambles when he ran off to South Carolina with his father.

At least there probably won't be as much Mike Price leaving talk after our horrible season...

Yeah, Croom got an unwritten guarantee when he accepted that crappy job that he could hang around a while. He had a good thing going in the NFL, it wasn't like he HAD to come to college like Weis, who desperately wanted to be a head coach. Croom wanted to be a head coach, but..I think would've just kept doing what he was doing longer, if they didn't give him what he wanted.

That said, his beating Shula's squad couldn't have helped things

Not completely true. Brad Scott was the OC for FSU for 4 years through the 1993 championship season. I think he went on to fail as head coach at South Carolina and is now OC for Clemson.

My friends back in Tally are saying that the Spurrier-to-Alabama rumors are getting pretty loud. And FSU plays Alabama next year, too. :)

I really, really wanted Brian Kelly as the Spartans new head coach. :(

I know absolutely nothing about this Dantonio guy. Yet another generic coach to screw things up for three or four years. He'll be fired by 2009, and will leave as a broken man.

What kind of coach is he? What kind of offense and defense does he run?

Word in Austin is that Gene Chizik will be announced as the new Cyclones coach today.

I don't know much about him or the Cincy program other than they seem to be middle-of-the-pack with a solid defense. They're the kind of team that wins 6-8 games a year and never really contends for anything, but seems to cause occasional problems for better programs.

That's my uninformed view of the program.

You just described MSU. Sounds like he'll be a perfect fit.

Way to go out on a limb, idiot board of trustees. :mad:

Dantonio is a defensive coach and was the D-coordinator at OSU when they won they national championship a few years ago.

Cincinnati was a very physical team on both sides of the ball. Not sure if they'll run the same offense at MSU, but they used the TEs a lot at Cincy and running the ball was the priority. It was sort of like BC's offense.

He was really only the coach at Cincinnati for like 3 years, so it's hard to judge, but the program definitely seemed to be headed in the right direction. I will say this - he is the opposite of John L. Smith in a lot of ways.

No Brad Scott was fired as OC of Clemson after the 02 season, then rehired as Oline coach and recruiting specialist. Mike Ocain was the Clemson OC for the 03 and 04 season when he was fired (now QB coach for VT) and replaced with Rob "the mad scientist" Spence from Toledo.
Now Brad Scott has the dubious "assistant head coach" added to his title...

Point being he has been an utter flop since leaving FSU. I think their Offesne has pretty much sucked since everyone else figured out the spread attack. Everyone seems to know how to stop it except BB...

Also Spurrier said last week that the SC job would be his last head coaching job...we will see. But Bama is certainly a better job than Miami...

Cincinatti was definitely on the way up, and Dantonio was something of a rising star. I think it's a good catch for Sparty.

Hard to tell how good of a job Dantonio was doing in 3 years at Cincy. His recruits were only sophomores, so the real test will come in another year or two... and he won't be there to see it.

I think he'll do a decent job at MSU, but if they're looking for 11-1/10-2 every year, they can probably forget it.

When I googled it I made the mistake of looking at his scouts.com profile...from 2003. D'oh!

I knew he hadn't done much of anything since he left FSU, though. Sad that he had to shoot down rumors of going back to FSU as OC. I think (hope) FSU can do better.

[quote=bhlloy;1317004]After what Koetter did to Sam Keller, I think this is absolutely hilarious. All the bad fallout from that move should hopefully stop him from getting another job for quite a while as well... perfect[/QUOTE}

I know everyone likes to think that it was Dirk's fault w/ Sam, but it wasn't, Dirk fell on the sword big time for him on this and it partly cost him his job.

ASU is strongly looking at Ron English (DC at Michigan) and Dave McGinnis who will bring in Norm Chow as OC.

ISU named TX DC Gene Chizik there new coach (or they will)

teams need to act fast now to fill the HC spot

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaaf/news;_...v=ap&type=lgns

[quote=SnDvls;1317451]
Why would Chow leave the NFL if not for a HC job?
Supposedly Chow is a hot commodity for the NCSU job, and all these delusional wolfpack I work with keep insisting that Cowher will leave Pitt to come to Raleigh?
WTF?
just because his daughter is a student and just because he bought a $500,000 house outside Raleigh doesnt mean he is moving....Really 500k to Cowher is like me buying a $40 tent at Dick's

I don't doubt Cowher would move to NC since that's been long rumored, but the question is does he want to stay home with the family or immediately jump into recruiting and basically working as hard as he is right now?

Cowher has a job for life there..or at least, for another decade if he wants it. I don't see why he'd give that up to work as hard as Wanny is in Pitt, with all the fickleness and the crapshoot that can often be the college game.

Seriously, Pete Carroll has done a great job at USC, but can you name 20 other coaches that could've done that with the sort of talent he's recruiting? Shoot, he's selling LA to these kids in a post-NFL era in that city when that team really is their big time football team.

[quote=CU Tiger;1317629]
Chow and the whole Titans staff could get the axe.
Chow doesn't like to recruit at all and that turns people off as a HC, plus he doesn't interview well (see Stanford & BYU).
NC St. would love him too I agree.

[quote=SnDvls;1317709]
Chow is conceited at times and moving from BYU to USC didn't help matters much because he was able to pocket a NC with USC.

However he has been humbled in Tennessee, but Vince Young at the helm might help things out a bit. I see them giving Fisher and the gang one more year, but I do know Norm and he would leave only if 1) It was a HC job and 2) He would be getting the same if not better salary than what he has currently.

The average NFL coach averages 15 hour work days, college more like 6...

Jimmie Johnson has told everyone who will listen for a decade, do not leave NCAA for NFL its too much work...

I don't think Cowher will go to NCSU just think it is appealing to many NFL coaches.

I am a pretty big Steelers fan and I feel about 95% sure that Cowher will retire from Pittsburgh at the end of the season. He has shown no real interest in extending his contract, which he and the Rooneys have always done when it gets down to two years. Some folks are saying that the Rooneys have offered him $6.5M and he still hasn't shown any inclination to resign.

I think Cowher would coach NC State, but I think this is bad timing on their part. I really doubt he will coach anywhere next season, as it is pretty evident that he is burnt out and needs time to recharge. I thought NC State may hold onto Amato for another year to give Cowher a shot.

While I have no good feelings towards Dantonio right now (if his team didn't come out so well-prepared and fired up for the Rutgers game, we would have clinched a BCS game by now), we recognize that the Big East just lost an excellent young coach who could have completed the transformation of that program. The BE has had some excellent coaches this season, and keeping them is important to continue to build credibility across the country.

We only have 8 teams, and 4 coaches have had major interest from other big schools...obviously Schiano and Rodriguez, and now Leavitt has been rumored to be considered for the Miami job, and Dantonio is gone to the Big 10. Not too bad.

I don't know if you're exaggerating, or if all schools are different, but I know for sure that Schiano works a 16 hour day at Rutgers, minimum.

Don't forget the constantly flirting Bobby Petrino. It sounds like he will be in the mix for Alabama.

It is interesting that this will be the second straight season where no Big East coach will be fired. Next year, I suspect Gregg Robinson and Dave Wanstedt will have a little bit of heat on them, but I still doubt that they will be in major danger.

As someone else pointed out, Norm Chow is not HC material. He doesn't have the personality for it. He doesn't like to talk to the media and he's not very diplomatic when it comes to dealing with athletic directors or college administrators. His personality is also a liability in recruiting. He's a great OC, but that's strictly from an X's and O's standpoint where he doesn't have to deal with all of the other BS.

Someone on ESPNEWS mentioned that Arizona State may be interested in Mike Price. :p

Former USC offensive coordinator Norm Chow, current offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin and assistant head coach Steve Sarkisian are expected to be mentioned as possible candidates to replace fired Arizona State coach Dirk Koetter. Lisa Love, Arizona State's athletic director, spent 13 years as an athletics department administrator at USC before going to Arizona State.
-- Los Angeles Times

I said "as much." If we had gone 8-4 again there would probably be at least three schools rumored to be going after him.

But yeah, I saw that on the UTEP board. He was pretty ticked after idiot UTEP fans were booing the team when we let Rice tear us up. Hopefully he's gotten over that by now...

too old and too much of a risk. this is Lisa Love's "big hire" and Price isn't the guy for the job, although I think he could do a good job there are better fish out there.



Dave McGinnis' agent says he hasn't been contacted and that he and Norm aren't a package deal. Pete Carroll called Lisa Love and suggested Kiffin to her as the new coach. I still like Ron English from Michigan, he's a rah rah guy and a hell of a recruiter which is what we need.

Cincinatti Hired Brian Kelly away from Central Michigan days after he won the MAC title. Before CMU, kelly won 2 national titles at Grand Valley State.

A little of both.
6 hours is definitely a little low, but I coached in D1 for 4 years (1 was as a GA) and I can tell ya HC's weren't known for their work ethic. Of course 1 I worked for was fired, and a major reason cited was lack of committment...

But if Schianno IS working 16s, he'll either be in the LEague or burned out in 5 years

The lastest big rumor on Miami and Texas Tech boards is that Mike Leach is next coach for the 'Canes.

Is Gary Barnett never going to coach again? I thought he did a good job, both at Northwestern and Boulder.

He recently said that he is ready to get back into coaching, but wants to find the best situation for him. I think he has contacted some headhunters to see if there is any mutual interest in some of the vacancies.

[quote=SnDvls;1317709]
[quote=MacroGuru;1317727]
Word is Fisher and willbe offered a multi year deal afetr this with the only likely cjanges on the Defensive coaches side of the the ball.

I don't think anybody here cares but according to my car radio Walt Harris in Stanford has been fired after two seasons.

That was announced yesterday.

Yeah nobody really cares about Stanford but me.

Anyhoo, I thought Stanford made a good hire with Harris two years ago. Harris can't be entirely blamed, as he was left a pretty empty cupboard by Buddy Teevens, but a 1-11 season at a major conference school is not going to cut it, no matter how apathetic the students/alums are towards football.

Rich Rod and his wife met with Alabama's AD in New York today, but "no offer was made." No idea what to make of this. I can't remember hearing of a Coach and AD meeting face to face without the guy being hired.

Here's the scoop I got regarding Stanford and Walt Harris (info from a connected insider on a Washington MB):

"Stanford is unique in that as a private institution....the oversight committees...bureaucratic inertia and so forth don't exist...Private institutions rely most heavily on those deep wallets that fund Harvard ($26B in the bank), Yale ($4B) and so forth...

At Stanford...Walt Harris managed to aelinate the one guy you don't dare cross at Stanford athletics...Walk thru the Cardinal complex and one name jumps out...Arriaga...This certified billionaire had his company build the new football stadium...and put serious bucks into the effort....The word is Mr. Arriaga didn't see an upside with Walt Harris...and the two had a falling out...Consequently....when first year AD Bowlsby got the word a horse head was looking for a home...he (the AD) got the message quick enough and pulled the trigger....with Mr. Arriaga's hands remaining clean..."

Take it FWIW...

Yeah, makes sense. Arilliaga is definitely the one guy you'd want to keep on your good side at Stanford. I'm pretty sure Arilliaga is pissed that the first season in the stadium he built will go down in Stanford history as the worst ever.

and now Boston College is in the mix as NC State has hired Tom O'Brien

Is there a source for this? Im just now starting to hear Nutt interviewed at NC State. Lots of people would like to know if this is true.

it's a video news feed. I guess it hasn't been confirmed yet and no press conference yet, but this is from Boston not NC.

hxxp://www.boston.com/news/necn/Sports/

It seems to be true. Right now the NC State board is in total chaos over the move. Some are applauding, some others are puzzled, still more are in pretty much open rebellion at this point. I'm somewhere in between the latter two groups right now. I just do not see this as a good hire. I'm not sure who would have been the home run candidate, but O'Brien isn't it to me.

From a fanbase perspective as a whole, after the rancor of Sendek and Amato, this was not the hire you needed to make to bring the fanbase back together. At least on the internet, the fans were interested in either Jimbo Fisher (esp. if Bo Pelini came) or Paul Johnson. This was basically out of left field.

how is ncst a better job than bc?

state school $$$?

it's now official

hxxp://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=2689220

I asked a buddy of mine last night if NC State wanted to go 7-5 every year by hiring O'Brien. BC has underachieved for YEARS now, this hire doesn't make a lot of sense.

Arizona State is still dragging their feet, but it could be good and that means via a process of elimination Ron English will be our next coach.

Word out of Tempe yesterday was Mike Price was going to be the new coach, but enough questions about his past and what he would bring to the table eliminated him.

How do you figure that? O'Brien's winning percentage at B.C. is .625, better than any coach at B.C. since Yukica from '68-'77, and much of those games were against Division 1-AA teams. Jack Bicknell only won 51.7%, and Tom Coughlin 61.4%.

O'Brien is a good hire.

I think Obrien will do well at NCSU.
Just look at it this way, their schedules are essentially the same, except NCSU plays the great rival ECu...and NCSU's smartest athlete probably couldnt qualify for BC...

Of course everyone knows that NCSU is one of the greatest colleges in the land and if he doesnt win a National Championship in 2-3 years it is obviously HIS fault and he shouldd be executed immediately

Im not sure what the opposite of Napolean syndrome is, but NCSU definitely has "dellusions of grandeur"

Fixed for you. How many coaches have you guys run off because they weren't Danny Ford? How much time does Tommy have left?

(Normally, I got no problems with Clemson and like them fine--we both hate "Carolina", for one--but I can't let this sort of slam go unchallenged.)

Rich Rodriguez seems close to going to 'Bama

so WVU now enters the coaching sweepstakes

Per ESPN

I have seen two names linked to Miami other than Leach, but I assume both are just WAGes.

Barry Alvarez - because of the Shalala connection

and

Bernie Kosar - apparently he's been sort of an unofficial qb coach for some time now

Anybody know if either of these rumors has any possibility of being true?

According to someone on the UTEP board, CMP was on a local radio station yesterday and said, "I don't want to leave anywhere and I plan on retiring here. Sure the staff is going to change, but I love it here and plan on retiring here."

*shurg*

Bernie has been pushing for it in public and generally that means that person isn't a canidate for the job...it irks the local Ath. Dept. when you openly campaigne for it.

a lot of schools & coaches use the "plausable deniabliity" method now.

either a search firm or a go between is used to gague interest ect. that way if nothing happens both can say they were not contacted ect. which is true they weren't directly contacted, but a middle man did make contact about it.
'Bama is unique in this where they openly talked to Rich Rodriguez from WVU in NY about their opening.

Well for 1 you may want to update your impressions. Clemson has had the highest graduating % among all ACC schoold 3 years running now. Tommy Bowden is a GREAT program coach. How many "incidents" have there been under his watch? He graduates his playrs and has had no less than 3 grad students on his team each of the last few years. X's and O's are another story, but Character and Academia are his strong points.

I for one (and admittedly probably the only one) Do not hold out hope against hope that Danny Ford will one day come back. He had some success but tims have changed it is time to move on, so don't got me there not a Ford lover.

Honestly if he doesnt win the ACC TB has 2 years max left, next year may be the end, and that saddens me.

Now no hard feelings toward NCSU they are kinda Clemson North, great ag,textile, and engineering programs and strong southern roots that they embrace. And yes we both beat the hell out of UNC.

My point was that BC as a school attracts a higher tier of students than Clemson,NCSU,UNC hell any ACC team save Duke and Wake...

Good Luck with Tom O...wish ya the best, except for textile bowl time every year.

[BTW the unrealistic expectations and dillusions of grandeu are also shared by both schools;) ]

Miami filled thier spot w/ their DC Shannon

good hire in my book he was on my short want list for ASU if English falls through.

It will be interesting to see how Shannon does - he was someone I was hoping Washington would interview a couple years back (before they hired Willingham).

Well said. I do know that there's been some off-with-his-head-ism regarding Bowden because year after year Clemson's finally expected to break through and every year Clemson stumbles when they shouldn't (like the late slide this year--though oddly the negative chatter about him hasn't been as much this year as in prior years). Regardless, he's still churned out 8-10 wins over much of his tenure which is more than can be said of a lot of places, including Amato at State.

Frankly, if O'Brien can produce 9-win seasons consistently like he did at BC in the last couple of years, I'd take that considering aside from 2002, we've only reached nine wins a couple of times in our entire history. Yes, the State fanbase got carried away with expectations after 2002 and maybe part of that was because we were beating FSU regularly (which instead of signalling our way up, was actually signalling FSU's decline) and it looked like we were getting great players who could carry us further up the line. It also looked like UNC was mired in the muck, which brings no end of delight to State fans and probably contributed somewhat to the overinflation of expectations. History has not been kind to those expectations.

The main problem is that Amato got a ton of money poured into the football program, so now there's a feeling that we should be better than we were historically (just above .500 all-time) to justify the expenditures. I don't know if it'll do to be consistently 7-5 every year. People were grumbling when Amato produced that record in two of the last four years. The losing seasons and the continued struggles against Carolina were what ultimately finished him off, but he burned up some collateral by underperforming relative to expectations in those years, particularly 2003 when Rivers was a senior and the team was widely expected to be Top 15 or better. It made it easier to turn on him when things really went south this year.

I'll take it. Let's see who he hires for his staff. I wonder if he would bring back any of the assistants that Coker fired.

No clue why they didn't turn to Shannon originally, instead of going back to Davis or making a pitch for Schiano, who everyone knew wasn't going anywhere.

Good hire...unfortunately :).

looks like 'Bama's uniqueness bit them in the butt. the Tide is back on the clock.

Dennis Erickson is the new coach at Arizona State.

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/asu/...ucoach-ON.html

Some pretty harsh critics so far on the decision.

Im not sure what to think..he has a great resume, but it doesnt look like he has ever stayed in a job for more then 3 seasons...i guess if he wins more power to him, as after koetter who went something like 1-13 against the Cali schools if dennis can win there we will be better off. Guess time will tell

we'll probally be looking for a new coach in 3-5 years and my #1 choice Ron English will either be the HC at Stanford or Michigan by then.

Erickson is a great hire for ASU. I know he has the history of being a vagabond, but I just don't see him bolting for anywhere else at this point in his career. He's 60 (or very nearly so) and he's flunked 2 different trials in the NFL, so I don't see him at his age getting a 3rd shot there. As for the college ranks, he's now at a school in a BCS conference and in a situation with tremendous potential - again, I have a hard time seeing him at his age bolting for any other college job. His biggest worry now is knocking Pete Carroll and USC off the Pac-10 crown.

This hire makes the Pac-10 that much more difficult...

Let's see... 7-5 = .583... 8-4 = .667.

So, ok, they may go 7-5 some years, and 8-4 others.

I follow Clemson closely because my wife went there and I worked there for a couple of years...

Tommy is a horrible game coach. I agree that he is a good "program" coach, but how many times have they been seemingly ready to turn the corner, only to lose the crucial game, or worse yet, the easy game against one of the ACC's lower-tier? He recruits well, he has that ol' Southern charm working for him, and he usually beats USC (that's South Carolina for you non-Southerners)... but with Spurrier at USC now, he can't rely on his superior rivalry record to carry the same good feeling that it once did. And, the continual lulls in every season where they lose 3 of 4 just continue to hammer home the point that he will never find the breakthrough 10+ win season that always seems impending.

That said, if he can find a QB to play well opposite the 2 RB's they have now, there's no reason that the next couple of years won't be glory days for the Clemson program. I think either Davis or Spiller (or both) could be legit. Heisman candidates if they stay all 4 years. They are terrific.

erickson has a nasty tendency of leaving his schools on probation when he jumps to the next coaching position. ASU could have done better.

He did a nice job with great players from Jimmy Johnson and Mike Riley. And he was smart enough to bolt when the cupboard was bare at one spot (OSU) and facing probation at another (Miami).

He's a solid football mind, but the jury's out on whether he can rebuild a program.

Well Willie Korn is supposed to be the savior. All the recruiting services love him. But I watched him play 3 times this year (2 in person 1 on ESPN) and I dont see it.... then again maybe thats why I dont coach anymore...