Seth Littrell - My new Number 1 Candidate
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I posted about Littrell and others back in July.
Littrell was listed as my number one at that time. If he’s not interested, Neal Brown (Troy) and Jason Candle (Toledo) are probably the next in line.
Troy is currently 1-1, getting routed by Boise State, but blowing out Florida A&M. Toledo is 1-0, having blown out VMI.
Both squads have big games this weekend, with Troy on the road at Nebraska, while Toledo hosts Miami. Both of those games kick at 11, you may want to do a bit of scoreboard watching or channel surfing during the KU game to get a look at Brown and Candle with their squads in action against P5 opponents.
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My only knock on Candle is that he took over a program already doing well.
I do like Neal Brown as well.
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I believe he retired from coaching 3 or 4 years ago. He was an amazingly successful coach and his teams were pretty dominant which was partly because they were loaded with Division I talent that did not qualify for various reasons and Butler was the popular destination. Many KU players including several that ended up in the NFL came from a Butler. Still… it was at the Junior Colege level and there is huge and I mean HUGE leap from retired JuCo coach to P5 coach and I cannot think of a single coach that successfully made the move. One that comes to mind is Terry Allen who was 75-26 at Northern Iowa (much higher level Missouri Valley conference, Division I, not JuCo), won the conference all but year one and see how he did at KU. Morrel would be a considerably higher leap.
Having said that, I believe he might be an improvement over the current coach but he would need to work through the Division I ranks as an assistant or coordinator at major programs before he has any chance to a HC position. The optics of hiring him now would not be good. The headlines would be…KU gives up football, hires retired JuCo coach to lead the football program. It just will not happen.
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@JayHawkFanToo I’d take Terry Allen right now.
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Crimsonorblue22 said:
@FarmerJayhawk I’ve heard he’s interested, but my son says we wouldn’t hire a guy unless he’s been a d-1 coach. I also wanted John ontjes (hcc) women’s B.B. coach to get the ku B.B. coach. I swear his teams could beat Ku’s.
I think that’s the plan. I’d love to hire Miles or Bielema. But there are some G5 coaches who could be legit too
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@FarmerJayhawk Bielema would be a terrible hire for Kansas. Bielema is why Jeff Long was fired from Arkansas in the first place. Aside from that, Bielema didn’t make Arkansas any better and the Hogs finished in last in the SEC west 3 out of his 5 years and only finished in the top half of the division once.
Bielema didn’t build Wisconsin, he inherited that. What he took over at Arkansas is much closer to what he’d have to do at KU and he failed to make Arkansas better.
On top of that, from a PR perspective (very important here because of the fundraising needed for the stadium), how do you justify hiring a coach at your new school that is the reason you were fired as an AD from your previous school?
At the end of the day, Jeff Long was fired from Arkansas for the same reason Zenger was fired from KU. Long hired two football coaches that had to be fired, granted Petrino was not fired for non field issues but was still fired nonetheless, and wasn’t trusted to make a third hire.
This is why I’m still not totally sold on Long as KU’s AD because there is something flawed in his ability to evaluate football coaches. He ignored character issues with Petrino and ignored that Bielema was not a cultural fit at Arkansas at all and that their boosters were never fully behind Bielema.
Arkansas has been good to great at a lot of other sports under Long, but the bottom line is that Long was hired to fix the football program and his track record of football hires is not very impressive. That worries me about who he’ll hire at KU.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Petrino didn’t have a gf when he was hired at Hogland. That happened later. Was there something in Petrino’s past that should’ve alerted Long about Petrino, or are you simply trying to convict him after the fact?
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@KUSTEVE The way Petrino handled his departure from the Atlanta Falcons to take the Arkansas job was a huge red flag on Petrino’s character. He quit the Falcons before the season was up, didn’t notify his players he was leaving and just basically handled that situation as poorly as possible.
The mistress situation is why he had to fired at Arkansas because he put the school in a position to be sued under Title IX and firing Petrino is what saved the school from that potential lawsuit.
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Long made two good hires. Spin it however you want. But to hire a guy that put Arkansas in the top 5 was a great hire. The ending was unfortunate, but that was a hell of a hire.
Stealing away a two time Big 10 Champion coach was also a hell of a hire.
If he steals away another P5 coach that has won two big 10 championships to come coach at KU, I’ll be stoked.
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@Kcmatt7 Good hires don’t get you fired. Bret Bielema didn’t do anything for Arkansas except lose and piss off donors. There’s no way to spin that as good hire.
Jeff Long was fired at Arkansas because he made two bad football hires and wasn’t trusted to make third. Now why does that sound familiar?
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Your view and opinion on this is valid. I just don’t agree with it. You hold the Petrino indiscretions against Long, while I don’t. You look at the after the fact results of Beilema, while I look at what I believe an ADs job is. Which is to get the best candidates to even consider the job. Bielema was certainly a Top Candidate, considering Wisconsin to Arkansas was a lateral move at best. Bielema didn’t perform. And Long does need to take ownership of that. But, I’m not going to absolutely crush a guy for making what seemed to be a slam dunk of a hire.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 The way he left the Falcons could be a red flag, but I don’t know all the circumstances. Maybe he left on bad terms with that crazy owner… maybe it was a sign of something else. But Long can’t be held responsible for Petrino playing hide the salami with the coed. He’s not a mind reader.
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@Kcmatt7 At this point, I’m much more interested in the actual on field results of hires rather than whether they appear to be a good hire or not. Kansas football is in a position now where they need someone to actually deliver results on the field because we’re getting close to another round of realignment and the Big 12 is going to be the conference that’s in the most trouble when that happens.
I thought Gill was a good hire at the time and still think he was screwed over and not given enough time here to establish his culture here. Say what you will about his time here, but KU is the only place he didn’t leave a program in better shape. Buffalo was where Kansas is now and ge won a conference title their in 4 years. He’s had Liberty in the FCS playoffs just about every year he’s been there so there is clearly something about his way that works when given the proper time.
Weis was a bad hire from the get go. Weis sacrificed character in his recruiting and crippled the depth trying to win immediately to get one last good job.
I wasn’t as high on the Beaty hire as I was the Gill hire, but nowhere as against it as I was the Weis hire. On the field, each hire has been progressively worse so it’ll be incredibly hard for anyone Long hires to be as bad as Beaty has been to this point.
The guy I would personally love to see come here is Les Miles. Miles is a proven winner in the B12 at OSU and was frequently Nick Saban’s biggest challenge in the SEC. He may be 65 when he would potentially take over in December, but is a young 65 that could probably go another 10 years or so. I would also allow Miles to name a successor himself when he knows he’s a tear or two away from retiring.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I agree that Gill wasn’t given enough time.
And I wouldn’t be upset if we landed Miles.
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And whoever we hire next needs to be given a 10 year deal, that basically handucuffs us to them.
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@Kcmatt7 10 years is a long time at a place like Kansas and I don’t see that being an incentive to attract a quality coach. That’s the type of deal that would attract a Charlie Weis type coach.
The next coach needs the standard 5 year deal with on field benchmarks being the method to earn an extension year.
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Well I don’t know that we have a ridiculous buyout. But this would be our way of letting them know that they have all the time they need to get the job done.
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@Kcmatt7 The buyout isn’t an issue to me. I’d have no problem if someone like Les Miles came here on a 5 year/$3 million per year deal and KU fully guaranteed it.
If it was someone like Jason Candle at $3 million per year, I’d have a problem with that, but him at $2 million per year base salary plus incentives for on field performance that was fully guaranteed is something I wouldn’t have an issue with either. The buyout needs to be structured in a way the discourages the coach from leaving and forced the hiring school to pay that buyout.
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10 year contracts haven’t been kind to Notre Dame. Beaty will have been given long enough to see if there is any improvement by conference play. Kind of a Hue Jackson type situation.
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i will say again I don’t believe Beaty will be fired during the season. I think Long will be scoping the landscape throughout this year and then AFTER the season- - - depending on how it goes he will make that decision , I just don’t think he will want to disrupt the team ANYMORE then what it already is.
I still think what I would like to see if it comes to yet ANOTHER Coaching change , Ideally for me what I think maybe do under the perfect scenario for me would be - -Everyone talking Les Miles - -Les Miles - all thought I don’t think we have a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening - - -One I just don’t think he would want to take on such a huge task this late in his career and two his age.
However IF we did manage to get Miles on board sign him to like a 4-5 yr contract and during that time have him tutoring Tony, let Tony be his understudy, learning the ropes Miles teaching as he goes - Let Tony get that feel/understanding. - -Then when Les retires , bring Tony on as the head Coach. - Obviously Tony’s ties in recruiting in the boot does and would still have huge advantages.- I just can’t see where it would hurt us any worse then where we are at right now
I’ve had friends say well the new Coach will want to clean house - - bring in his guys. To that I say great , but if I were the new head Coach Tony would be THE ONE GUY that if I were the new head Coach that I would at least sit down with and talk to and see if we clicked and possibly retain him. His recruiting can and has produced big benefits - I just don’t think we can afford to lose people like this. – -ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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Texas Hawk 10 said:
@FarmerJayhawk Bielema would be a terrible hire for Kansas. Bielema is why Jeff Long was fired from Arkansas in the first place. Aside from that, Bielema didn’t make Arkansas any better and the Hogs finished in last in the SEC west 3 out of his 5 years and only finished in the top half of the division once.
Bielema didn’t build Wisconsin, he inherited that. What he took over at Arkansas is much closer to what he’d have to do at KU and he failed to make Arkansas better.
On top of that, from a PR perspective (very important here because of the fundraising needed for the stadium), how do you justify hiring a coach at your new school that is the reason you were fired as an AD from your previous school?
At the end of the day, Jeff Long was fired from Arkansas for the same reason Zenger was fired from KU. Long hired two football coaches that had to be fired, granted Petrino was not fired for non field issues but was still fired nonetheless, and wasn’t trusted to make a third hire.
This is why I’m still not totally sold on Long as KU’s AD because there is something flawed in his ability to evaluate football coaches. He ignored character issues with Petrino and ignored that Bielema was not a cultural fit at Arkansas at all and that their boosters were never fully behind Bielema.
Arkansas has been good to great at a lot of other sports under Long, but the bottom line is that Long was hired to fix the football program and his track record of football hires is not very impressive. That worries me about who he’ll hire at KU.
We’ve been over this but since you insist on relitigating it we can. Petrino took Arkansas to incredible heights. If you insist on hiring AD’s who will only hire coaches who will never have off the field issues, go be a fan of Liberty.
Since, as you assert, Petrino left Arkansas in a smoldering crater, you ought to take that into account and discount at least the first year. He was more than respectable 3/4 years after that. It’s pretty inconsistent on your part to forgive one guy taking over a dumpster fire (Gill) and admonish another (Bielema). Gill was worse each year he was at KU, so what’s the difference? For all you know Gill would’ve been worse than Gill and canned anyway. If Gill would’ve had even remotely the success at KU that Bielema had at Arkansas he would have a statue here. Just admit you don’t have any real criteria other than getting to complain and move on with life.
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Kcmatt7 said:
And whoever we hire next needs to be given a 10 year deal, that basically handucuffs us to them.
Ummm what the actual hell
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@FarmerJayhawk It’s a bit of a hyperbole, but the next coach needs to know they have plenty of time to resurrect this thing fully. They aren’t coming here to ruin their legacy or derail their career. They will be given every resource possible to help them succeed. Because the truth is, the top mountain may be a 7 win season. We can’t have 10 win expectations. We can’t really put ultimatum seasons in here anymore. If they slip down to 3 wins after a 5 win season, are you going to call for their head? It is going to take 4 years to develop a culture change. It will take another year or two after that to see results. Along the way, we should see things that give us hope. But the truth is that we already jumped the gun with Gill and Weiss. Beaty being given only 4 years is also just not a good look. The next coach needs to come in here pressure free so he can recruit without fear of needing immediate results. Beaty and Weiss both took the shortcut JUCO route due to desperation. We can’t have that anymore. So maybe not a 10 year deal. But 7 is honestly not outrageous, imo.
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@FarmerJayhawk I’m not apologizing for believing character is an important trait in a head coach. Bobby Petrino has little to no character and put Arkansas in a position to be sued under Title IX. Bobby Petrino didn’t have enough character to tell the Atlanta Falcons that he was taking the Arkansas job. Many programs, including Kansas, have been taken down by head football coaches who didn’t have a lot of character.
Arkansas had an interim coach for an entire season between Petrino and Bielema. You claim Bielema was good in 3/4 years not including his first season. I’m just curious as to which of the 2 seasons of those 4 that Bielema finished in last place considered “moderately successful” since you say 3 of those 4 years were “moderately successful.”
The reality is Bielema had one decent season of the 5 he was there. Once it was his players that were upperclassmen, Arkansas started declining again and went right back to the cellar of the SEC West.
You say Turner Gill got worse each season he was at Kansas like he was here for several years, he was here 2 years. There is no circumstance that is enough time to rebuild a program. I don’t know that Gill would’ve ever broken through at Kansas had he been given 5 years, but I know based on what he did at Buffalo and what he’s done at Liberty that his system is a successful one.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Like I said. We’re not going to convince each other about Petrino so by all means keep wasting your time typing about him.
His second year he went 7-6 and won a bowl game and improved by 4 games. Year 3 was another improvement. If you expect Arkansas to regularly beat Alabama, Auburn, and LSU I guess that’s your deal.
No, I said it exactly like I meant it. Gill got worse each year he was here. Where is all the success at Buffalo? He was over .500 exactly one year out of 4, and they got worse when his players were seniors. At a level nowhere close to the SEC. Equating success in the SoCon with the Big 12 isn’t a great idea. Liberty gets a very different type of player than KU, and Gill has never showed the flexibility to adapt his program to the players he gets.
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@FarmerJayhawk You’ve still yet to tell me how finishing in 7th place out of 7 teams in a division 60% of the time is considered having “moderate success” because that’s a very low standard you have. But since you also don’t care that a coach does something that could lead to a school getting sued as long as they win a few games, I guess your standards aren’t very high to begin with.
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Ok, since you really need it spelled out, he made 3 bowl games in 5 years. If he made a bowl game 60% of the time he was at KU he’d have a statue in front of Memorial.
I wouldn’t talk about standards since hiring a coach with one winning season prior to KU and then going 5-19 at KU isn’t given “enough time.” If by don’t care you mean unequivocally think Petrino should’ve been canned, you’re dead on.
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I respectfully disagree. I met Coach Gill and he is without a doubt one impressive and outstanding human being; however, his coaching record is not nearly as good.
This is his coaching record …
Keep in mind that Buffalo had returned to Division I 5 years before Gill took over and were still experiencing the pains from moving up. Jason Whitlock, who follows the MAC closely, wrote an article about Gill’s best season at Buffalo and how the record was created with smoke and mirrors with close calls and poor competition. His overall record there is a below average 20-30 and 14-18 and in his last season there the slide down had already started.
About Liberty…
His record is not nearly as good as that of the previous coach and his success is based mostly in Conference play. His overall record is 41-29 and 22-10 and 4 championships in 6 years where his predecessor was 47-20 and 26-5 and 4 championships in also 6 years and ranked in the top 25 his last 4 years and Rocco is the one that inherited a poor program (see table above) where Gill came in where Liberty was already good. Again, how much better did he make Liberty?
There is a lot of hindsight revisionism of Coach Gill’s record and a a fair amount of it is wishful thinking.
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@JayHawkFanToo Turner Gill was turned down by Nebraska and Auburn for a reason, he publicly claimed it was because of his color but he had one winning season at buffalo. His absurd contract was even more proof of sweet Lou trying to destroy everything once he knew he was going down. @Texas-Hawk-10 I agree that if Gill had stayed, the program wouldn’t have been as bad as it is currently or what it was when Beaty came in. Gill had several games that we played well in the first half. I was thinking we should’ve made him be stricter on the players academicly and physically, hire a new DC and strength coach, then seen how year 3 was.
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What about Monken at Army? Gave OU all they wanted in Norman.
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@kjayhawks it does get to what HEM has been saying. But they also lost to Duke early this year, handily. Georgia Tech is exactly what we would look like if we moved to that.
I wouldn’t be opposed, I just think it would be a tough sell to boosters with money who dream of us somehow winning a NC. And by committing to the flexbone, we would basically be saying we are ok winning 6 games every season, but never winning more than 10. Which means you can’t win a NC.
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@Kcmatt7 Army is 1-3 this year, they’re not a good team this year despite scaring OU. That was probably the worst game we’ll see from OU all year. If KU tried that system against OU and other B12 defenses with the speed those defenses have, it wouldn’t go well most of the time. KU would pull the occasional upset, but they still wouldn’t rise above middle of the pack in the B12. B12 defenses have too much speed and enough teams run a variation of the inverted wishbone formation in the B12 that switching to a triple option offense wouldn’t take much adjustment to for those teams.
You speak of Duke like they’re a bad team. They’re 4-0 including a 20 point win over the same Army team that just took OU to OT. They also have a road win over Northwestern as well this year and would be my pick to win their division right now.
If you want to rise up in the B12, you have to look at how other programs in the B12 were able to do so. Oklahoma State and Baylor are the two models for that. Both of those teams did so using variations of the spread offense.
Those of ya’ll that want to see KU in a run based offense, the flexbone is not the way to go because we saw what happens yesterday when even bad teams stack the box against KU with even the best RB in the conference in Pooka. It just doesn’t work to sustain success, it will pull the occasional upset, but KU would never finish higher than mid pack except in extreme down years for the conference. In the old B12 North, I’d be all for it because KU could that division on a regular basis because it was bad for the most part after 2003 until it’s end.
For those that want some variation on a run based offense that would actually work in the B12, this is what I would do. I would make the base offensive formation a 3 receiver/2 back and have the zone read and other option plays be the staple. My ideal personnel for this system is a speedy QB with a big arm, two speedy, Pooka Williams type backs as the RB’s, a speedy receiver to line up in the slot on the wide side of the field and a big receiver to line up on the outside on the wide side of the field. I would have another speedy receiver line up on the short side of the field. The outside receivers would line up on the numbers and the slot receiver would line up on the hashes. This forces coaches to make a decision with their safeties. Play the safeties up stop the run and leave at least one of the receivers in one on one coverage and opens them up to play action.
Or the defense can leave the safeties back to cover the pass and open up the running attack. An easy way to find out what the safeties are doing to is motion the short side receiver over into a trips look with nobody on the short side of the field and see how defenses play that. If they keep the corner over there run the option at him and force him to choose his responsibility. If he goes, run sweep to that side.
That’s how you create a run based offense in the B12 these days. Not a flexbone formation that puts 10 guys around the ball and invites defenses to stack the box. It’s also easier to find a 5-9 receiver with tons of speed in the B12 recruiting area than it is to find the Olinemen you would need to run a flexbone formation effectively.
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Realistically, who expects KU to win a football NC? Nobody, not even the biggest fans or donors; a respectable season is what most expect or hope. With its rich elite basketball history KU will likely never be a football powerhouse anymore than UK, Duke or UNC. Sure, there will be some good or even very good years like some of the Mangino years but 7-10 win seasons and a bowl is probably the best outcome…it sure beats what we have had the last decade or for that matter the great majority of the program’s history.
KU should look at Army’s game plan against OU. It was masterful. It controlled the tempo and clock, had the ball for almost 45 minutes, piled up 339 yards against powerhouse OU, on the road while completing only 3 passes. Look at the picture below and see how well Army used the clock, methodically driving the length of the field using big chunks of time.
Now, I don’t believe Army has better players than KU, however, it appears to be a more disciplined and much better coached team than KU is now and came within a wisker of upsetting OU at home. One can only hope KU does half as well.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I didn’t say that doing that would be my preference. Just that I’d be ok with it knowing it raises our floor a bit.
I know how good Duke is. Thanks.
I’d love to see us do basically what you said. Which is essentially the Oregon under Chip Kelly model. Minus the trying to snap the ball every 13 seconds of course. I love that model, and I think we could as you pointed out, recruit for it just fine. We can take a lot of the “rejects” with some physical flaws and make it work. It all revolves around getting athletes in space, creating a lot of misdirection, and eliminating a defender every play by reading them. Often, Oregon would read just the best player on the other team, completely eliminating them from every single play. If there is a LB that we can’t block, we just read him. Freak DL that we would have to double every time? Nope. Just read him.
We are capable of being a team that you need to play disciplined assignment football against, even if it isn’t flexbone.
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@JayHawkFanToo It’s also a fluke. Duke beat Army by 20 to open the year because of their familiarity with that system because they play Georgia Tech every year. That’s what would happen to KU trying to run that system, teams would get used to it because they would see it every year and be prepared for it. Last night was OU playing their worst game of the season. Play that game 10 time, OU wins by 30+ 8 times, last night was not one of those 8.
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Fluke or no fluke, what do you think the score will be when KU plays at a OU November 17 with the current scheme? Do you think Army has better players than KU?
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@JayHawkFanToo I fully agree that we should adopt a similar philosophy to Army, but not the same scheme.
Yesterday was a fluke.
If they play next week, OU could win by 50. Yesterday was Army’s 1 in 100 chance at beating that OU team. And it still didn’t happen.
So, as far as developing a philosophy that is similar to Army, I would agree. A run heavy, ball control, tempo control, damn near boring philosophy of football that sucks the air out of opposing stadiums, is a great idea for us.
But I do not want to run the Flexbone. I’d much rather see us move to the Pistol and use a combo of two running backs as @Texas-Hawk-10 stated earilier, that would give us the ability to create a similar type of misdirection though. This tweaked version of the spread is also more practical if you ever luck into a stud QB, as your playbook would stay the same and the only thing that would change is your play calls. This way, you can still go after the traditional QB from time to time, and if you land a Reesing you can sling it around with no issues. But most years, you can put a good athlete back there instead.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 @Kcmatt7 I Don’t disagree that it would be boring but KSU averages 8 wins a year by running the ball most the time and controlling the clock, a different style of run of coarse. Also Army is 2-2 with road losses at 4-0 Duke and 4-0 Oklahoma. This Army isn’t great but I’d bet they could go .500 in the B12 this season and they win 8 or 9 games.
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@kjayhawks Army would not win 4 or 5 Big 12 games, they might win 2 or 3. They might win 8 games this year, but it isn’t because they’re good, it’s because their schedule is beyond weak. They play two FCS teams and a team in their first year as an FBS so basically 3 FCS teams this year.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I think they could beat us, Baylor, KSU and ISU. They would have to pull an upset to get the next win but with how inconsistent Texas, OSU and Tech appear to be I think they could get one between those 3. We can argue about it all day but we really have no way of knowing because they won’t play. The question I have with Army is Duke really that good to kick their butts but you also have to figure it’s tough to go on the road against a veteran team right outta the gates. I agree that Armys schedule isn’t great outside of OU and Duke, with that being said I’d be shocked if they didn’t win 9 or 10 this season including a bowl.
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Also Liberty is in their first season as an FBS team but they beat Baylor last year and blew the doors of off Old Dominion who just beat Va Tech. Liberty lacks coaching to ever be anything in FBS but I bet they can win 3 games this season. Which isn’t that bad when you are moving up a level in competition.
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@kjayhawks Army isn’t winning 9 or 10 this year. They won’t beat Buffalo, they won’t beat Navy. Air Force and Eastern Michigan are toss ups. They also would not beat Iowa St. if they played this year. KSU would be a toss up at best for Army.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 we will see lol
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They would probably beat KU…
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@JayHawkFanToo I wouldn’t bet against Army beating Kansas at this point.
