Well while it certainly could be a good thing to bring in a NFL guy. But my most recent experience with that is not good. Brian Van Gorder was an NFL guy and we all thought, great an NFL guy and he'll bring an NFL defense that will kill it in college and the kids will love it. Problem is he 1) was coaching 18-21 y/o kids and 2) he only got 20 hrs a week to do it. It was way to complex for that situation. I remember Lane Kiffin bringing his "Legendary" father Monte Kiffin with him and as far as I can remember Monte Kiffin who truly was an elite NFL DCoord never succeeded in college. I think personally I would rather have Coordinators who are college guys mainly. But I'm sure there are examples of NFL guys coming back to college and succeeding. I wouldn't count Saban or Petrino who were basically college guys who gave the NFL a shot.
Louisville DCoord bailed on Petrino for the Mississippi State job. They also lost their DB coach to Oregon.
Well Bob Diaco was the DCoord for the 12-0 regular season in 2012. His defense was the opposite of Charlie McBrides Blackshirts though. It was bend don't break, keep the play in front of you, hold down the points and force FG's. He also was not known as a very good recruiter. But he has fabulous hair! Most Irish fans weren't sad when he left, everybody wanted one of those defenses like you Neb guys had under McBride. Unfortunately as I said in an earlier message hiring Brian Van Gorder was a horrible mistake. His defense gave up big plays all over the place because it was too complex for college kids, it was NFL defense without NFL players or NFL time for practice and meetings.
Doc nailed it. He makes the other team beat you and even though bend, but don't break, is unpopular, there's a lot to be said for it. The other team blows execution on one down and they get behind the sticks then have to double up on execution for the 3rd down conversion. We gave up yards, but not points. We would have killed to have that this year.
Sony Dykes has landed at TCU in an unknown role. Even though the Frogs lost Doug Meachem to Kansas (why oh why would he make that move) but still have the other C0-Coord Sonny Cumbie. So will Patterson go with a 2 Sonny Offense? Dykes has no rep on the defensive side of the ball so anything he does has to be on offense.
Not a coach, but Alabama has hired Arizona's Greg Byrne as their new AD, Bill Battle who is 75 taking on new duties. His dad was a long time AD at Texas A&M and before Az he was at Miss State. The Tide haven't made many mistakes recently with their hires so I assume this is another homerun hire.
yeah, I knew Battle had some health issues and I know nothing about Byrne. This will be the first AD that had no previous ties to Alabama in a long while.
I see that Tenn is also looking for a new AD and Phil Fulmer is the leading candidate. Not many former HC are AD's at major programs these days. The job of AD is more like being the CEO of a large company and most HC's don't have the background to run a large Ath Dept.
The Head Coach at Eastern Washington who has been very successful at that program has taken the job as Justin Wilcox OCoord at CAL.
Re: Fulmer. Hasn't he been involved with the university in some capacity (fundraising?) since he retired? They've had a chance to see how he functions in the "real" world (away from football). Maybe he's impressed the powers that be enough to be coonsidered for the job. Terry, I agree with you re: the CEO nature of the AD position these days.
There certainly are AD's who played a sport in college, but most of them have been on the Admin side for their post football careers and worked their way up that way. Mike Bobinski(Purdue) was a baseball player at ND, Gene Smith was a football player at ND and he did coach for awhile, don't know when he moved to the Admin side though. Bubba Cunningham (UNC) played golf at ND 1 year and does have a business background with his degree, but he's worked his way up the ladder on the Admin side starting at ND. Current Texas AD played football but then went into Law and made his reputation there before taking over the Texas Ath Dept. His predecessor who was very successful at Texas Deloss Dodds ran track at KState and coached track before moving into Admin. There are a lot of varied backgrounds though, and maybe as Sid pointed out Fulmer post coaching career at Tenn showed that he does have the Admin skills to run a large Ath Dept.
Better hope Byrne is nothing like his penny pinching Daddy. That SOB is the one who roped us into playing at Jerryworld for 10 years. :x
Big difference between your program back then and the money available today to Alabama. I'm sure Alabama has pretty much an unlimited budget these days.
Scott, Terry, That is my concern with having someone not previously associated with Alabama take over. I hope it doesn't lead to playing games in Ireland, uniforms that look like Transformers, or crimson shoes or some of the other promotional stuff. Alabama football is very successful right now and it is making plenty of money. I hope Byrne is like a doctor "Do no harm". :!:
Corey, Yes there have been some very minor changes, but nothing that changes the basic look of the uniform. If you look at our uniforms from the 70's and the uniform from last year, I think there might be stripes on the pants and name on the back. Other than that, not much has changed except the tear away jerseys used back then.