Lately in college football it seems like everyone wants an instant miracle, and teams keep rifling through coaches until they find a guy that can win a lot instantly. However, for every Florida and Oklahoma that this works for, there is a school like Notre Dame that is held down by it. Furthermore, guys like Urban Meyer and Bob Stoops had a ton of talent already in place when they set foot on campus.
In short, I think building a program is a forgotten skill.
This brings me to my question. What are your expectations for Prince? How do you honestly see things unfolding, what will you be satisfied with the next few years, and what would he have to do to get on the hot seat?
Snyder was one of the all-time greats, but let's face it, he didn't leave the program in that great of shape the last couple of years for Prince. Personally, I saw enough positive signs out of Prince last year that I think he deserves 6 years to build, and more if things go really well.
What do you think though?
Solich was fired with 10 wins. Remember that Osborne took forever to win championship but consistently won 9 ball games a year. But once again Osborne was in a different era, where you had time to build a program.
In all honesty, I never wanted Solich to head coach in the first place. I liked him, but I didn't think he offered anything as a head coach (he was a running backs coach), and I thought Osborne's recruiting abilities had already stretched the option offense long past it's natural death (top recruits wanted to play for him still because he was famous, so the option kept working). Once Solich was head coach I supported him but with serious reservations. Once he made the changes in assistant coaches in 2002, I was willing to give him 3 more years for the same reason I started this thread with...I wanted to give him a chance to build his program, and I knew it would be a mess if we switched coaches. Pederson wasn't as patient as I was though, so now we have Callahan. I've been excited about Callahan from day one, and I really started liking him last season.
A lot of people talk about Solich's ten wins in his last season, but they were mirage. We won all our out-of-conference games, but we only played two crappy Sunbelt teams and a Penn State team that went 3-9. We got slaughtered by every good team we played. Why? Because Solich didn't know how to run the offense (he was still trying to do it despite saying the OC was in charge), and we had division II talent at almost every position on offense, and many on defense.
I like Solich okay, but he couldn't/didn't recruit. His first four years we outwardly were great because Tom Osborne's players were still there. However, there was hemorrhaging in talent that was taking place silently, so that by the time Osborne's last class were seniors (2001) we had no depth, which Colorado and Miami exposed.
Like I said, I never was excited about Solich, but I always supported him with reservations. I was willing to give him more time. However, he's gone, and I am really excited about Callahan now. I want to give Callahan time to build--like I was willing to do with Solich--but with Callahan I have no reservations.
