i give LittreLL 2 thumbs down

[j rake]

in all seriousness, can someone fwd my contact info to gene taylor?

i'll be in the syracuse area around christmas and would be happy to stop to visit babers in his domed stadium that doesn't even have air conditioning despite being sponsored by an air conditioning company.

Me too!

meet me at turning stone! 

[MakeItRain]

in all seriousness, can someone fwd my contact info to gene taylor?

i'll be in the syracuse area around christmas and would be happy to stop to visit babers in his domed stadium that doesn't even have air conditioning despite being sponsored by an air conditioning company.

Me too!

meet me at turning stone! 

I'll be in Ithaca which is almost exactly equidistant to the carrier dome as Turning Stone is.

[michigancat]

in all seriousness, can someone fwd my contact info to gene taylor?

i'll be in the syracuse area around christmas and would be happy to stop to visit babers in his domed stadium that doesn't even have air conditioning despite being sponsored by an air conditioning company.

Me too!

meet me at turning stone! 

I'll be in Ithaca which is almost exactly equidistant to the carrier dome as Turning Stone is.

Guys please make all of this happen

[chum1]

j rake, please do an analysis of Bret Bielema as a head coach candidate.

[fun muffin]

Rake, could you give us your top 5?  I would love to see this once you've had time to do some research.

So far we have Babers and EMU guy.

[j rake]

j rake, please do an analysis of Bret Bielema as a head coach candidate.

perfect example of a solid coach who probably won't get a serious look by a good BCS program anytime soon because he "failed" at Arkansas.

he took over a program that was #65 the year before he arrived.

here was his five years:

#77 first year
#10 second year
#15 third year
#46 fourth year
#74 fifth year

so in his 2nd and 3rd years, he had top-15 level teams. i can't imagine many people even realized how good his arkansas teams were those two years because they were so fixated on his record - which was 7-6 and 8-5.

but when you're coaching in the SEC West, you're gonna lose some games.

here's the level of opponent he played his second year:

at Auburn (#11)
at Texas Tech (#79)
vs NIU (#72)
vs Texas A&M (#22)
vs Alabama (#3)
vs Georgia (#5)
vs UAB (#84)
at Miss St (#9)
vs LSU (#14)
vs Ole Miss (#8)
at Mizzou (#15)
vs Texas (#53)

so he played #3, #5, #8, #9, #11, #14, #15, #22.

he lost to bama by one point, lost to A&M in OT, lost by 7 to then-#1 miss st, beat LSU and Ole Miss (both top-10 at the time), etc.

road games at Texas Tech and a bowl game vs Texas were his breathers.

needless to say, i don't know what happened those last two years. i assume the negative energy engulfed the program, he lost games he'd lose no matter what to alabama, lsu or whoever, and then things snowballed.

i actually think it'd be a great hire.

[chum1]

OMG 

Thanks!!

[WillieWatanabe]

Thought the rumors with Bret were he was getting burnt out and didn't love recruiting. Maybe sitting out a year and getting out of the SEC could give him fresh energy.

[mocat]

allowing the negativity to snowball and engulf the program is a negative for a head coach

[j rake]

Rake, could you give us your top 5?  I would love to see this once you've had time to do some research.

So far we have Babers and EMU guy.

babers (hard to get), leach (hard to get), beilema (attainable), dave clawson (attainable), and bill clark (if rolling the dice)

[catastrophe]

Need to hear something on those last two.

[j rake]

allowing the negativity to snowball and engulf the program is a negative for a head coach

i'll respectfully disagree. fanbases, especially sec fanbases, are way too impatient. you can't expect a guy to come in and instantly start beating top-10 teams with regularity. it just isn't going to happen.

beilema, and probably every other sec coach in the lower to mid-tier, is playing a losing game. it isn't if they'll eat you alive, just when. most kentucky fans wanted to give mark stoops the boot after year 5 and this year he finally turned the corner.

i think beilema will learn from the SEC experience and be a better coach in the long term if he wants to be.

[michigancat]

J Rake please do Derek Mason next

[chum1]

j rake's endorsement of Bielema just makes me sad that we won't hire him. He's a proven coach!

[j rake]

Need to hear something on those last two.

i've already discussed my belief that clark is a really good coach. i am skeptical if he would recruit at the necessary level that would be required at k-state, but at the very least, i think he can beat better teams with lesser talent; which i think is a must for any coach to be successful here.

clawson is just a guy i've followed for many years and have always been impressed by. he won at fordham, he won at richmond, he won at bowling green, and he's on his way to turning around wake. he's won championships in four different leagues across two decades as a head coach.

he's never had an easy job.

[j rake]

J Rake please do Derek Mason next

just say no.

[nicname]

Phew, really dodged a bullet there. Thx jrake

[j rake]

wow, i have been hearing some rumblings, and just want to say thank you gene for reading my thread.

don't ever hesitate if you need any further help, PM's are open, just slide right in! 

[_33]

wow, i have been hearing some rumblings, and just want to say thank you gene for reading my thread.

don't ever hesitate if you need any further help, PM's are open, just slide right in! 

WE'RE GETTING DINO?!

[j rake]

WE'RE GETTING DINO?!

nope, you're getting craig klieman. 

[Pete]

I am so bitterly disappointed in K-State....again.

[Trim]

Stupid Gene only read the stuff about how LittreLL sucks and missed how all his other choices suck too and that he needs to go get Dino.  Now he's eliminated LittreLL and is getting us eff head. 

You really stuck it to us, Rake.

[j rake]

hey, you just never know, maybe carl klieman will surprise us.

[Trim]

hey, you just never know, maybe carl klieman will surprise us.

Maybe.  Meanwhile half the board will be eating human poop.

[Pete]

i can't believe the enthusiasm for this guy. he "turns around" north texas by beating a bunch of bad teams, he runs an offense that is a lesser version of the ones already ran by better big 12 teams (aka every other team), he got outcoached often by first-year CUSA coaches, his team underachieved expectations - sometimes massively - in almost every game it played in october and november down the stretch, and suddenly gene and k-state are tripping all over themselves to hire him?

bill clark, an actual good coach, destroyed LittreLL's UNT team with a program that literally didn't exist when LittreLL began his rebuild.

ya gotta feel for LHC Bill Snyder. he spent most of the last three decades to build up this program, and now ya'll are just gonna turn it over to the north texas coach who can barely beat UTEP and UTSA. pretty sad to watch this happen.

i liked the kansas hire way better. sometimes Les really is more.

 

What about Neal Brown?  Do your sinful gambling arithmetic on him, TIA.