i give LittreLL 2 thumbs down

[catastrophe]

Oh geeze you want that NDSU guy don’t you.

[j rake]

I think the real question is does jrake think there is a better fit out there for KSU, or does he just want to be a negative nancy?

between FBS and FCS, there are roughly 260 head football coaches, 520 offensive and defensive coordinators, dozens of NFL coordinators, assistant head coaches, out-of-work former coaches, etc.

last year at KSO, someone in mid-october - username mobcat - suggested k-state hire seth LittreLL. he cited LittreLL's promising turnaround at UNT and his win-loss record, among other reasons (Big 12 ties, youth, offensive system, etc). others seemed intrigued by LittreLL, and he has been a constant potential candidate by fans in the many months since.

earlier this week, snyder officially announced his retirement. a national search for his replacement officially began (although it was surely already underway). and gene taylor's first choice is apparently ... seth LittreLL!

jon wefald/tim weiser embarked on a national search to find ron prince, and they did the same to get bob huggins (and also "moved heaven and earth" in trying to get him to stay).

gene taylor's first big search? eh, he came up with the same guy that mobcat did.

[j rake]

Oh geeze you want that NDSU guy don’t you.

reach out to babers, offer to double his salary. if he says no, do whatever you want.

in all honesty, k-state football probably won't win 9 games in a season ever again anyway, so who really cares.

[Dr Rick Daris]

also, you can stop with the Indiana and north Carolina had job openings and didn't hire him nonsense. it's a garbage take. kstate is a better job, especially for seth LittreLL. his home is Oklahoma. he played at Oklahoma. he has tons of friends and family and even his wife's family in Oklahoma. both sets of parents/grandparents could drive up on a Friday night, see the grandkids, catch a game and then drive back home after church on sunday and still catch 60 minutes. also, he has already been head coaching in and recruiting texas the past four years which would come in ridiculously handy for kstate. Indiana? north Carolina? lol. no thanks. pass.

why didn't texas tech hire him?

an even better question would be- why wasn't seth interested in coaching at texas tech?

others could be, why did tommy tuberville leave ttech after just three years and take the cinci job? why did they get rid of leach like they did? why was kliff kingsbury not successful and have to be fired? what kind of money was tech willing/able to pay? what do football coaches think about Kirby hocutt?

[nicname]

Oh geeze you want that NDSU guy don’t you.

Nah. I’m w LittreLL

[Rage Against the McKee]

Why does LittreLL want the K-State job?

here's why: because he knew he could conquer this terrible league, win the championship in two years, and boost his own profile.

 

[Trim]

reach out to babers, offer to double his salary.

Like LittreLL recently, I hadn't heard of Babers until a bbs'r posted his name, but I'd have loved if Gene had gone out and tried to poach successful power 5 head coaches by throwing money at them.  I wanted Disgruntled Dabo.

[j rake]

I'd have loved if Gene had gone out and tried to poach successful power 5 head coaches by throwing money at them.

nah, gene thinks it's best to just go with the same guy mobcat suggested a year ago.

[Dr Rick Daris]

I'd have loved if Gene had gone out and tried to poach successful power 5 head coaches by throwing money at them.

nah, gene thinks it's best to just go with the same guy mobcat suggested a year ago.

I don't know much about college coach job searches, but i do know that the very first thing every school should do is research every message board and immediately eliminate any coach that was ever suggested by a message board poster. that's the first thing you do and everybody knows that. what comes after? i'm not sure but everybody agrees on that first step.

[Dr Rick Daris]

while i'm personally surprised that not a single shaggy bevo poster suggested tom herman before he was hired, here we find ourselves.

[michigancat]

what was Kelly's best win at CMU?

his best win in three years was against toledo (#49) in his second year.

here are his best wins while at CMU:

#66 Miami Ohio
#94 Akron
#86 Army
#110 Ohio
#49 Toledo
#104 Ball State
#105 Akron
#112 Toledo
#98 Ball State
#69 Western Michigan
#77 Ohio

this admittedly does not look mind-blowingly successful on the surface. but consider kelly was coaching a team that was rated #170 then #72 then #56. so he was beating plenty of teams that were equal or better than his, especially after adjusting for HFA. LittreLL basically hasn't. he took the field 16 times against a team that was better than his and won only three of those games. as a big favorite, he's come embarrassingly close to losing; and as already noted, he lost straight up to ODU and La Tech this year as 14- and 7-pt favorites.

LittreLL went just 4-8 against the spread this year and only covered one game in all of October and November (out of eight). in other words, he consistently fell short of expectations.

kelly, meanwhile, was consistently beating expectations in his third year. yes, he lost to BC, Michigan and Kentucky, but covered the spread in all three. CMU went 12-2 against the spread for the entire year.

kelly coached 13 seasons at Grand Valley State, winning two national titles his last two years before he arrived at CMU. the three-year sample at CMU was not a discovery stint; it was validation that he was really frickin good.

What are those rankings from?

[j rake]

What are those rankings from?

oops, sorry, you asked earlier too and didn't reply. they're sagarin ratings. not perfect, but a baseline that resembles vegas market ratings to a reasonable degree.

if you used similar public rankings (i.e. from the power rank, team rankings, etc) you'd get slightly different results, but would still be useful for year to year comparisons of a program.

[kso_FAN]

while i'm personally surprised that not a single shaggy bevo poster suggested tom herman before he was hired, here we find ourselves.

[Katpappy]

Buffalo Bulls Head coach: Lance Leipold, 4th season, 20–2.  Also won a couple national championships in FCS.  What do you think of this guy, J rake?

[j rake]

Buffalo Bulls Head coach: Lance Leipold, 4th season, 20–2.  Also won a couple national championships in FCS.  What do you think of this guy, J rake?

i think i saw his name pop up on a k-state forum once, so am not interested. 

[Katpappy]

Buffalo Bulls Head coach: Lance Leipold, 4th season, 20–2.  Also won a couple national championships in FCS.  What do you think of this guy, J rake?

i think i saw his name pop up on a k-state forum once, so am not interested. 

He seems to have that magic formula you admire so much.  !0 yrs. of winning in FCS and of course the 4 yrs. at Buffalo.

[j rake]

Buffalo Bulls Head coach: Lance Leipold, 4th season, 20–2.  Also won a couple national championships in FCS.  What do you think of this guy, J rake?

i think i saw his name pop up on a k-state forum once, so am not interested. 

He seems to have that magic formula you admire so much.  !0 yrs. of winning in FCS and of course the 4 yrs. at Buffalo.

i think you're confusing D3 with FCS. his team competed in something called the wisconsin intercollegiate athletic conference. he has done a nice job at buffalo (20-22, not 20-2 in four years) and has consistently beaten expectations the last two years. an interesting guy but belongs at temple, not k-state.

[Katpappy]

Buffalo Bulls Head coach: Lance Leipold, 4th season, 20–2.  Also won a couple national championships in FCS.  What do you think of this guy, J rake?

i think i saw his name pop up on a k-state forum once, so am not interested. 

He seems to have that magic formula you admire so much.  !0 yrs. of winning in FCS and of course the 4 yrs. at Buffalo.

i think you're confusing D3 with FCS. his team competed in something called the wisconsin intercollegiate athletic conference. he has done a nice job at buffalo (20-22, not 20-2 in four years) and has consistently beaten expectations the last two years. an interesting guy but belongs at temple, not k-state.

Sorry, the 20-2 was on the google link description that I copied.  Read about him a while back and was impressed, but I agree with your assessment.

[Katpappy]

Do you think the UAB coach is a better choice than Seth Spilt-trail.

[j rake]

Do you think the UAB coach is a better choice than Seth Spilt-trail.

i'm fairly convinced that if clark and LittreLL took the field with the same players that clark's team would win heads up. i think he is a better coach. i also think at k-state, winning with worse players is essential when you're unlikely to outrecruit ou, texas, etc, every year.

bill was pretty awful in big games, but he did beat 'better' teams 39% of the time (k-state was an underdog in roughly half of its games). that's really good, and i'm guessing no coach in the future will match that kind of rate. the goal, then, is to obviously recruit better players and reduce the times you take the field with a lesser team.

i'll concede that LittreLL seems to have a decent chance at doing that. but it's his actual coaching performance that gives me pause.

[Katpappy]

Do you think the UAB coach is a better choice than Seth Spilt-trail.

i'm fairly convinced that if clark and LittreLL took the field with the same players that clark's team would win heads up. i think he is a better coach. i also think at k-state, winning with worse players is essential when you're unlikely to outrecruit ou, texas, etc, every year.

bill was pretty awful in big games, but he did beat 'better' teams 39% of the time (k-state was an underdog in roughly half of its games). that's really good, and i'm guessing no coach in the future will match that kind of rate. the goal, then, is to obviously recruit better players and reduce the times you take the field with a lesser team.

i'll concede that LittreLL seems to have a decent chance at doing that. but it's his actual coaching performance that gives me pause.

You know most on this BBS think we need a recruiter more than a coach um up type coach, but I agree with coaching over top recruiting for the reasons you stated.  Prince was a good example.

[steve dave]

Good energy itt. Like the olden days. Nice work team.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[michigancat]

Do you think the UAB coach is a better choice than Seth Spilt-trail.

i'm fairly convinced that if clark and LittreLL took the field with the same players that clark's team would win heads up. i think he is a better coach. i also think at k-state, winning with worse players is essential when you're unlikely to outrecruit ou, texas, etc, every year.

A great recruiter COULD beat everyone that isn't Texas or Oklahoma in the league in recruiting. And TBH there aren't a lot of coach em up wizards in the other 7 - the long-termers sort of compete for league titles when they are in talent upswings and fall back when they don't. I guess Patterson is the closest to a coach em upper? Haven't really thought about it.

[j rake]

Do you think the UAB coach is a better choice than Seth Spilt-trail.

i'm fairly convinced that if clark and LittreLL took the field with the same players that clark's team would win heads up. i think he is a better coach. i also think at k-state, winning with worse players is essential when you're unlikely to outrecruit ou, texas, etc, every year.

bill was pretty awful in big games, but he did beat 'better' teams 39% of the time (k-state was an underdog in roughly half of its games). that's really good, and i'm guessing no coach in the future will match that kind of rate. the goal, then, is to obviously recruit better players and reduce the times you take the field with a lesser team.

i'll concede that LittreLL seems to have a decent chance at doing that. but it's his actual coaching performance that gives me pause.

You know most on this BBS think we need a recruiter more than a coach um up type coach, but I agree with coaching over top recruiting for the reasons you stated.  Prince was a good example.

snyder was super boring, but he optimized k-state's chances of winning with his style of play. k-state averaged 29 secs in between plays during snyder 2.0, which was obviously one of the slowest rates nationally. when you take the field with a lesser team - which happened frequently for k-state in big 12 play - you want fewer plays. if k-state does all the little things right - convert TDs in the red zone while holding the opponent to field goals; win the turnover battle; etc. - then suddenly any opponent mistake is magnified to a much greater degree.

contrast that with david beaty at ku, who snapped it every 23 secs his first two years before finally slowing to 26.3 secs between plays this year. you have to be a complete idiot to try to slam the pedal down against OU and Okla St when they've got you outclassed every time the ball is snapped on both sides.

seth LittreLL seems to play average tempo (~25.5 secs per play), which is fine. i still highly doubt that his version of offense is going to be any more effective than okla, texas, okla st's or wvu's however.

[j rake]

A great recruiter COULD beat everyone that isn't Texas or Oklahoma in the league in recruiting. And TBH there aren't a lot of coach em up wizards in the other 7 - the long-termers sort of compete for league titles when they are in talent upswings and fall back when they don't. I guess Patterson is the closest to a coach em upper? Haven't really thought about it.

yep, some of the best do-more-with-less coaches in my opinion are cutcliffe, clawson, snyder, solich, paul johnson, chris petersen, willie fritz, gary patterson, brian kelly, kyle whittingham, bill clark, jeff monken, chris creighton.

some on the list (kelly, petersen, etc) havent had to do more with less in many years obviously, but have shown that they can. same goes for pre-florida urban, who smashed expectations with BG and Utah before he hit the big time.