This year in college football was like an episode of The Apprentice. Heads rolled. “You’re fired” (spoken in Michael Scott’s voice as he impersonates Trump) was heard by around 15 head coaches from schools at the FBS level. More than 30 coaches have already taken new head jobs. This is a hell of a carousel, and here’s some of my thoughts. Naturally, let’s start with Oklahoma State.
Eric Morris is our guy
Look, watching Gundy go wasn’t easy. I miss the mullet. I miss the tight pants. I miss the handshakes with various members of the armed forces. All of it. It was a weird few days after we fired him. Cooper, who has been an OSU fan from womb, went into a fog for several days afterward. But, this is an excellent hire. This is a guy who played for Leach and is probably the most prominent evangelist of the air raid offense in today’s game. He’s bringing a QB (more on that in a second) and most likely the cream of UNT’s crop. He’s young, got a good looking face, and we finally have someone in the big chair who can stomach some NIL negotiations. He said all the right things in his introductory press conference, and I think he perfectly fits the identity of OSU football. We could kid ourselves and say we need some tough, run-it-down-your-throat ball coach who will create a team that hog ties in the trenches. No way. We need someone ready to sling it around the yard. Eric’s got us.
I’ll admit it, I’m skeptical of Mestemaker. I know he led the league in passing yards and TD’s. But $3.5 million? I don’t know, maybe Coop and I will get together and write an article about this one.
Billy Napier has a chance to do the funniest thing ever
Napier coached the Ragin’ Cajuns for UL at Lafayette, took the head coaching job at Florida, bullied Arch-game in the swamp, got fired, and now is going back to the Group of 5 to coach at James Madison. Meanwhile the Gators are taking another chance on a Group of 5 guy in Jon Sumrall, the former coach of Tulane. Should Napier succeed at JMU, he could become the first head coach to make two separate grand entrances to the SEC from the Group of 5. Let’s just see how many times he can do it.
Ole Miss should’ve let Kiffin coach in the CFP
I’m sitting here writing this after just watching Trinidad lead the rebels to a semifinal berth, so this take is already useless, but I’ve already said it too many times to back down. Close your eyes. You’re Ole Miss, you’ve never been to the CFP, you have a head coach who resurrected your program and then left you for the hotter girl across the bar, a head coach who is known for being an expert at play-calling in key down situations. And instead of giving your team the best possible chance to win by letting him coach out the year, you’re jealous of his new ratchet girl and show him the door. And look, I know Kiffin is diva and an attention suck and all that. But he is a great head coach, and he’s probably going to poach your roster anyway. Let him at least chase some hardware for you.
Nebraska fans should give up
Let’s take stock, shall we? You have a 5 star QB who plays like a high school kid and has a weird fetish for Mahomes. You have’t been relevant since the 90s and that was only because you discovered lifting before everyone else. You cling to a sorry head coach that will never get you to 10 wins. And then, because your coach was 4th on the linebacker depth chart at Penn State a few decades ago, and because he wouldn’t dispel the rumors, you give him a contract extension on the spot. AND THEN, that Saturday he gets his ass kicked by Minnesota. To cap it all off, you let Iowa drop 40 on you, a team that hasn’t scored 40 since before the Cold War. Pathetic. Move south and become OSU fans.
Penn State put around a dozen agents into a new tax bracket
There was a moment, around mid-November, that the boys up in State College were essentially running a charity for head coaches seeking extensions. If he had a pulse and was at a Power 4 school, they called him, and immediately that guy would get extended. An agent’s dream. Cig, Kalani Sitake, Clark Lea, Joey McGuire, Mike Elko, Kenny Dillingham, and who knows how many others got extensions because Penn State dialed up. They eventually landed on Matt Campbell, a hire I wasn’t as excited about as the general public was. But still impressive that they pulled Campbell away from Iowa State.
Pat Fitzgerald is ready to get back in the game
Not much to say here. Excellent hire by Michigan State. The guy got screwed at Northwestern. Welcome back to the show Pat.
I am scared of Stanford
Alright, hear me out. They have like a $50 billion dollar endowment and a strong alumni base. They have Andrew Luck running operations as GM. He went out and hired his boy Tavita Pritchard to run the show. They play in a weaker conference (why are they in the ACC?) and definitely have a path to the top. It seems like a couple best friends, with all the money to spend in the world, ready to make a sudden leap into the next level. I don’t know. We’ll see.
Whittingham to Michigan is the best hire of this cycle
I LOVE this hire. As I mentioned with Eric Morris, I think it’s important to hire a guy that fits into the ethos of the program. Whittingham teams have always been tough. Things are changing in Utah, and the money is flowing in, but Kyle has not always had much to work with over there. And yet his teams have, for the most part, always been good, and the real gulf between them and the top tier was disparity in the skill positions. Along the lines, though, Whit can coach. That is exactly what Michigan under Harbaugh excelled at. They actually did run it down your throat. I think Kyle has a good 5 years in him to build a tough team and maybe give Ohio State a punch in the mouth. Also, Whit is, by all accounts, a real upstanding guy. Kind of what Michigan needs right now. Just a decent dude that doesn’t use butter knives as weapons.
Closing Time
It’s been a fun year, and it’ll be an interesting offseason. We’ll revisit these takes later and see how wrong I am.