This has been a funky kind of day for college football. The season is winding down, and the Aggies had the usual pre-tu open date. I watched most of the traditional Big Ten showdown between Ohio State and Michigan, but the defenses dominated in that one and it wasn't really an exciting game.
Around these parts, the talk is no longer about beating Texas or which bowl game A&M might play in. It's mainly about when the coach will be fired and who'll replace him, a sure sign that I'm currently livin' in Loserville. In Texas, the Big 12 is the conference of record, so I spent the day watching the three hottest teams in the conference on TV.
Two of the three are in the North division: Kansas and Missouri, who'll be playing each other next weekend for the division title. It's a matter of unfortunate timing for Franchione that both were on A&M's schedule this season. In other years, both would have been in the winnable category, maybe even sure things, but not in 2007. Instead of two Ws, Franchione got two Ls out of the deal, not helpful in his make-or-break season.
Missouri rolled Kansas State in the early game, and Kansas took Iowa State to school in the afternoon game. The third hot team, Oklahoma, looked like they might have a decent shot at the national championship game, but that was before they went to Lubbock tonight and got their asses kicked by TexTech (34-20 with three minutes left in 4th quarter). Hey OU, the Aggies feel your pain. The sand bandits have ruined some Saturday nights for them, too.
Since A&M has been left out of all the fun stuff and been reduced to arguing over a coaching change, I've been doing a little research on the current Big 12 football coaches today. The message board arguments are about whether A&M should try to bring in an established head coach, or track down and hire the hottest OC or DC they can find, so I looked at the other Big 12 schools to see which approach worked for them.
Among the 12 current head coaches, five were hired from other college head coaching positions, one was an NFL head coach, four were offensive coordinators, and two were defensive coordinators.
Two Big 12 coaches have won recent national championships. One, Mack Brown, was a head coach (North Carolina), and the other, Bob Stoops, was a DC (Florida). Adds up to a push. The former NFL coach, Bill Callahan, has a mediocre record at Nebraska and is headed for the unemployment line. Franchione (Alabama) and Guy Morriss (Kentucky) are former HCs that will soon be looking for work; Dan Hawkins (Boise State) is just getting underway at Colorado, but his team has been better this season. Gary Pinkel (Toledo) has been on the hotseat at Missouri, but now appears to be having a breakthrough year.
Overall, the results for current B12 coaches who came from other head coaching positions are a mixed bag: one unqualified success (Mack Brown), one too-soon-to-tell (Hawkins), one slightly-above-average (Pinkel), and three failures (Callahan, Morriss, and Franchione).
The four former OCs are Ron Prince (K-State), Mike Gundy (Okie State), Mark Mangino (Kansas), and Mike Leach (Texas Tech). Prince, Gundy, and Leach run the kind of programs that are in the "on any given Saturday" category, meaning that, like TexTech tonight, they're capable of pulling a few big upsets and are usually competitive in every game; their teams are never in the "automatic win" category and get frequent TV exposure. In short, they're teams the Aggies are competing with for a spot in the conference hierarchy; teams that A&M needs to start putting in its rearview mirror.
The interesting card in this hand is Mangino at Kansas. He's the guy who looks like 396 pounds of cardiac arrest waiting to happen. Mangino was the OC at Oklahoma in 2000-2001, and ran the offense in their 13-0 championship season. That success led to the KU job, but his first five years (2002-2006) were below average (25-35, with a best record of 7-5 in 2005). By KU standards, the record was adequate for a basketball school, and now Kansas is 11-0 and two wins away from possibly playing in the NC game.
The bottom line: based on results at other Big 12 schools, hiring an OC looks like it would probably be a status quo move, at least for the immediate future (2-3 seasons).
In the last group are the two defensive coordinators, Bob Stoops and Gene Chizik. Stoops was Spurrier's DC at Florida, and his record at OU speaks for itself. A&M's life got harder the day he was hired, and Stoops has pretty much owned the Aggies. He's the model for the next A&M coaching hire: where is The Next Bob Stoops, and what'll it cost to get him ?
Chizik, like Stoops, was a DC in the mighty SEC (Auburn, 2002-2004). He ran Tuberville's D in Auburn's 13-0 season (2004), was stolen by Mack Brown, and promptly put together a national championship D for the longhorns (2005). At that point, he looked like The Next Bob Stoops, and Iowa State hired him after the 2006 season. So far, he hasn't worked any miracles at ISU (3-9).
The original Bob Stoops: A great hire. The Next Bob Stoops: Not so great, at least not so far. The strange coincidence is that Spurrier and Tuberville, the former bosses of the original Bob Stoops and The Next Bob Stoops, are now at the top of A&M's list (if you believe what you see on the internet).
It boils down to this: I can't spot a trend that would indicate a preferred course of action for A&M in its coaching search. Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you.
Great analysis.
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