Tag Archive: Washington State

The State of Alabama Football

A couple of Coaches Hot Seat members were in Tuscaloosa from last Thursday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon for the Ole Miss – Alabama football game and to interview a few University of Alabama Culverhouse College of Commerce which they report is a mighty Damn fine school of business and late last night after doing some poking around the Alabama football program also the last few days they filed what they called…

The State of Alabama Football

…report which is Damn fascinating reading that is most certainly NOT for public consumption since many of the conclusions would probably land our asses in court if we published them in the Coaches Hot Seat Blog but we can say in this spot that…

There is something rotten in the state of Tuscaloosa!

What exactly is going on with Alabama football right now and where is the Crimson Tide football program headed into the future?

Well…and these are our opinions here at Coaches Hot Seat mind you….BUT…the bottom-line conclusion of our folks on the ground in Tuscaloosa on The State of Alabama Football is…

Nick Saban overreacted to the “Kick 6” loss to Auburn at the end of the 2013 season which eventually led to Saban firing Bama offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier and to the hiring of Lane Kiffin under what we will call…

“Dubious and Pressured Circumstances and in many ways forced on Nick Saban by “a couple of folks” in the name of “saving Lane Kiffin” precious ass when Kiffin’s coaching career was going into the toilet where it rightly belonged then and belongs today!”

…..and now instead of Nick Saban spending his time as the head coach at Alabama and primarily working on the defensive side of the ball Saban now spends upwards of 50% of his time overseeing Lane Kiffin’s precious ass and the Alabama offense.

In the opinion of the two Coaches Hot Seat members that spent several days in Tuscaloosa the once mighty Alabama offense which won three national titles for Nick Saban and was focused on controlling the ball, dominating the opposing team’s defense, and generally destroying the will of their opponents has now been “hollowed-out” by the implementation of Kiffin’s hurry-up spread offense that prizes showcasing Lane Kiffin’s precious ass and Little Damn Else!

In case anyone was wondering below is the definition of “hollowed-out” as an adjective, noun and verb according to dictionary.com:

Hollowed-Out
adjective, hollower, hollowest.
1. having a space or cavity inside; not solid; empty: a hollow sphere.
2. having a depression or concavity: a hollow surface.
3. sunken, as the cheeks or eyes.
4. (of sound) not resonant; dull, muffled, or deep: a hollow voice.
5. without real or significant worth; meaningless: a hollow victory.
6. insincere or false: hollow compliments.
7. hungry; having an empty feeling: I feel absolutely hollow, so let’s eat.
noun
8. an empty space within anything; a hole, depression, or cavity.
9. a valley: They took the sheep to graze in the hollow.
10. Foundry. a concavity connecting two surfaces otherwise intersecting at an obtuse angle.
verb (used with object)
11. to make hollow (often followed by out): to hollow out a log.
12. to form by making something hollow (often followed by out): to hollow a place in the sand; boats hollowed out of logs.

Yep…that’s the Alabama offense under Lane Kiffin…

Freaking Hollowed-Out!

On a related note the two Coaches Hot Seat members got to see Nick Saban close-up and we mean close-up…within 10 feet…before the Ole Miss – Alabama game and they wrote in their report on The State of Alabama Football about the appearance of Nick Saban and the Alabama coaching staff:

“Nick Saban looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks if not months. The area below his eyes were very swollen suggesting severe fatigue and it looked as if Saban had aged 10 years since the last time we saw him close-up at the Oklahoma – Alabama Sugar Bowl game in January 2013.

There is a noticeable tension among the Alabama coaching staff with both the staff and players looking very nervous and not confident at all right before kick-off of the game against Ole Miss. The Alabama sideline and coaches were much more subdued in the game against Ole Miss compared to when we have seen Alabama in-person in the past, and it seems the coaches and players were taking cues from Nick Saban who seemed unhappy before the game, miserable during the game, and in a complete daze as the game ended. It almost seemed like the Alabama coaches and players came into the game expecting to lose to Ole Miss and that is exactly what happened in a real world case of what one feared most becoming reality.

We foresee changes to the Alabama coaching staff in the upcoming offseason with Lane Kiffin leaving soon after the season is over if not before and maybe Nick Saban leaving Alabama if the right head coaching job offer came along because it seems that Saban is miserable having to meet the never-ending expectations at Alabama where winning games and championships isn’t expected but rather a birthright given to Alabama by God himself. Nick Saban needs a new challenge for the last 7 to 10 years of his coaching career and trying to keep winning championships at Alabama where not winning a National Title every year is akin to insulating Bama fans across the globe doesn’t look like much fun which means we believe Nick Saban will either be working in television a year from now or coaching the Texas Longhorns.”

There is a Helluva lot more in the 14 page report including an entertaining section on just what in the Hell is wrong with the Alabama offense which his titled:

“How Lane Kiffin Destroyed A Championship Winning Offense in Two Years While Getting His Ass Kissed by the Media”

OK…enough on Alabama for now….because we will have a Helluva lot more to say about Nick Saban, Lane Kiffin, Paul Finebaum, Jimmy Sexton, and “Y Person” if Alabama loses to Georgia and lands all four of the above Bastards on the Hot Seat with an analysis of the Complete and Total Idiocy that led to Nick Saban hiring Lane Kiffin at Alabama which may just turn-out to be one of the Stupidest Decisions in the history of sports in America as Kiffin brings down one of the Great College Football Dynasties in the history of the game and for what…to save the coaching career of Lane Freaking Kiffin!

Oh, please let Georgia beat Alabama….although in our opinion…

Georgia is NOT MAN ENOUGH to beat Alabama!

Post Week 3 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings – 21 – 30 Hot Seat Coaches – Give ‘Em the Hell Johnny!

Post Week 3 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings – 21 – 30 Hot Seat Coaches

Come on down Johnny Cash because we have a few Coaches on the Hot Seat that love to hear you sing Ring of Fire…NOT REALLY!

21.  Todd Monken, Southern Miss – Todd Monken and his Southern Miss Golden Eagles got a nice win over Texas State on the road on Saturday by the score of 56 – 50 which runs the USM record to 2 – 1 in 2015 and gives Monken’s team the opportunity to win a decent amount of games this season AND get Todd Monken off the Hot Seat!

In his third season at Southern Miss Todd Monken now has win/loss records of…

Overall:  6 – 21

CUSA:  2 – 14

….and a game at Nebraska this coming Saturday. Can Southern Miss possibly beat the Nebraska Cornhuskers in Lincoln and in the process further turn up the heat on Mike Riley’s ass in the process?

Probably not…BUT…the goal for Todd Monken and Southern Miss is to get to 6 wins in 2015 and with 2 wins on the board all the Golden Eagles need now is 4 wins and out of their last 9 games and if Monken can’t accomplish that in his third season on the job then his ass deserves to be on the Hot Seat!

22.  Al Golden, Miami – Al Golden and the Miami Hurricanes did their Damndest to give away the game to Nebraska on Saturday but in the end the Canes got the win in overtime and now it is on to Cincinnati for the 3 – 0 “U” which is a game that a Miami head coach in his FIFTH year on the job at Miami just flat-out CANNOT LOSE!

With Florida State up next Miami MUST beat Cincinnati on the road on October 1 as they look for the “9 to 10 wins” that Al Golden MUST have to remain the Hurricanes coach in 2016 and with these games left to play it’s easy to see why Cincinnati is a MUST WIN Game!

At Cincinnati
At Florida State
Virginia Tech
Clemson
At Duke
Virginia
At North Carolina
Georgia Tech
At Pitt

Damn…that’s a pretty tough schedule for Al Golden…but Hell this is “The U” we are talking about here so if the Canes beat Cincinnati we are expecting a….

10 – 2

…final regular season record at the worst!

Coach ‘Em Up Al Golden!

23.  Craig Bohl, Wyoming – No one here at Coaches Hot Seat has yet figured out why Craig Bohl left powerhouse FCS program North Dakota State for FBS weakling Wyoming because it was our opinion that Bohl was in line for a BIG FBS job after all his success at NDSU which we thought might be Nebraska once Bo Pelini was run out of Lincoln which was always going to happen eventually….right? RIGHT!

Maybe Craig Bohl who played and coached for Tom Osborne at Nebraska got the word from the folks in Lincoln that he was never going to jump from North Dakota State to his alma mater BUT if we had been the AD at Nebraska we would have fired Bo Pelini a few years ago just to hire Craig Bohl BUT then what the Hell do we know compared to that Real Man of Genius now running Nebraska Athletics Shawn Eichorst who will be run out of Lincoln on a rail with his coaching hire Mike Riley if Riley doesn’t exceed Pelini’s winning ways in Lincoln…right? RIGHT!

Whatever is going on in Lincoln Craig Bohl in his second season at Wyoming is sitting on records of…

Overall:  4 – 11

MWC:  2 – 6

….and has started the 2015 season off at 0 – 3 which has put Bohl into a Helluva spot that he will only get out of by doing one thing…

Winning Football Games!

Here is what Wyoming has left to play this season…

At New Mexico
At Appalachian State
At Air Force
Nevada
At Boise State
At Utah State
Colorado State
At San Diego State
UNLV

…and if you can find 6 wins for Wyoming out of their remaining 9 games then you are either an Idiot or doing some serious Damn drugs!

Will Craig Bohl’s once promising coaching career end in the wide-open plains of Wyoming after pulling one of the strangest coaching career moves in history that rivals Paul Dietzel’s decision in 1961 to leave LSU for the Army job which also ended up as a Complete Freaking Disaster?

Maybe so.

24.  Curtis Johnson, Tulane – Curtis Johnson and Tulane got their CUPCAKE win on Saturday over FCS Maine and now it’ss back to Not Really Big Boy Football after a bye week when Tulane hosts UCF which will probably be 0 – 4 once they get to New Orleans and in a Complete and Total Death Spiral under George O’Leary who it seems wants to be an AD more than he wants to be a Head Coach with his UCF football team reflecting that reality!

Very simply Curtis Johnson needs some wins in 2015 and when we write Curtis Johnson needs some wins in 2015 we mean Curtis Johnson needs…

6 Wins in the Regular Season

….to get Tulane back to a bowl game and somewhat back in the conversation as a legitimate football program and if Tulane doesn’t get 6 wins in 2015 then a pretty decent job for an up-and-coming young football coach who loves eating good food will probably open up in the Great City of New Orleans come December.

Get some wins Curtis Johnson starting with a win over Hapless UCF on October 3 but until then enjoy New Orleans!

25.  Dana Holgorsen, West Virginia – After starting 2 – 0 with wins over Georgia Southern and Liberty West Virginia had a bye week and now the football season actually begins with a MUST WIN Game against Maryland at home that Dana Holgorsen and the Mountaineers MUST WIN because they have a trip to Oklahoma on deck and being at 2 – 2 after four games would do nothing but turn the heat up on Holgorsen’s ass and make things very uncomfortable for Dana when Oklahoma State shows up in Morgantown on October 10.

BEAT Maryland and get off the Hot Seat for now Dana Holgorsen.

LOSE to Maryland and the Hot Seat just gets HOTTER Dana Holgorsen!

26.  Paul Haynes, Kent State – Here’s the problem for Kent State head coach Paul Haynes:

Paul Haynes took over a Kent State football team that won 11 games in 2012 under Darrell Hazell and here are Kent State’s records the last two-plus seasons…

2013:  4 – 8
2014:  2 – 9
2015:  1 – 2

…and that is either a trend that Paul Haynes will reverse and quick in 2015 or Kent State will be looking for a new head football coach come December.

Now at 1 – 2 on the season after a nice game but yet another loss against Minnesota with the lone win coming over Delaware State…CUPCAKE….this season Kent State has left to play in 2015….

Marshall
At Miami, Ohio
At Toledo
At UMass
Bowling Green
Buffalo
At Ohio
Central Michigan
At Akron

…and we would recommend the Golden Flashes find 5 more wins out their last 9 games for their head football coach….just a friendly recommendation from the folks at Coaches Hot Seat!

27.  Bob Davie, New Mexico – When Bob Davie was working as an analyst for ESPN he always said that he would run the type of offense he is now running at New Mexico which to us is a slight variation of the run option offense that both Davie and Lou Holtz ran at Notre Dame which to us is ugly as Hell but then we tend to favor the West Coast offense as created by the Late Great Bill Walsh which had a huge running component but hands down was and is the most beautiful football offense in the world when called, run and executed correctly.

Whatever type of offense Bob Davie is running at New Mexico the FACTS are Davie’s records in four seasons at the school now stand at…

Overall:  12 – 28

MWC:  4 – 20

….which is not the kind of win/loss record that the folks in Albuquerque were expecting when they hired former Notre Dame head coach Bob Davie and we know that is how a couple of big New Mexico athletics boosters feel because we played golf with them earlier this year near Santa Fe and they told us that…

“Either Bob Davie takes New Mexico to a bowl game this season or it’s over for Bob.”

That was pretty matter of fact and with the Lobos now at 1 – 2 on the season and these games remaining to be played….

At Wyoming
New Mexico State
At Nevada
Hawaii
At San Jose State
Utah State
At Boise State
Colorado State
Air Force

…if Davie can squeeze out 5 wins out of New Mexico’s last 9 games and get his team to a bowl game for the first time in his four years at UNM then he should get a few more seasons to get things right with the Lobos BUT Bob…that Damn offense son…it just looks like Hell!

28.  Bobby Petrino, Louisville – The “What Ifs” on Bobby Petrino’s coaching career are a mile long BUT the one decision that stands out to us was Petrino’s decision to interview for the Auburn head coaching job after only being gone from Auburn for one season where he worked as the offensive coordinator for Tommy Tuberville the very coach that a few Auburn trustees and athletic director were working to run out of town only to be replaced by an assistant in Petrino that had just left the school. Since it was Tommy Tuberville that brought Bobby Petrino to Auburn from the NFL which was a move that in FACT led to Petrino getting the Louisville head coaching job if it had been any of us sitting in Petrino’s shoes and someone from Auburn called us about the Auburn head coaching job before Tommy Tuberville had even been fired the very first thing we would have done is call Tuberville….the man that helped Petrino out….and tell Tubbs that he was being undermined by a few Bastards at Auburn.

Instead Bobby Petrino took that call and met secretly with those Auburn Bastards which of course was leaked out to radio show host Paul Finebaum from the pilot or pilots of the plane that took those Auburn Bastards to Louisville for that secret meeting with Petrino and as they say the rest is history with that history being…

Tommy Tuberville keeping his job at Auburn

Bobby Petrino bolting for the Atlanta Falcons after telling everyone that would listen he would not be leaving Louisville

Bobby Petrino leaving the Atlanta Falcons for the Arkansas job before his first season was even completed

Bobby Petrino having his dalliance and motorcycle crash at Arkansas and then lying about it and getting his ass rightly fired in Fayetteville

Bobby Petrino getting the Western Kentucky job which he held for one season

Bobby Petrino getting re-hired at Louisville 8 years after he told anyone that would listen he would never be leaving Louisville

Hell, you truly could not make the above up but then the ONLY reason Bobby Petrino was re-hired at Louisville is because he wins football games…at least on the college level…but now the Cardinals are off to an 0 – 3 start after losses to Auburn, Houston and Clemson and they have these games still left to be played:

Samford
At NC State
At Florida State
Boston College
At Wake Forest
Syracuse
Virginia
At Pitt
At Kentucky

Can Bobby Petrino and Louisville find at least 6 wins out of their remaining 9 games and avoid a losing season in 2015 which Petrino has only posted one time before on the college level?

That is a hard question to answer but we can easily recall how much Bobby Petrino loved rubbing it in the faces of Kentucky football fans how much better the Louisville football program was than Kentucky during Petrino’s first Louisville stint and here’s to hoping Louisville is 5 – 6 when they play Kentucky in Lexington on November 28 and the Kentucky Wildcats…

BEAT THE LIVING HELL OUT OF BOBBY PETRINO AND THE LOUISVILLE CARDINALS!

….and Petrino getting a taste of his own Bullshit not that Bobby Petrino would give two rips because something like this would happen —>

Petrino’s agent is on the phone and there is an AD somewhere in America willing to sell out his soul to win a few football games and he is interested in talking to Bobby Petrino!

Our guess….Bobby Petrino would sell-out Louisville again telling anyone that would listen he would never be leaving the school moments before he walked out the door!

No…we don’t HATE Bobby Petrino like we HATED or rather HATE Charlie Weis but for Damn sure Bobby Petrino has a lot of Bullshit to atone for and here’s to hoping that a Helluva lot of that atoning happens to Bobby Petrino in 2015 and if it does we will take Great Joy in lighting up Petrino’s Sorry Ass!

29.  Charlie Partridge, Florida Atlantic – Over the years a number of Coaches Hot Seat members have gotten to Boca Raton, Florida for business or vacation and we have met a number of the folks that support FAU athletics which in reality didn’t really exist when we first started going to Boca Raton years ago and it was the opinion of many here at Coaches Hot Seat which we expressed to our Boca Raton friends that Mike Leach who is now at Washington State but then was living Key West would have been an ideal head football coach at FAU. Mike Leach of course took the Washington State job which although a nice head coaching job doesn’t really fit “The Pirate” very well and our thinking was that Mike Leach would do well at FAU and then take one of the bigger jobs in the state of Florida like Miami, USF or UCF after few years at FAU but alas Leach went to the Northwest and FAU hired Charlie Partridge who although a nice guy and good football coach hasn’t done a Helluva lot in Boca Raton while posting records of…

Overall:  3 – 12

CUSA:  2 – 6

….in two years on the job at FAU.

Now with an 0 – 3 start to the 2015 season with losses to Tulsa, Miami and Buffalo (who has a first year head coach) FAU and Partridge face the daunting task of finding 6 wins in their last 9 games to get bowl eligible with this remaining schedule:

At Charlotte
Rice
Marshall
At UTEP
FIU
At Western Kentucky
Middle Tennessee
At Florida
At Old Dominion

Sorry…we just don’t see FAU winning 6 games in 2015 but then Charlie Partridge could prove us wrong now couldn’t he?

Coach ‘Em Up Charlie and if you don’t…..You Got It….Hot Seat!

30.  Jeff Monken, Army – We don’t not like putting the head coaches of the US Military service academies on the Hot Seat but Jeff Monken in his second year at Army after a nice four-year run as the head coach at Georgia Southern has forced our hand by starting the 2015 season out at 0 – 3 in three closes losses to three pretty decent football teams but losses nonetheless.

Yes…playing winning football is not easy at a place like West Point but we are expecting a lot out of Jeff Monken at Army and now at 0 – 3 on the season with these games remaining to be played….

At Eastern Michigan
At Penn State
Duke
Bucknell
At Rice
At Air Force
Tulane
Rutgers
Navy

….it’s not going to be easy getting to 6 wins for Army this season but then it wasn’t easy on the US Army at the Battle of the Bulge either was it?

Go Army!

Win Some Damn Football Games!

But For Damn Sure Don’t Beat Navy!

Go Navy!