COACHES HOT SEAT BLOG

We can certainly understand the need for collegiate athletic programs to generate additional revenues, but one of the most ghastly things that has happened in college football in recent years was the addition of the twelfth game, which has led to almost every football program adding a “cupcake” team to their schedule.  With these additional “cupcake” wins (well most of the time, and Michigan can tell you about that) the dreaded 6-6 (.500) record results have popped around the country, and even worse has led to “mediocrity” being rewarded with trips to bowl games.  It is just outrageous that a team that finishes with a 6-6 record, which includes a win over a I-AA team, gets to take a postseason trip that should be reserved for college football teams and players that have earned such a reward.  The only good thing with the 6-6 record is that if a coach falls below the .500 standard too many times, then there is a serious problem in Dodge City. 

 

With the .500 record standard in mind, there are several college head football coaches that cannot afford a losing record in 2008, because a losing campaign this season would almost certainly mean a coaching change at the top.

 

21 Coaches That Cannot Afford a Losing Season in 2008

 

1.  Ty Willingham, Washington

2.  Joe Glenn, Wyoming

3.  Kirk Ferentz, Iowa

4.  Mike Stoops, Arizona

5.  Greg Robinson, Syracuse

6.  Mike Sanford, UNLV

7.  Bobby Bowden, FSU

8.  Joe Paterno, Penn State

9.  Mike Price, UTEP

10.  Hal Mumme, New Mexico State

11.  JD Brookhart, Akron

12.  Ricky Bustle, La. Lafayette

13.  Doug Martin, Kent State

14.  Charlie Weis, Notre Dame

15.  Brent Guy, Utah State

16.  Ralph Friedgen, Maryland

17.  Dave Wannstedt, Pitt

18.  Phillip Fulmer, Tennessee

19.  Al Groh, Virginia

20.  Tommy Bowden, Clemson

21.  Mike Bellotti, Oregon

 

Will all of the above coaches be fired if they put up losing season in ’08?  For sure, most will, but one thing is not in doubt, a losing season by any of the above head coaches will find them with a scorching rear-end.

 

Let’s play some football!

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Football season is here and that means it is time for a little motivational speech to get everyone fired-up for the great game of college football:

  

 

The 24 Leadership Principles of General George S. Patton:

COMMAND AND MANAGEMENT

 

1.  Commanders must lead and they must have the authority to match their responsibility.

 

2.  Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.

 

3.  Leaders always protect their followers first.

 

4.  Leaders always do what they ask their followers to do.

 

5.  Leaders select people for leadership positions based on accomplishment and not affection.

 

6.  Never tell people how to do things.  Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

 

GOALS AND PLANNING

 

7.  Do not go to war when you gain nothing by winning.

 

8.  No one is thinking if everyone is thinking alike.

 

9.  Always, have something in reserve.

 

10.  Good tacitcs can save even the worst strategy.  Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.

 

ATTAINING OBJECTIVES

 

11.  The mission is all-important.  Standard rules and policies can wait.

 

12.  A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.

 

13.  Communications must be quick and effective.

 

14.  In landing operations, retreat is impossible;  to surrender is as ignoble as it is foolish.  Above

all else, remember that we as attackers have the initiative; we know exactly what we are going to do, while the enemy is ignorant of our intentions and can only parry our blows.  We must retain this tremendous advantage by always attacking rapidly, ruthlessly, viciously, and without rest.

 

15.  A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.

 

DECISION MAKING

 

16.  Have all of the facts!  You must have the facts!

 

17.  Know what you know and what you don’t know.

 

18.  Grab them by the nose and kick them in the pants.

 

19.  Be timley with your decisions, never too early or too late.

 

20.  You cannot make good decisions while you are sitting in a swivel chair.  Get out and get up to

the front. 

 

21.  You are never beaten until you admit it.

 

LIFE

 

22.  By perseverance, study and eternal desire, any man can become great.

 

23.  Success is how you bounce after you hit bottom.

 

24.  Live for something rather than die for notthing.

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It has to be college football season, because it was noticeably hotter today in the San Francisco Bay area and it is scheduled to warm up in the next week or so (meaning it might get to 80 degrees in the City!) as we move towards September, which is normal for the Bay area as Mark Twain has pointed out:  “The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer I spent in San Francisco.”  As the August calendar comes to an end, the Bay area heats up for a month or so just in time for the start of college football season, and this year we have a Thursday night game to kick-off the season as Oregon State visits the Farm to play Jim Harbaugh and Stanford.  Can the college football season really be here?  Yes, and let’s kick this damn thing off!

 

With the college football season upon us, it is time for the Preseason Coaches Hot Seat Rankings, and at our recent retreat at Lake Tahoe we thought there was a good chance that there would be quite a bit of movement in the final Preseason Coaches Hot Seat Rankings.  Not only was there a lot of movement in the Rankings, the long period between out last vote in March and now, has shown that a lot has gone on in the offseason to shape the way we view certain coaches.  The ballots of the CHS members had wide differences, as is to be expected before a football play has been called, but there are a core group of coaches that we feel are most definitely on the Hot Seat, and then a second group of coaches that only have to trip-up once or twice to find their rear-ends heating up in a hurry. 

 

Before we get to the Preseason Coaches Hot Seat Rankings, let us quickly review how we believe that college head football coach can find his way onto our Hot Seat.  We here at Coaches Hot Seat rank coaches higher or lower on the Coaches Hot Seat Rankings based on the following criteria:

 

1.  The amount of pressure on the coach from external (fans, alumni, boosters, the media) and internal (the pressure the coach puts on himself and the pressure from his immediate bosses: AD, college president, and school trustees) forces.

 

2.  The expectations at the school, i.e., the expectations at Notre Dame are higher than they are than at a school like Vanderbilt.  Expectations have a lot to do with the amount of pressure on a coach, and a coach’s position on our Coaches Hot Seat Rankings has a lot to do with expectations at the school he coaches at.

 

3.  The coach’s record at his current school, in the conference, out of the conference, and against his school’s main rival(s).

 

If a coach is on the Hot Seat, then at least one of the following three things is true:

 

1.  The coach on the Hot Seat is in danger of losing his job either during or after the current football season.

 

2.  The internal and external forces at the school of the coach on the Hot Seat are putting tremendous pressure on the coach.

 

3.  The coach on the Hot Seat is not meeting the expectations of the school that he is coaching at.

 

Now that you understand how the coaches are ranked and how coaches can get onto the Hot Seat, let’s get to the 2008 Preseason Coaches Hot Seat Rankings:

 

Let’s look at the Top 10 Coaches on the Hot Seat:

 

1.  Tyrone Willingham, Washington– It seems that Ty Willingham has been on the Hot Seatsince he left Stanford for Notre Dame, but the Hot Seat he is on now is really smoking.  With the toughest schedule in the country (who is making these schedules at Washington?), Willingham could actually put up a .500 record and proclaim he is making a lot of progress.  Yes, the schedule is that difficult at UW in ’08.  What does Willingham need in ‘08?  At least a 6-6 record, and maybe 7-5.  Can he and the Huskies get to 7 wins?  If they do, it will be an incredible accomplishment after what Willingham took over at UW, and all that has gone on since Willingham got to Seattle.

 

2.  Joe Glenn, Wyoming – Joe Glenn arrived in Laramie as one of the hottest coaches in the country after winning two I-AA titles at Montana, but entering his sixth season at Wyoming it is either win in ‘08 or go home.  The MWC is not a walk in the park anymore and Glenn probably needs at least a .500 record in that tough conference to hold onto his job.  Can he do it?  In Glenn’s sixth year in Laramie a .500 record with this Wyoming schedule should be very doable.

 

3.  Kirk Ferentz, Iowa – We have been watching Kirk Ferentz closely in this past offseason, and the pressure of everything from the off-field problems at Iowa to the lack of wins is starting to wear on the man.  Ferentz knows that something has changed with his football team from what he had going only a few years back with the Hawkeyes, but Ferentz can’t seem to quite put his finger on just what that “thing” is.  To us, the problem is very obvious:  Ferentz’s recent Iowa teams are not playing as hard, but why that is, is something that we cannot answer.  Ferentz needs a least a 6-6 record in ’08 to show he has at least regained some control of his football team.  Anything less, and the Ferentz era at Iowa will probably be brought to an end.

 

4.  Mike Stoops, Arizona – We have to admit that we like Mike Stoops, but liking a football coach does not “feed the bulldog.”  If we were in a landing craft approaching Omaha Beach on D-Day 63 years ago and we looked back and the Stoops brothers (Bob, Mike, and Mark) were on there with us, we would certainly have liked our chances to take that beach, but storming Omaha beach does not ”feed the bulldog” either.  What Mike Stoops needs is wins, and lots of them, and we believe that it is either 7 wins and a bowl trip in ‘08, or the Stoops era at Arizona is done.  The Wildcats have a tough schedule in ’08 and it will be very difficult to get to 7 wins, but it is doable, and maybe doable is all that Stoops and company need to get the Arizona football program back on track.

 

5.  Greg Robinson, Syracuse – The Robinson era at Syracuse has been troubled from the start, and we don’t know quite why that is.  Robinson has been a well-respected defensive coach for years now, but for whatever reason it never quite worked out for Robinson at Syracuse, and unless there is a major turnaround for The Orange in ’08, the Robinson era at Syracuse will be over come December.  Can Robinson and Syracuse win 6 games in ’08?  If they did, it would be one of the greatest surprises in college football history.

 

6.  Chuck Long, San Diego State – Chuck Long had a great playing career as a QB at Iowa, and a nice run on the coaching staffs at Iowa and Oklahoma, but for whatever reason he has not moved the needle much with the San Diego State Aztecs.  Now Chuck Long needs wins, and bunches of them, to not only prove he can put a winning product on the field, but also to generate some interest in the San Diego State football program in southern California.  If San Diego State is more competitive on the field in ’08, then Long might be able to get away with a losing season, but improvement must be shown if Long hopes to hang onto his current head coaching gig in the land of sunny skies, beautiful beaches, and damn good looking women!

 

7.  Mike Sanford, UNLV – Mike Sanford took over the UNLV program after leaving Utah at the same time that Urban Meyer went to Florida, but that is where the similarities between Sanford and Meyer and UNLV and Florida end.  Sanford is 6-29 in three seasons at UNLV, and that is just not good enough for the Rebels’ fans and more importantly, for Sanford’s bosses.  Like other Hot Seat coaches, Sanford needs wins, and lots of them, but the ’08 UNLV schedule is tough and we find it hard to believe that the Rebels can even come close to a .500 record.  Can UNLV win 6 games in ’08?  If they can, then we need to get down to Vegas and play some blackjack, because there would have to be a lot of luck flowing around The Strip for 6 wins to happen for the Rebels in ’08.  If Mike Sanford does get 6 or more wins this season, just look for us at one of the Blackjack tables at the Mandalay Bay Resort Casino come December.  (The House of Blues restaurant at the Mandalay Bay serves some mean ”Tennessee-style Baby Back Ribs!”) 

 

8.  Tim Brewster, Minnesota – Brewster talked a big game when he got to Minnesota, but a 1-11 record in ’07 has brought the Brewster-train (or is this a train wreck?) back down to reality.  The biggest thing that Brewster has working against him is that the Big Ten hasn’t been this tough in about three decades, and it is going to be very hard for the Gophers to break out of the bottom quarter of their conference anytime soon.  Brewster probably has at least this season and next to prove whether he can get the Minnesota program back to respectability, but the Gopher football team that Glen Mason left at Minnesota was in much better shape than it is in today.  Brewster’s bosses must be getting mighty nervous after they gave Mason his walking papers and hired a guy in Brewster that rode into town and immediately put up a 1-11 record on his first go-round.  Can Brewster turn the Gophers in ’08?  If Brewster can get 5 wins in ‘08, we will be mighty impressed.

 

9 & 10.  Bobby Bowden, Florida State and Joe Paterno, Penn State – Yes, that’s right, we have two living legends on the Hot Seat.  Both Bowden and Paterno must know that they are under tremendous pressure as they enter the ’08 season if they hope to coach in 2009, and both coaches seems to hinting that they would love to come back for another season after this one.  There is only one game separating Bowden and Paterno in all-time wins, with Bowden have a 1 game lead, and that is just going to put that much more pressure on their teams to really perform in each game during the upcoming season.  After talking to people around both the Florida State and Penn State programs, we believe that both coaches need at least 7 wins, but probably 8 wins in the regular season, in order for them to make a good argument that they should return in ’09.  We believe that both Florida State and Penn State would like both coaches to retire after the end of the upcoming season, and how fitting would it be if Paterno won 1 more game than Bowden in ’08, which would leave the two coaches tied for the all-time wins record.  If that did happen, then it would be nice to see the college football bowl/postseason folks come together to set-up a bowl game match-up between Bowden and Paterno, so that they could settle the all-time wins record mano-a-mano, with the winner of the bowl game getting all the spoils and of course the record.  Now that would be entertaining television, with two living legends in Bowden and Paterno facing off for a record that both men want very badly.  Now that is a football game we would pay to see!  Will it happen?  Who knows, but there is one thing that we do believe, both Bowden and Paterno enter the ’08 season under pressure and on the Hot Seat, and both men want to put up a lot of wins to prove that they are still very relevant in the game of college football.  Good Luck to both Coach Bowden and Coach Paterno in ‘08, and thanks for your incredible coaching careers up to this point, that have etched indelible college football memories for all of us here at Coaches Hot Seat.

 

Well, there you have the Top 10 Coaches on the Preseason Coaches Hot Seat Rankings, and now let’s look at some other major moves in the Rankings:

 

Al Groh, Virginia– Al Groh has been off of our Hot Seatsince about the middle of the ’07 season, but with the USC Trojans visiting Charlottesville in week 1 and Groh determined to follow-up a modestly successful ’07 with another good season in ’08, the pressure is starting to be turned up on Coach Groh.  Can Al Groh win another handful of close games and take the Cavs to another bowl?  Who knows, but Groh’s teams sure are fun to watch!  Now let’s see what UVA can do against the mighty Trojans!

 

Tommy Bowden, Clemson– Tommy Bowden does not look well, but the heat in the South in August and a Clemson football team that supposed to ring up an ACC title in ’08 can make any man look worn out.  Bowden surely knows the pressure is really on him and his Tigers football team in ’08, and the opening game against Alabama even turns the heat up that much higher.  Clemson will be on a big stage come Saturday night, and we are about to find out if Tommy Bowden and his team are pretenders, or if they can beat an Alabama team that they should handle fairly easily.  The pressure is on Tommy Bowden, maybe even more than in recent years, because there are no excuses with the amount of talent on this Clemson football team to not win a title in ’08. 

 

Steve Spurrier, South Carolina – Yep, that’s right!  The Ol’ Ball Coach has moved up to the Edge of Hot Seatcategory, mainly because we know Coach Spurrier can do a lot better than what he has done so far in Columbia.  We don’t know anything about this Beecher fellow that Spurrier is going to start under center, but it is time for a quarterback to step up at South Carolina and start tossin’ the ball around.  We hear that Ellis Johnson has the Gamecock defense raring to go, and it is time for Coach Spurrier and his offense to put some points up on the board.  Memo to Beecher:  Pay attention to the Ol’ Ball Coach and just say, “Yes, Coach,” to whatever he asks of you.  If the Ball Coach starts yelling at you, just take it in stride and go back out and try to do better the next time.  Coach Spurrier knows what he’s doing, and there is a method to apparent madness.  It’s is time for the Ol’ Ball Coach and the Gamecocks to start throwing the ball around the ballpark and lay some points on their opponents.  Hey, Coach Spurrier is not a youngin’ anymore, and we are getting damn tired of telling our kids about the great offenses that the Ball Coach was running at Florida (Our kids are starting to not believe our stories about Steve Spurrier’s offenses at Florida).  Hey Coach, how about doing it at South Carolina as well?   

 

Well, there you have it, the Top 10 Coaches in our Preseason Coaches Hot Seat Rankings, and a few coaches that are starting to feel some heat on their derrière’s.

 

It is time for college football, or as Alan Shepherd said sitting atop Freedom 7, a 10-story 33 ton Redstone rocket, at Cape Kennedy on May 5, 1961:

 

“Why don’t you fix your little problem and light this candle?”

 

It is time to “LIGHT THE CANDLE” of the 2008 college football season!  

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With the season upon us Coaches Hot Seat rolls out its Second Annual Hippopotamus Standards for 2008!  What are the Hippopotamus Standards you must be asking yourself?  That’s easy to answer:

 

 Hippopotamus Standards = How many games a team would win if our HIPPO “BOB” was their head coach in 2008.

  

With the addition of the twelfth game to the college football landscape, schools have really softened up their schedules and there needs to be a minimum number of games that a coach and team should win each year.  Thus, the Hippopotamus Standards!  Because conference play has gotten so much tougher in recent years, we have been very lenient on the number of minimum wins a coach needs to get to equal what HIPPO “BOB” would do, but “BOB” will be lurking for those coaches that trip and stumble this year as the season unfolds.

 

The Hippopotamus Standards reveal one of two things:  1. How well a head football coach is doing and how high the minimum expectations have become for his program or;  2. How badly a head football coach is doing relative to what even a HIPPO like “BOB” could do with his team.  Either way, there is a minimum number of games a head coach should win, and what a better comparison than to what our favorite zoo animal, HIPPO “BOB” would do if had the reigns of “your” football team.

 

Don’t think the HIPPO STANDARDS mean much?  In 2007 we had 20 coaches that did not beat HIPPO “BOB” and another 16 coaches that only equaled what HIPPO “BOB” could have done!  (2007 HIPPOPOTAMUS STANDARDS)  After 36 coaches were either beaten by or equaled by HIPPO “BOB” in ’07, we ”unsharpened” our pencil a bit and eased up on the coaches a little more in 2008, and thus we present to you the:

 

2008 HIPPOPOTAMUS STANDARDS

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Joe Glenn arrived in Laramie, Wyoming 5 years ago to take over the Cowboys football program as one of the hottest coaches in the game, with a 110-23 record over the previous 10 seasons (at Northern Colorado and Montana) and three national titles.  What Joe Glenn and his staff quickly figured out is that Wyoming is one of the toughest places in the country to recruit to, and that there is some very good football now being played in the Mountain West Conference.  Joe Glenn enters the ’08 season with his job on the line and a mission to prove that his previous coaching success can be brought to bear at a place like Wyoming.  College football is filled with young up-and-coming assistants that would love a shot to coach a team like Wyoming that plays in the Mountain West Conference, and with Glenn and his staff with their backs up against the wall, the Cowboys must find a way to get at least 6 wins in ‘08 while playing a very difficult schedule.  Here is how we the upcoming season playing out:

 

Joe Glenn and Wyoming in 2008 

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After starting out like a Saturn V rocket launch in his first three years at Maryland, Ralph Friedgen’s Terps have struggled in the last 4 seasons, including three losing campaigns.  Something has changed at Maryland since Friedgen’s first three seasons in College Park when his Terrapin team put up records of 10-2, 11-3, and 10-3.  What has changed is hard to say, but another hard fought QB battle has Maryland entering the ’08 season not quite knowing what to expect, and that uncertainty has to be wearing on Friedgen as he tries to replicate his early success with the Terps.  The ACC is getting tougher with each passing year as the conference coaching ranks are filled with proven coaches, and Maryland faces three teams in ’08, Clemson, Wake Forest, and Virginia Tech that have the very highest of goals set for themselves in the upcoming season.  It is not going to be easy to get the Terrapin train rolling again, but if Friedgen can get some consistent play from his QB, and just a little more help from his defense, Maryland has a chance to make some noise in the ACC.  If that doesn’t happen, watch out!  Here is how we see the ’08 season playing out for the Terrapins.

 

Ralph Friedgen and Maryland in 2008 

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With Bob Stoops slated to earn a $3 million dollar “Anniversary Benefit:  In recognition of his tenth anniversary as the Head Football Coach at the University (Oklahoma)” (see Bob Stoops contract and the clause, Section IV-D here: www.coacheshotseat.com/OklahomaCoachesHotSeat.pdf) IF Bob Stoops is the head coach at Oklahoma on December 31, 2008, and that $3 million bonus will make Stoops the highest paid coach in the game of college football.  With the ’08 college football season about to get underway, we are confident that Bob Stoops will hang around to pick up that $3 million dollar bonus on December 31 of this year, which will bring Bob Stoops’ total compensation in 2008 to $6.5 million.    

 

You can see the updated Salary number(s) for Bob Stoops and other college head football coaches at:

 

www.coacheshotseat.com/SalariesContracts.htm

 

$6.5 million for coaching football!  Is this a great country or what! 

 

By the way, as detailed in a series of stories by The Oklahoman on the impact that Bob Stoops has had on Oklahoma athletics since his arrival 1999, Stoops has earned every penny of the $6.5 million he will take home in 2008.

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Tim Brewster talked a very big game when he got to Minnesota, but the ’07 season was an unmitigated disaster on so many levels for the Gophers.  The Minnesota offense was woeful, the defense was porous, and the Gophers would have had a hard time last year coming up with a .500 record if they had been a member of the MAC conference.  Glen Mason was not setting the world on fire at Minnesota, but he was taking the Gopher football program to postseason appearances on a regular basis, and that will be the minimum standard that Brewster will have to get back to if he hopes to coach long-term in Minneapolis.  The Big Ten is getting tougher everyday, and Brewster and the Gophers have dropped down a couple of notches in ’07, and that only makes the climb back up the mountain that much tougher for Minnesota.  Can Brewster and the Gophers turn it around in 2008?  It is hard to see many more wins for the Gophers with their upcoming schedule, and here is how we see the ’08 season playing out:

 

Tim Brewster and Minnesota in 2008

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With Rocky Long getting a new five-year contract at New Mexico at $750,000 per year (New Mexico signs Rocky Long to five-year deal, Graham Watson, ESPN.com), the average head coaches’ salary in the Mountain West Conference is now over $750K per year, which is quite a jump from just 4 years ago.  In the summer of 2004 after a successful first year at Utah, Urban Meyer signed a new deal that paid him $500K per year, which then made him the highest paid head football coach in the MWC.  Urban Meyer is now making $3.4 million plus a year at Florida and the Mountain West Conference coaches have gotten quite a bump in salary as well with over a 100% increase in their salaries in the past 4 years.  College head football coach:  Tough job.  Pays well! 

 

Earlier this year we did a study of college head football coaches’ salaries relative to the percentage of football revenues of their school (Salaries as Percentage of Football Revenues).  With Rocky Long’s new contract, he and New Mexico are now in the upper tier of schools that pay the largest salaries to their head coach as a percentage of football revenues.  Rocky Long is now paid 18.75% of New Mexico’s total football revenues.

 

Coaches Salaries as a Percentage of Football Revenues

 

1. Hal Mumme, New Mexico State – 23.26%
2. George O’Leary, UCF – 21.72%
3. June Jones, SMU – 20.00%
4. Rocky Long, New Mexico – 18.75%
5. Todd Graham, Tulsa – 18.33%

 

The average coaches’ salary as a percentage of football revenues is around 7.61%, so the these coaches are certainly above that number, but they are coaches at schools that don’t have large football revenues, but are programs that have large goals for their football teams.  We believe that the quality of a head coach in college is the most important component to building a successful football program, because a good head coach can not only win more games, he can drive interest in the program up and thus football revenues.  With colleges and universities competing more and more to get top-flight students on the academic side, having successful and widely known athletic teams, especially in men’s football and basketball, has never been more important.  In New Mexico’s case, UNM sits in one of the most beautiful cities in our country in Albuquerque (UNM has a great golf course near campus that we have played a few times), but the high school football being played within 250 miles of UNM is certainly no where near the quality of prep football at many of the schools that the Lobos compete against.  Rocky Long has done a pretty good job of building the UNM football program (after taking over for Dennis Franchione in 1998), and has put up a 43-33 (.566) record over the past six years, including winning at least 7 games in 4 of the last 6 seasons.  Long and New Mexico had a nice 2007 season, putting up a 9-4 record, which included wins at Arizona (who they play on September 13 in Albuquerque this season), a win over Air Force, and a win in a bowl game against Nevada.  New Mexico has a very difficult non-conference schedule in ‘08, starting the season off with MWC member TCU, then Texas A&M and Arizona at home, followed by Tulsa and New Mexico State on the road.  The MWC conference is not a picnic anymore either, which means the ’08 season could be quite a challenge for Long and the Lobos. 

 

Going forward Rocky Long will have to work very hard to get quality recruits to Albuquerque and as the MWC continues to increase in difficulty in the coming years, Long and New Mexico will probably find it hard to average much better than 7 wins per year.  Of course, taking the New Mexico football program to a postseason bowl every year would be quite an accomplishment, which Long has done in 5 of the last 6 seasons. 

 

Does Rocky Long deserve a raise to $750K per year?  Probably so, but with an increase in salary comes higher expectations and over the next five years of Long’s new contract, the folks at UNM are surely counting on Long to continue the Lobos postseason run and to make further strides upwards in the MWC.  That might be a lot easier said than done.    

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All members of Coaches Hot Seat are back in the San Francisco Bay area after 6 great days at beautiful Lake Tahoe, and besides having some great times on and around the Lake, we had some interesting discussions on the leading issues in the game of college football today.  Over the weekend we had a couple of members present each side of the BCS debate, one the argument to stick with the current BCS and bowl structure, and the other to move to a playoff tournament (and keep some of the bowls) to determine the national champion in football.  It was pretty obvious which side of that debate that all of us fell on, but there are some interesting arguments to be heard on the importance of some college football teams going to bowls, if they were not in the postseason tournament, if they have “earned” the right to go to a bowl.  There is a lot to be said and written about relative to the BCS and what might replace it, and we have a couple of people working on that, which we hope to get up onto the Coaches Hot Seat Blog in the next couple of days.  If the BCS Boys think that the 2007 college football season was an aberration, they are sadly mistaken, and the weight of the utter stupidity of the BCS will be a big part of its downfall.  The BCS Boys have no more control over what is going to happen with the college football postseason in the future than the average fan, because the BCS cannot sustain another season or two like 2007, no matter what the BCS Boys say about what they want to happen.  What the future of the postseason in college football will look like will be determined by what happens on the field, and that is totally out of the hands of the BCS Boys. Right now, college football has the most FRAUDULENT method to determine its champion in any sport on this planet, and that is just not sustainable, especially when the overwhelming majority of college football fans and head coaches want the title decided and earned on the field of play.  If you cannot understand that a championship in sport should be earned on the field of play, please report to the closest French embassy and ask for the papers to become a French citizen, because you are in the wrong country.  In America, we decided championships and titles on the field of play of play, in a postseason tournament, that matches up the best teams of the regular season.  That is how every other sport in America decides their champion, and that is the way it is going to be in college football as well.  Fairness and respect for the sport of college football demand a change from the BCS, and billions of extra dollars will command it to change as well.  Of that, we are confident.  We will have much more on the BCS in the coming days.

 

We also heard a fascinating presentation on “What made Vince Lombardi and Paul Bryant such great winners,” and the more you know about those two men, the more interesting they both become.  After the presentation and a Q&A session, we tasked a couple of people to draw up the conclusions of what made Lombardi and Bryant such great winners, and some of the conclusions were a surprise to us.  We have talked to a few people that played for either Lombardi or Bryant and often after talking about their coach for awhile, they end the conversation by saying that when you get right down to it there was not one thing, but several different things that made each man a great person, a great head football coach, and a big winner.  We will post the conclusions from the Lombardi/Bryant presentation on the Coaches Hot Seat Blog as soon as the paper is completed.

 

A very interesting story that popped up across the country this week was the group of college presidents that are calling on lawmakers to lower the drinking age from 21 to 18.  We agree completely with this move of the drinking age to 18 and the courageous recommendation of this group of college presidents to bring some sanity to the current drinking age, because of right now there is no effective drinking age in the United States.  If a young adult, even high school students, want to get alcohol it is not very hard to do so, and on campuses across the country for college students gaining access to alcohol is as easy as buying a soda.  Donna Shalala, the president at the University of Miami was quoted in an AP story on the drinking age issue, “I remember college campuses when we had 18-year-old drinking ages, and I honestly believe we’ve made some progress,” Shalala said in a telephone interview. “To just shift it back down to the high schools makes no sense at all.”  What?  Planet Earth to President Shalala: High school students are already drinking at record numbers, and doing illegal drugs at record numbers as well, and what the bogus “legal” drinking age happens to be has no impact on the amount of alcohol drinking that is going with young adults under the age of 21.  Please, President Shalala needs to join the rest of us that live in the real world and start to address the very real problem of alcohol abuse among our young people.  Just saying the drinking age is 21 and it should stay there, when anyone with their eyes open already knows there is no drinking age in America, is not only naïve, there opinion does nothing to deal with the very real issues with alcohol abuse by our young people in this Republic.

 

The real problem in the United State is that alcohol is treated as something taboo that we should not be talking to our young people about, because of the fear they will begin drinking and start abusing alcohol.  Hello!  Our young people are already drinking alcohol and doing drugs at record rates and it is time that parents start talking in a very straight-forward way with their kids about the dangers of alcohol and how important it is to respect alcohol when you get access to it.  Parents that close their eyes and ears to what our young people are doing relative to alcohol and drugs and hope that their kids will figure alcohol out on their own, is one of the main problems in our society today.  America and its Puritan roots are at the core of the problem and when parents close their eyes to reality and fail to teach their kids the proper respect for alcohol, it is little wonder that once kids get to college and get out on their own for the first time that they start drinking prodigious amounts of alcohol, which leads to the disastrous binge drinking that is now going on at our colleges and universities.  On one side of the drinking age debate are the people that are living in denial, that believe holding onto a bogus drinking age that does not exist in the real world, actually has an impact on the amount of alcohol being consumed by our young people.  Please!  What a fantasy the people on that side of the debate live in.  The people on the other side of the debate that want to lower the drinking age, fully understand what is going on and know that the only way we are going to get at the alcohol abuse is by getting to our young people directly and start demanding that they start treating alcohol with the respect it deserves.  By lowering the drinking age to 18, parents will have to deal with the dangers of alcohol when they are raising their kids, instead of shipping their kids off to college, where they often start drinking before they are 21, which makes an absolute mockery of the bogus drinking age.  We need to start treating 18 year olds as adults, and an adult should be able to handle the responsibilities that comes with drinking alcohol, but with the drinking age at 21, parents are let off the hook and all of the problems are left to colleges and the people that live in college towns.  That is unacceptable, and it is time for us to start holding the 18 year old adults in this country responsible for their actions, and a good way to do that is by teaching them the proper respect for alcohol, something that is not being done at this time.

 

We will have more to say on the changing of the drinking age as the debate unfolds, but there is no doubt in our mind that the blame for the alcohol abuse by our young people lies directly with the parents that are either to scared, or to afraid to deal with this very important issue with their kids.  The current drinking age of 21 is irrelevant, because anyone under 21 that wants to get his hands on alcohol, or drugs for the matter, can do it within 30 minutes anywhere in this country.  The people that want to deny the facts and do not want to deal with the serious drinking problems in this country with our young people, are in fact causing more damage not less.  It is time for adults to quit blaming alcohol for problems with our young people, because the alcohol does not jump from cans and bottles into people’s mouths, and until the issues surrounding the proper respect that should be given to alcohol are dealt with, things are only going to get worse relative to alcohol abuse with our young people.  We can either stick our heads in the sand and live in the fantasyland that a “21 year old” drinking age actually exists, or we can start dealing with these very real problems head-on.  We here at Coaches Hot Seat live in the real world, and we applaud these college presidents for standing up and trying to deal with the very important issue of how alcohol is being misused by our young people, because it takes courage to tell people the truth when they are more than happy to try and sweep these very serious problems under the rug.  Let’s start dealing with this drinking problem, instead of denying it.

 

We have several things coming up here at Coaches Hot Seat as we head towards the beginning of college football season, including the Final Preseason Coaches Hot Seat Ranking.  We have not really had a full-member vote on the Coaches Hot Seat Ranking since the spring, and from the talk at Lake Tahoe, there are a number of coaches that are under pressure and will be moving onto the Hot Seat when our Preseason Rankings come out.  The ballots are out and we will have our newest Coaches Hot Seat Rankings out as soon as we compile them.

 

We still have lots of things to report on from the Coaches Hot Seat Lake Tahoe Retreat, and once we catch up on the real work from our day jobs, we will have some very interesting stuff to bring to our website visitors.

 

A couple of us were out for an early morning jog in the hills above the Bay today and there is a noticeable coolness in the air.  Could it be that fall is on the way?  Of course with Fall comes the greatest sport on earth, college football…… 

 

 

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