It is going to be great to see Tiger Woods back on the PGA Tour as he tees off today in the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship in Tucson, Arizona.TV coverage starts today on the Golf Channel (DirecTV Channel 218) at 11:00 AM MST.When Tiger Woods left us last June he was finishing off one of the great wins in golf, or even sports history, as Woods won the 2008 US Golf Championship at Torrey Pines over Rocco Mediate in a playoff.
Tiger Woods tee-time is at 12:02 MST in his first-round match against Aussie Brendan Jones.Good Luck to the both of you.
Tiger Woods is already one of the top sportsmen in the past 50 years and from we stand only Jack Nicklaus stands between Woods and the “Greatest Golfer That Ever Lived” moniker.As everyone must know Tiger Woods is coming off of a 8-month layoff after surgery to rebuild his left knee and after watching Woods new golf swing in his practice round yesterday it looks that if Woods has re-tooled his swing to take pressure off that left leg so he can play competitive golf for a long time into the future.Woods teacher is Hank Haney and Haney is a disciple of the greatest swinger of a club in golf history, the great Ben Hogan.
Now that is a sweet golf swing.
Watching Tiger Woods celebrate making the putt above to send him into a playoff against Rocco Mediate at last year’s US Open brings to mind the recent proposal by the NCAA rules committee to toughen up the penalties on celebrations.Tiger Woods, who is one of the classiest guys that has ever played sports in the United States, celebrates when he does something good or wins a golf tournament and it is outrageous that a young college football player or his team are penalized for celebrating a touchdown or for doing something else great.One of the most obscene sights in sports is game officials running at a college football player that just scored a touchdown no doubt telling him to calm down and get off the football field.The stupidity of the “excessive celebration” penalty reached its nadir last fall when an official threw a flag on Washington QB Jake Locker after he scored what the Huskies thought was going to be the tying touchdown against BYU:
Can you say that was an incredibly stupid call based upon a foolish rule?If you agree with that call on Locker then you haven’t a clue to what it is like to play in a football game and actually do something in life besides push paper across your desk…Just outrageous!
Is this really the message that we want to send to our young people that when they do something good or great that they cannot celebrate?The “celebration” after a touchdown or great play by the player should not be the point of emphasis for officials in college football, but rather the focus should be on any conduct that could be considered “unsportsmanlike” or anything else that demeans or takes away from the game.A college football player celebrating a touchdown in a passionate or open way is much different than a player taunting the other team or acting in a way that is clearly not appropriate for the game or if he acts in an unsportsmanlike manner.
Instead of focusing on “excessive celebration” by college football players we believe that the NCAA rules committee should focus on “unsportsmanlike behavior” and to that point we believe something along the lines of the following:
Forget the focus on celebration and move the focus to unsportsmanlike behavior:
A flag will be thrown ANY TIME a player displays unsportsmanlike behavior.
The penalty:
1.15 yard penalty
2.Unsportsmanlike behavior after a score will allow the score to be counted and the opposing team will have the option to have the penalty applied to the point after or on the next kickoff.
3.The player that acts with unsportsmanlike behavior will be removed from the game and will sit out the remaining portion of the current quarter and the next 2 quarters whether in the current or next football game.
4.The school that the player plays for that committed the unsportsmanlike behavior will be fined $5,000 with that money going to a scholarship fund run by the NCAA.The school will be responsible for $2,500 and the head football coach of the player will be responsible for $2,500 of the fine.
The above penalties for “unsportsmanlike behavior” by a player would punish the person responsible for the behavior, the player who acted in an unsportsmanlike manner by removing him from playing for at least 2+ quarters which is the ultimate punishment for a college football player today.Also the team will be punished by the 15-year penalty and that the player will not be available for a period of time to play for the team.The school and head football coach will also be punished by the fine that will be levied against the school/coach for the player’s behavior.
Of course, the reason for instituting the above rules would be to discourage the unsportsmanlike behavior by college football players and to bring some sanity to the current “excessive celebration” penalty that is a disgrace to the game.College football players should be allowed to celebrate achievements on the football field because when they achieve something in life we certainly don’t want them to be looking around to see if an official is running at them telling them to settle down.Yes, officials running at players telling them to quit celebrating must be ended because it is anathema to a country founded on the principle that…
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
We are still putting the finishing touches on a couple of things, the lessons that can be learned by great CEO’s in how they effectively manage their companies and the ranking of the 20 new coaching hires from 2008/2009.
Several Coaches Hot Seat members have filtered into CHS Central this morning as the pancakes and omelets with piping hot coffee are always served on Wednesday’s.With CNBC’s Squawk Box, Imus in the Morning, Mike and Mike in the Morning, Morning Joe, C-Span and the replays from some college football games from last season on the TVs, the music of the great Bonnie Raitt is being streamed throughout…
Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About
Nick of Time
Have A Heart
Bonnie Raitt lives not too far from several Coaches Hot Seat members in Marin County, California and we see her around town from time to time and not that long ago during a Saturday morning bicycle ride on the great trails that we have here we “just happened” to take a break right near a yoga studio.Isn’t it funny how that happened?A couple of us were sitting there enjoying hot coffee from a Thermos mug, bagel with cream cheese and out of the yoga studio came streaming the beautiful women of Marin County.We then noticed a slightly older women with a lots of red hair and this woman walked right over near where we were sitting towards her car.She opened up the doors and got her dog out of the car to take it for a walk.Once she kept walking towards us we noticed it was Bonnie Raitt and what can one say in that situation but, “Good Morning Ms. Raitt.”Bonnie Raitt looks at the two of us and says, ‘Good Morning Boys!”Once of us then says, “Ms. Raitt, how’s that great voice of yours?”She then smiles and sings in perfect tune, “Turn down the lights, turn down the bed, turn down these voices, inside my head..”“Beautiful, beautiful Ms. Raitt,” we say as he heads down the path with her dog…
What a great voice Bonnie Raitt has…
I Can’t Make You Love Me
Just another Saturday morning in Marin County….
Looking over Sausalito towards the Golden Gate Bridge with the Richmond District of San Francisco in the distance
Looking over Tiburon/Belvedere towards San Francisco.Alcatraz and Bay Bridge also in the photo
Way off the subject of college football, but a big part of America…
Were these really the best movies that America and the rest of the world can produce?
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
What about Gran Torino or The Dark Knight? Just unexplainable those 5 films were nominated…
Invariably every year about this time of year the sounds of the Academy Awards start drifting through the house mixed in with the smells of dinner being cooked (Fried fish, hush puppies, vegetables, white wine, homemade cookies for dessert, A good American dinner!) and those sounds can only makes us wonder what has happened to the movie business.Most of us here at Coaches Hot Seat haven’t seen any of the Academy Award Best Picture nominated movies in years or rarely seen the Oscar winning movies after the award ceremonies.Why do our wives bother watch the Oscars, now sometimes with our children each year?The clothes, the stars, it all seems to be so empty these days, because when you get right down to it, there is nothing worth anything going on in Hollywood these days.A movie award celebration thrown each year in one of the grandest public buildings on the planet, the Kodak Theater in Hollywood (www.kodaktheatre.com – A must see if one is ever in LA), but oh so empty.Why is that?
A couple of us here at Coaches Hot Seat dabble in the entertainment business as a sideline and travel to LA to meet with our agents and producers, directors, “executives” a couple of times a year to present ideas and to get most of those ideas shot down, and each time the best part of the trip is the golf we get to play, certainly not the meetings with some of the emptiest suits on the planet.Yes, these folks running Hollywood these days have never been more out of touch with the common folks, the American people, and it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to flip around the 300 or so TV channels or to look through the movie listings in the paper to see that something has gone dreadfully wrong with our entertainment business and it ain’t getting better anytime soon.At least from where we sit…
It wasn’t always this way.As Gloria Swanson said while playing the character Norma Desmond said in the 1950 classic movie Sunset Blvd.
“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.”
Yes, Norma, they did…
Slumdog Millionaire is the Best Picture of 2008?That just makes no sense.Hell, there were 100 movies better than Slumdog last year, some made during family vacation trips to the shore.OK, OK, Brad Pitt was great playing Harvey Milk in Milk, but for the rest of them….Please….
Yes, there was a time when great movies were made, and quick tour by Coaches Hot Seat through some of the greatest Best Picture Academy Award Winners of all time finds these great films…
1946 – The Best Years of Our Lives
1949 – All the King’s Men
All the King’s Men beat another great nominated movie in 1949, Twelve O’Clock High
1953 – From Here to Eternity
1957 – The Bridge On the River Kwai
1959 – Ben-Hur
1970 – Patton
1972 – The Godfather
1973 – The Sting
1975 – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
1976 – Rocky
1994 – Forrest Gump
1995 – Braveheart
Yes, those are all great movies, with real storylines, with great actors, not the drivel that substitutes for great films that is being made today.Many philosophers have said through the ages that the art of each generation will tell you a lot about that generation and the 5 films that were nominated for Academy Award – Best Picture in 2008 certainly paint a sad picture of the state of our culture.Where have the big people with big ideas gone?They certainly are not in Hollywood any longer, because La-La land is now filled with pitiful people focused on very meaningless things.
A story from last fall fits very well right here when several of us were in Los Angeles for the Ohio State – USC football game.The two of us that do some part-time work in the entertainment business attended a party at the home of a television producer on the westside of LA.The party was at one of those houses that makes you wonder how anyone could make this much money, something like 10 bedrooms, bathrooms everywhere, a billiard/entertainment room to die for, a large pool and even their own tennis court on the property and of course the standard a stunning view of the Pacific Ocean.At these “industry” parties you are not “someone” unless you are “someone” so two of us always tend to mingle in, drink the free booze and try to guess the ages of the women, which is not always easy considering the amount of plastic surgery that is being done in LA these days.Sometimes we have to settle the bet on the age of a woman and get the age straight from the horse’s mouth so one of us will saunter over and say to the women, “Excuse me, my buddy over there (pointing to friend) says you are at least 44, but I don’t think you are a day over 30.Go ahead, tell him (pointing at friend again) he’s wrong.”Of course, this can be a very good pick-up line if one was single, at least for the guy that believes she is not “a day over 30,” but often for some reason that line pisses the women off.Go figure.This would be a big deal in the real world, but in the community that is TV and the movies, the people are so fake, so arrogant, and so disdainful of the American people, it is rather fun to make fun of them…Alas, we digress and getting back to the Ohio State – USC game, at this party last fall one woman asked us what we were doing in town after she learned we lived in the SF Bay area and we said, “We are down for the Ohio State – USC football game at the Coliseum on Saturday.”Now this is on the Thursday night before the biggest game of the college football season and what does this woman say to our response, “Ohio who is playing US…who?”What can one say to that, but how about opening up a newspaper from time to time honey, because everyone else we ran into that week talked about NOTHING but the OSU – USC game.
Hard to figure these Hollywood types, but if one wants to really understand why network TV sucks, why most movies are all but unwatchable, and the entertainment in our country seems to get a little worse every year, understand these folks that produce all of this garbage not only are totally out of touch with the common people, but disdain all of us as well.That set of facts can only lead us to keep our TVs tuned into sports channels and leaves the entertainment folks scratching their heads and wondering why we won’t watch the garbage they are putting out.Yes, these are very dumb people!
Two movies that should have won the Academy Award for Best Picture, but did not…
1977 – Star Wars should have won instead of Annie Hall (Just an outrage!)
1978 – Apocalypse Now should have won instead of Kramer vs. Kramer (Just a double outrage!)
Besides reminiscing about movies we are working on a number of things here at Coaches Hot Seat including a CHS blog post on the similarities between CEOs and ADs and why ADs can learn a lot about how CEOs handle their high-achieving employees and run their companies.We are also just finishing up a Ranking of the 20 new Head Coaching Hires in 2008-2009.We wanted to see what kind of coaching staff’s these new head coaches put together and how they recruited the first time around at their new schools.We also have been out in this great country of ours gathering intelligence on these new head coaches (that guy sitting at the next table over from you (you being a college head football coach) at lunch might just be a member of Coaches Hot Seat so watch what you say!Of course, we never report things we overhear, but what we overhear often is reflected in our Coaches Hot Seat Rankings.Yes, some of these coaches are off to very good starts, and some clearly are not….More to come soon….
Should be another very interesting week in the American Republic!
Was anyone that was really paying attention surprised at the conclusion of the Mike Leach negotiations at Texas Tech?These folks that were saying that Mike Leach was going to be fired once the Texas Tech board of regents met had a basic misunderstanding of whoe really held the power at Tech, Mike Leach that is, and who was little more than a Don Quixote type character tilting at windmills, that being one Texas Tech AD Gerald Myers.Gil Lebreton of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram pretty much summed up exactly what happened at Texas Tech in recent days and at the end of the day this was a clear victory for people in our country that recognize the importance of rewarding individuals that actually accomplish things in life, not anointing folks that like to stand over and dominate people because they have gotten away with such things in the past.Yes, yesterday was a victory for the doer, the achiever, the guy that goes out and accomplishes things and a stinging defeat for the arrogant, the buffoon, the stupid, and most of all the fool.
Looking back at this entire situation, what can one really say about the following statement that was released earlier this week by Gerald Myers once Leach decided not to sign the outrageous contract that Tech had presented to him:
“Coach Leach has declined our $12.7 million contract,” Texas Tech athletic director Gerald Myers said in a statement. “We will enter the decision-making process and should have some announcements by next week. Our decisions will be based on the best interest of Texas Tech and all of its supporters.”
Uhhhhh Gerald…In case you don’t know it you just got your ass handed to you by Mike Leach and also in case you don’t know YOU HAVE NO POWER at Texas Tech any longer.That statement you released was outrageous about a man that is the winningest head football coach in Texas Tech history and only proves what we said yesterday…
Gerald Myers is an arrogant ass.
No, there is no doubt about that statement now, and although we are confident that Mike Leach’s behavior on certain issues at Tech has led to Myers view of Leach, this entire debacle that Texas Tech just went through where they were on the brink of being the laughingstock of the country was the fault of and caused by one man and one man only…
Gerald Myers.
Clearly, Gerald Myers has not read Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince.For if Myers was familiar with Machiavelli’s work he would have known:
“Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries – for heavy ones they cannot.”
Mike Leach had all the cards in this situation because he was the one that had actually accomplished things on the field of play and built the Texas Tech football program during his 9 years in Lubbock.If Myers wanted to fire Mike Leach he should have just gone ahead and fired him and not waited around hoping that the Tech board of regents would validate his views.The Tech board of regents clearly saw that it was in fact Myers who was living in a fantasyland and that is why that the eventual deal that was cut, was without Myers even being in the room.Sorry Gerald, but you are the loser here, and we mean the BIG LOSER.
Going forward, it is obvious that Mike Leach and Gerald Myers will not be able to work together and if the people in power at Texas Tech have any sense they will now ease Myers into retirement and bring in a competent athletic director that actually knows how run an athletic department and to manage people in a mature way.If Texas Tech lets Gerald Myers stay in the position of AD, then Tech will probably guarantee continued turbulence within the Tech football program and the probability that Mike Leach will leave for another school once a more attractive offer is presented to him in the future. Sorry, Texas Tech will never be Texas, Oklahoma, or an Alabama and that is why when a football coach shows up in Lubbock and does a very good job, that football coach should not only be rewarded for his work, that man should be celebrated for his accomplishments, by ALL people at Texas Tech. Too bad a few rotten apples put personal animosity above common sense, because this entire Mike Leach contract issue would have been settled long ago if common sense has been put to work in Lubbock.
Solvang is just one town in what is called Santa Barbara Wine Country, which is about 50 miles north of the city of Santa Barbara.If you are ever out in California and you want to see some beautiful country and have a great time drive from Santa Barbara to San Francisco (via Monterey and Carmel) stopping off at wineries and golf courses along the way!
It looks to be another beautiful day in San Francisco and one of the great pleasures of living in the Bay area is rising early with the morning Sun and watching it rise over the City and Golden Gate Bridge.A quick early morning run in the hills of the North Bay will always reward one with great views and a positive start to each day.How about this view from Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County looking towards San Francisco and the Bay area?
As usual when Coaches Hot Seat Central is up and running there is music being streamed throughout and this morning is no different with the sweet music of Bobby Darin coursing through the air…
Of course, Kevin Spacey made a terrific move about the life of the Great Bobby Darin, Beyond the Sea.Enjoy and Have a Great Weekend!
Several times in life one will run into stupidity tied to arrogance and that is exactly what we have in the athletic director at Texas Tech, Gerald Myers.Everyone knows the story by now that Myers (and apparently some other arrogant asses at Texas Tech) inserted at the end of contract negotiations with Mike Leach some provisions that only a fool and/or an idiot would sign.
Asinine contract provisions Texas Tech is asking for from Mike Leach:
• That if he is fired, his contract is only guaranteed for 12 percent. Texas coach Mack Brown, Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops, Kansas State’s Bill Snyder and Kansas’ Mark Mangino are all guaranteed for 100 percent, while the league average is 55 percent. Leach’s current contract puts his guaranteed portion at 40 percent.
• Leach’s current buyout, which is $500,000, would increase to $1.5 million (Brown, Stoops, Snyder and Mangino do not have buyouts.)
• Leach would have to receive permission from Texas Tech to speak with another school or risk owing Tech $1.5 million.
• All of the money from his personal speaking properties, whether he makes an appearance or authors a book on his life in Wyoming, would go to Tech.
After Mike Leach decided not to agree to the above asinine provisions (what sane person would for any job on the planet?), Tech AD Gerald Myers issued the following statement:
“Coach Leach has declined our $12.7 million contract,” Texas Tech athletic director Gerald Myers said in a statement. “We will enter the decision-making process and should have some announcements by next week. Our decisions will be based on the best interest of Texas Tech and all of its supporters.”
“The best interests of Texas Tech?”What we think would be in the best interests of Texas Tech is for the Tech regents to send someone over to Gerald Myers office with lots of boxes and say to Gerald:
“Gerry, let’s get all of this stuff packed up and I want your big ego and arrogant ass of this campus by sundown.Understand?Good.These two boys from the ROTC will help you pack things up.”
What everyone needs to understand is that what is really going on here is that Gerald Myers is acting like a 5-year old because Mike Leach dared to go out and interview for a couple of jobs after this past season and now Gerry is throwing a toddler-like temper tantrum because Mike Leach is not down on his knees kissing Gerry’s ass.That is what is really going on here, but to really understand what kind of man Gerald Myers is one must remember that Myers hired one of the great asses of the past 100 years on the planet when he brought Bobby Knight to Lubbock to coach the Tech basketball team.
Let’s just be really honest about Bobby Knight.Knight is one of the great basketball coaches in the history of the game, but he is a sorry excuse for a human being.If you ever want to really know about the real character of a person, watch how he treats the little people, the clerks, cashiers, cleaning people and even average sports fans, and without a doubt Bobby Knight has made a career out of treating the “little people” like shit.Throwing chairs, choking players, berating reports is only a small part of what has been Bobby Knight’s act and it is too bad that a long time ago that someone didn’t grab Knight by the scruff of the neck and knock his ass out after one of his outrageous tirades.No doubt, if Knight had ever thrown a chair at a basketball game and God-forbid hit one of our children, they would have needed a carton of smelling salts to revive the man and if someone had stood to the bully Knight a long time ago that would have probably eliminated a lot of inexcusable behavior during the rest of his career.Alas there was no one around Indiana at the time that had the guts to tell Knight what and what is not acceptable in the civilized world and thus Knight thought acting like an idiot and treating people like shit was acceptable.Sorry Bobby, it’s not.
Yes, the Bobby Knight hiring explains a lot about what kind of man Gerald Myers really is, but now we learn even more what is really going on here as The Wiz of Odds has pointed out in a blog post that “Texas Tech has a $3.5 Million Reason to Fire Mike Leach.”Now that is some damn interesting reading from The Wiz of Odds and it helps to explain further what is just might be motivating Myers and others at Texas Tech over this new contract for Mike Leach.
In January 2008, Tech officials rejected a proposal from Leach’s agents for a five-year, $15.25 million deal for their client.
In the Jan. 26 letter to Baldwin, Myers wrote, in part, “We realize Mike Leach’s talents. He is an excellent coach. His desire to make more money is perfectly logical, but we have about reached the limits of what we can pay our coach and still maintain the rest of the department. If better opportunities occur for him somewhere else, we will fully understand.”
So early last year, just after Texas Tech had won the Gator Bowl over Virginia and had finished with a 9-4 season Tech turns down the opportunity to sign Leach to a long-term contract and had in fact in a letter to Leach’s agent encouraged Mike to pursue other opportunities.Now that Mike Leach put up a 11-2 record in 2008 and he only has 2 years left on his contract he interviews for couple of other jobs after the season and the little baby Gerry Myers throws a temper tantrum.Yes, that is rich.
We only have one question?If the Texas Tech AD Gerald Myers treats the winningest coach in Texas Tech history that just put up an 11-2 record this way, how in the world is Gerald Myers sitting in an AD job when he clearly has shown he does not have the skills to manage the swing shift at the local 7-Eleven.
What is really needed is some clarity in this entire Mike Leach not getting a contract extension at Texas Tech debacle.Let’s make it clear.
Gerald Myers is an arrogant ass.We know Gerald Myers is an arrogant ass because of his behavior over this Mike Leach debacle and that Myers hired a guy in Bobby Knight that is a bigger arrogant ass than Myers.Yes, two arrogant asses together.Yes, that must have been Rich!
We wouldn’t hire Bobby Knight to take out the trash and if possible we would love to get Bobby into one of our Coaches Hot Seat “flag-football” games so that we could represent all of the little people that Knight has run over in his life.Yes, that would be rich and very enjoyable to send Knight out for a screen pass and unload on his arrogant ass after “missing” trying to get his flag!
Now, let’s really boil this down.If the Texas Tech board of regents fires Mike Leach, then you know that Texas Tech has the biggest bunch of buffoons since the Alabama board of trustees tried to insert a provision into Dennis Franchione’s contract that would have basically barred him from coaching at another school if he ever left Alabama.(That was a genius move that lead to Mike Price first and then Mike Shula!)The problem with these arrogant asses on many of these university boards, many of whom have a prominent Daddy that “launched” their career in business, is that they believe that the folks that work for the university are little more than indentured-servants or slaves in the case of Mike Leach, after Tech wanted to insert the following provision into his contract.
• All of the money from his personal speaking properties, whether he makes an appearance or authors a book on his life in Wyoming, would go to Tech.
What?These arrogant asses at Tech must believe they are running an antebellum slave plantation and that Mike Leach should just say “Yes sir, By your leave sir, Can I polish your shoes sir?” when Tech proposes to take the money from his own efforts and work away from the university.What can you say to that, but what an outrageous provision that this is and we can fully understand why Mike Leach wouldn’t ever agree to something that at its best would make Marx, Lenin and Stalin proud and at worst recalls the days of slavery in the United States of America.Hell these crazy left-leaning whack-jobs on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors wouldn’t even propose something like what Texas Tech has come up with for Leach and some of these San Francisco folks would like nothing better than to bring a “Cuban” style government to the City by the Bay.Yes, this “slave” provision and the others that Texas Tech has insisted on inserting in Mike Leach’s contract almost seem to have been created so that Leach would not sign this contract extension.Yes, that is what it seems like and we will get back to that issue later in this blog, but first…
What if the Texas Tech board of regents fires Mike Leach?Well, then these west Texas boys along with the arrogant ass that is sitting in the AD position at Tech would not only be some of the biggest bozos in the history of collegiate athletics, they would have turned Texas Tech University into a laughingstock.The firing of Jeff Jagodzinski at Boston College just because he took a job interview is bad enough, but this contract debacle with Mike Leach at Texas Tech would make the stupidity at BC look very tame in comparison.Yes, the clock is clicking all right, but the clock is clicking on the board of regents because they are now around 24 hours from making themselves look like the biggest fools since Pee Wee Herman was caught in the movie theater doing….
Lastly, there may be something else going on here, because in our trips to Lubbock when we have asked about Mike Leach with Texas Tech fans on where Leach stood with the Tech athletic department there was something else that always came up and that was the idea that somehow Leach’s personal religion (assumed to be Mormon, but not known by us or anyone we talked to on whether Leach is Mormon or not) was an issue with people in the “power structure at Tech.”Yes, this could very well be the real underbelly of what is going on here, because it makes no sense that….
1.Texas Tech turned down a contract extension with Mike Leach in January 2008 after a 9-4 record
2.At almost the same time Tech AD Gerald Myers sent a letter to Mike Leach’s agent saying:“If better opportunities occur for him somewhere else, we will fully understand.”
3.And now Texas Tech inserts provisions into this new contract extension with Mike Leach that the Myers and other people at Tech had to know that Leach would not agree with.
Is Leach’s religion the unspoken issue here in conservative west Texas?We have spent our share of time in west Texas, Lubbock, Amarillo, Abilene, Midland/Odessa, Pecos, El Paso, and San Angelo and we have always found the people in that area of the country to be some of the best around.It is hard for us to imagine that no matter how conservative the average folks in west Texas are that they would hold Mike Leach’s religion, whatever it is, against him, but then why was Leach’s religion brought up to us each time we inquired about Leach’s relationship with the administration at Tech with Red Raiders fans?Yes, that is a damn good question, especially when it looks like to us that Texas Tech demanded that provisions be inserted into Mike Leach’s contract that they must have known he would not agree to.Maybe The Wiz of Odds is right, “Texas Tech has a $3.5 Million Reason to Fire Mike Leach” and that Tech doesn’t want to pay Leach what he is due over the next two years, but that reason doesn’t explain why Tech would want to run off or even worse fire the winningest head football coach in Texas Tech history.Maybe these are just very arrogant and very stupid folks that are running Texas Tech…..yes, that is a possibility, but for some reason when we poke around this debacle with Leach and Tech we keep hearing very discouraging and troubling things and that is why it is our opinion that there is something more than just a childish AD reacting to getting jilted by Leach when he interviewed for a couple of other jobs after last season….
No, something else is going on here and whether Texas Tech keeps Mike Leach on or not, Marcellus had it right long ago….
“Something is rotten in the state Lubbock.”
Yes, something is rotten all right and any fan of Shakespeare will know that in the play Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 4: “Marcellus is one of the guards on duty when the ghost of young Hamlet’s father, King Hamlet, appears. He means that there are strange and evil events occurring. He has seen the ghost of the former king, who died under mysterious circumstances, Prince Hamlet is going to speak to the ghost which has beckoned him despite the warnings from the others not to do so, and he has learned from Horatio that the country is preparing itself for war – so he sees many things going on that are not good. Unknown to him and to the audience at this point is the irony of that statement. Something is definitely rotten, or evil, in Denmark and that something is Claudius. He killed his own brother because of his ambition and his desire for his brother’s wife.”
So what is really behind this contract debacle that Texas Tech has gotten itself into with Mike Leach?Arrogance?Stupidity?Jealousy?Money?A man’s religion?Or all of the above?Who really knows, but we do know this is getting ugly and we know exactly who will be blamed if this thing blows up on Friday….
After Mike Leach refused to sign what was nothing less than outrageous provisions that Gerald Myers and Texas Tech wanted to insert into his new contract, Myers released a statement saying….
“Our decisions will be based on the best interest of Texas Tech and all of its supporters.”
Memo to Gerald Myers and the Board of Regents at Texas Tech:Take out the outrageous provisions you wanted in Leach’s new contract and go ahead and sign Leach to the new deal and the terms that the school and Leach have agreed to.If you do not do that, you might as well write a death sentence for the Texas Tech football program and for the University as well, because all of you will be tagged as the biggest buffoons in America today and certainly there is not a coach worth his salt or with a scrap of self-respect that would dare coach a down at a school that deems to treat its head football coach like a piece of property and that must be manipulated at will.Go ahead, don’t take our advice if you like, but be prepared for a backlash that will make everyone in any leadership role at Texas Tech look like the fools you must be….
We are waiting….Your decision….Choose wise boys for a bad decision in this spot could sink the Texas Tech football program for a generation…..
On to another, but related issue..Since it seems Gerald Myers hasn’t a clue of what the relationship should be between an AD and the coach of a university athletic team, we are working on a post that goes into what a CEO at a corporation focuses on when both hiring and retaining key executives.Note:A competent CEO does not react the way the Boston College and Texas Tech ADs have in recent weeks when he has a high-achiever working for him that decides to interview with another company.Yes, young and immature people would react the way the two ADs at BC and Tech has acted when they were jilted by their head coaches, but certainly their behavior is the not the behavior of even a mature young adult, forget someone in the position of athletic director at a major university.That report on CEOs and ADs is coming soon…
The Sun is not quite up here on the west Coast but speaking of west Texas as we did earlier brings to mind the great Randy Owen and the band Alabama which we have playing this morning in Coaches Hot Seat Central.
Yes, that is the kind of song that the good people of west Texas can relate to and how an arrogant ass like Gerald Myers could have gotten himself into a position of power in that part of the country so he can act in such a disgraceful way on this Mike Leach issue doesn’t match-up with the people of those wide open plains that we have met west of Ft. Worth…
Another song that comes to when thinking about driving I-20 from Ft. Worth to El Paso once you leave Ft. Worth behind and get out there past Abilene and Sweetwater heading west and we might just cue up is….(Maybe the Chicks aren’t popular in west Texas after they dissed Bush, but they still have made some great music…
After reading this latest Sports Illustrated article with Lane Kiffin bragging about firing people and Tennessee reporting another rules violation by Kiffin to the NCAA, Lane Kiffin has done something that no coach in the history of Coaches Hot Seat has ever done:
Lane Kiffin has moved up twice on the Coaches Hot Seat Ranking twice in one day.With this second move, Lane Kiffin is now on the
No. 2 Hot Seat
As we said in our last blog post…Shut your mouth Lane or you going to talk yourself right out a job, maybe even before you ever coach a football game at Tennessee.
Now on to this Mike Leach debacle with Texas Tech…
Well known Communists Marx, Lenin and Stalin would be very proud of the buffoons running Texas Tech University after some of the stuff that has come out about the contract negotiations with “their” head football coach Mike Leach.Yes, Communists everywhere would be proud of these West Texas “bid-nessmen” that seem to think that a coach that has put up a record of 76-39 (.661) in 9 seasons at Texas Tech is little more than an employee that needs to heel when they say “heel.”How outrageous and we can understand why they are concerned that Mike Leach might be interested in leaving a school that treat their hired help like…..”the hired help.”For some reason these Texas Tech “bid-nessmen” seem to think that they actually have a football program in Lubbock that is an easy place to win football games at, but let’s just see what kind of records the head football coaches before Mike Leach put up at Tech…
Spike Dykes(1986-1999)82-67-1(.547)
David McWilliams(1986-1991)38-30(.559)
Jerry Moore(1981-1985)16-37-2(.291)
Rex Dockery(1978-1980)15-16-2(.455)
Steve Sloan(1975-1977)23-18(.561)
Jim Carlen(1970-1974)37-20-2 (.627)
J. T. King(1961-1969)44-45-3(.478)
Record of Coaches 40 Years before Mike Leach arrived in Lubbock:
255-233-10(.512)
Mike Leach’s Record at Texas Tech:76-39(.661)
Huh?Texas Tech actually believes they are in a position to demand onerous terms with Mike Leach on a contract extension?These folks in Lubbock have got to be the biggest bunch of buffoons West of the Mississippi River, because in the rest of real world of business when one has an employee that is performing at a very high level it is ALWAYS smart for the business to not only keep that employee happy but also to do whatever the employer can do to keep that employee with the business.Instead of demanding asinine terms from Mike Leach in this new contract extension, the “bid-nessmen” that are running Texas Tech, no make that the buffoons that are running Texas Tech, should be doing ever damn thing possible to keep on Mike Leach as their head coach.But, they are not doing that and that raises all kinds of questions in our minds as to just what in the Hell is going on here.Yes, what in the hell is going on at Texas Tech that they think treating the most successful coach in school history like crap is a good idea?Yes, these buffoons at Texas Tech are giving buffoons a bad name.
Now let’s take a look at the Communist demands that the buffoons at Texas Tech are making of Mike Leach that would make Marx, Lenin and Stalin so proud:
“Leach would have to receive permission from Texas Tech to speak with another school or risk owing Tech $1.5 million.”
What?In the United States of America someone would have receive permission from their employer before they interview with another company, or a big fine would be levied against the employee?This has got to be the most asinine and un-American clauses that we have heard being attempted to be put into an employment contract and we all can be thankful that people do have the right to secretly interview for other jobs that would be a better situation for themselves and their family.There is not a chance in Hell that anyone here at Coaches Hot Seat would accept such a provision in any employment contract we would sign and Mike Leach should certainly not agree to this provision that would limit his ability to interview with another college football programs at the time and place of Mike Leach’s choosing.Of course, if Texas Tech actually took a larger interest in taking care of their head football coach and making sure that as long as he was performing at a high level, that he was well taken care, their would be no need for “no interview without telling us first” clause in his contract.This “no interview without telling Mama first” clause is actually more fascist in nature than communist, but however one wants to classify this idea, it clearly runs counter to the American principles and our Declaration of Independence.
The other incredibly asinine provision that Texas Tech wants Mike Leach to agree to is:
“All of the money from his personal speaking properties, whether he makes an appearance or authors a book on his life in Wyoming, would go to Tech.”
This one is really outrageous and in our minds and illegal contract provision that Texas Tech wants Mike Leach to agree to.What Communist in Lubbock came up with this provision where Texas Tech would make all the money from the work and toil of Mike Leach?Yes, Marx, Lenin and Stalin would be very proud of this provision, because this is exactly the kind of idea that Marx postulated where the “Central State” would collect the monies generated by the “wards of the state” and there is not chance in Hell that anyone here at Coaches Hot Seat or in fact anyone with an IQ over room temperature would agree to this “you are a slave to us and we will collect any money you make from your working in the marketplace” provision.In fact, if an employer of ours even proposed an idea like this that the money that we earned in the marketplace would have to be turned over to our employer, we would storm into our boss’s office and tell him to stuff this provision and the entire contract “WHERE THE SUN DOESN’T SHINE.”
What we cannot figure out about this entire contract extension negotiations between Texas Tech and Mike Leach is why does it look like that Tech really doesn’t want to sign Leach to a contract extension, because the above 2 provisions clearly show in our opinion that Tech doesn’t give a damn about Mike Leach and what he has achieved in Lubbock.Very simply, Mike Leach has done a very good job of coaching the Texas Tech football program, especially compared to the coaches that preceded him in Lubbock and if we were in Mike Leach’s shoes we would tell the folks at Texas Tech to go take a flying leap and that I was going to coach the last two years of my current contract and if you want to fire me right now, fire me and get it over with.
What a bunch of arrogant Communist asses these Texas Tech folks are and if they continue to act in such a negative way towards a coach that is winning games at a .661 clip in his 9 years in Lubbock, the ‘bid-nessmen” in West Texas are going to find that once Mike Leach leaves Tech, as he surely will now, they are going to have a hard time hiring a legitimate head football coach to replace him.Yes, Communism, and even Fascism with this “tell us who you are interviewing with when you want to better yourself” provision is roaring strong in West Texas and these buffoons at Texas Tech should be very ashamed of themselves.We would not work for these folks at Tech on a bet, and if the president, AD and Texas Tech board of regents crawled from Lubbock to San Francisco and offered us $10 million a year to coach the Red Raiders, we would tell them to go take a flying leap into the Pacific Ocean, preferably in a strong tide area and without life preservers.
Memo to Mike Leach:If you get tired of working for these Communist boys in West Texas, just take a year off from coaching and move your family up here to the Bay area and join us each Saturday at Coaches Hot Seat Central as we watch every game that is televised and in trips to watch football games in person around the country.The San Francisco Bay area is a great place for football with Stanford, Cal, the 49ers and Raiders nearby and USC, UCLA, Oregon and Oregon State just a short airplane flight away.No doubt, there will be several schools that will be very interested in hiring you at the end of the 2009 season (1 school might have an opening to hire you even before the ’09 season starts) and there is not a better place in the world to have lots of money and no job than San Francisco, California.Great restaurants, great golf courses, great scenery and places to hike and ski close by, and the weather, damn the weather is just best weather on the face of the earth.
Our advice to Mike Leach:Tell these boys in West Texas to GO TO HELL!
February 12, 2009 – Somewhere in the San Francisco Bay area near the Pacific Ocean!
Open the door, turn up the lights, unload the groceries, tap the kegs, fire up the computers and open up ITunes to get some music going because Coaches Hot Seat Central is reopened for business.The ITunes is set to “Shuffle” and what do you guess was the first song that came on out of 5000+ songs?
That’s right the great Steve Perry and Journey and “Don’t Stop Believing.”(We don’t know who that bastard was that was singing for Journey in the Super Bowl pregame show but he clearly couldn’t carry a song like Steve or wear Perry’s jockstrap for that matter!Hang in their Steve and next time let us buy the drinks, OK?
Crank up the televisions and DirecTV boxes (ESPN on TV 1, Check; ESPN 2 on TV 2, Check; ESPNews on TV 3, Check; NFL Network on TV 4, Check; Outdoor Channel on TV 5, Check; Golf Channel on TV 5, Check; MLB Network on TV 6, Check; Big Ten Channel on TV 7; Check; CNBC on TV 8, Check; ESPNU on TV 9, Check; Continuous loop of great college football games on TV 10, Check!), get the takeout hot wings, pizza, and glasses out for the cold beer because Coaches Hot Seat is back in business after a month off filled with lots of hard work in our day jobs and at our companies and many travels around our great Republic.We have gotten a lot of emails here and some will clearly be happy to see Coaches Hot Seat back in business and many others will be cursing us under their breathe and even out loud at times.Unfortunately, for the BCS Boys who are the ones that do the most of the cursing at CHS, also happen to be the folks that are in the most trouble and mean “deep shit” trouble right now.More on that later, but for now we believe thatall of us can agree that…..
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but “to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER,” and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.”
So wrote Thomas Paine on December 23, 1776 in the first of a series of articles (The Crisis) on the then predicament of the American Revolution.As in several times in American history, “The Crisis” of December 1776 was just the first of many challenges that our Republic would face and the current economic “crisis” is just another hurdle that our country must and will overcome.We only hope that President Obama and the folks in his Administration remember that it is private enterprise and private/public companies that are the great engine and wealth creator in the United States and thus the largest tax payers.There is the risk that too much government spending and the increased taxes that will be needed to support those increasing government outlays will dampen economic growth in the coming years at the exact moment that we need the American business to be roaring to generate the kind of economic activity that can support the coming tsunami that will be the retirement of the Baby Boom generation.
It is the doers, the dreamers, the entrepreneurs that look fear in the face and say to themselves and others that they can come up with a great idea or build a great company that generate the vast majority of jobs in our country and if it ever gets to the point that an entrepreneur feels like his effort and work will not be rewarded in an appropriate way, that will be the day that “Music Will Die” in the United States of America.There is no better example than that thought here in California, beacuse the marginal income tax rate (The marginal tax rate is the tax rate that applies to the last or more importantly “next” dollar earned) is 50%+ for Californians earning more than $300,000 a year.What does that mean?It means that if an entrepreneur or business owner decided to work harder to generate more business and thus more income, ever additional dollar earned would be taxed at over a 50% income tax rate, meaning the federal, state and local governments would take more than .50 cents for each additional dollar earned.The marginal tax rate is very important because if the marginal tax rate is too high, entrepreneurs will decide that the work required to earn those additional monies will be too onerous because the government will take too much of each additional dollar earned.Instead of working to earn more money, that entrepreneur may just very well go play golf, play tennis, or watch college football games or yes even do blog entries at a college football website.If income tax rates continue to rise as they are slated to in California this year and possibly at the federal level in coming years the government will find that the incentives to achieve great things, to expand current companies or even to build new companies will actually discourage the very people that will be able to get our country out of the current fiscal mess.There are plenty of young people in their 20s and 30s that are ready to start the next Microsoft or Google, but it would make little sense for someone to start a new company if the government is going to take the majority of income that the potential entrepreneur will earn from making that company a success.Instead of taking a chance and starting a company that will employ dozens, hundreds, or yes even eventually thousands of people, that potential entrepreneur might just decide the risk is not worth it and stay in a “safe” job that pays well enough to live a comfortable life.If the United States is ever going to pay off and fund the Trillions of debt and unfunded mandates that face our nation in the next 50 years, we are going to need lots of people to leave “comfortable” jobs and take a risk to create great companies, and that will just not happen with 50+ percent income tax rates.That is something the folks in the Obama Administration should think long and hard about as they consider public policy options in the coming years.
Yes, these are very trying times, but this is certainly not the second coming of the Great Depression nor will this even be the worst recession in the last 30 years and people should keep that in mind as the government works through the current set of problems that face the nation.
Many of the members of Coaches Hot Seat have been out in the country in the early part of 2009 and the current state of the economy is starting to remind us of the problems the U.S. had in the late 1970s/early 1980s, just without the high interest and inflation rates.Thanks goodness that interest rates and inflation are low right now, or we would be in much worse straights and as our country continues to move through the current economic downturn we really hope that our country is not presented with even more daunting problems that pop up from nowhere.From where we sit, we do not see the United States emerging from the current recession (which started in December 2007) until the summer/fall of 2010 and by then unemployment rates will have easily risen to double-digit numbers and our country will be running very large current account deficits.College athletic programs should prepare themselves for a couple of lean years where expenses will need to be held in check as American consumers struggle to pay bills and meet obligations (and thus discretionary spending for sporting events will be of less importance) and we can only hope that by the start of the 2010 football season that things will start looking up for our economy and our country.
March 12, 2009 is of course the Two-Hundredth Birthday of President Abraham Lincoln and besides that Lincoln was one of our greatest President’s he also could turn a line with the best of them.Like…
“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.”
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
“The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.”
“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.”
It is very easy for many of us to see Abraham Lincoln as a sort of cartoon character because he is so far removed from the life of Americans and he is so often lumped into American history with other great Presidents and our Founders, and that is why it is so very important for all Americans to clearly understand Lincoln’s career and the principles that he applied to his life and how those principles positively influenced our Republic.We encourageall Americans to go to Washington D.C. and visit the Lincoln Memorial.Travel to the battlefield of Gettysburg and see where so many brave men died and Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address.Visit the Lincoln Library in Illinois and certainly find some time in your life to visit Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota.Yes, do all of those things to celebrate the life and legacy of Abraham Lincoln, but also recognize our own country’s history and how the actions and principles of one man came to shape our Republic for the better.
We have been working so hard in our day jobs to take on the challenges of this economy that we have been delayed in getting to the Final 2008/2009 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings and that is what we are ready to move to now.One thing we did not want to do was to release our latest Coaches Hot Seat Rankingsclose to National Signing Day because we did not want our negative comments on coaches to be used out on the recruiting trail, thus we have waited a couple of weeks to releases these latest Rankings.
Before we get to the Final 2008/2009 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings and to the Top 10 Coaches on those Rankings, we first must say a word or two about the BCS.With the inaction of the BCS Boys to move to a post-season system in college football that recognizes the basic fact that “All Americans are Created Equal” they have ensured that their bogus little and very petty system will be challenged in courts and in the Congress by the United States of America and that the BCS Boys will lose that challenge.The BCS Boys, by continuing to adhere to there unfair and in our minds, illegal system to determine a bogus national champion in college football are putting at risk the very things that they have worked so hard to retain, namely the large bowl games.There was ample opportunity for the BCS Boys to find a way to integrate a playoff system into the current bowl structure that would allow all teams that play I-A football an equal chance to play for a national championship, but that window has now closed for the BCS Boys.Please, we do not want to hear any crying from the college presidents, bowl executives and conference commissioners when their bogus BCS system is taken away from them, because they have had an ample opportunity to change the system for the better and to bring the BCS into compliance with U.S. law, and they did not.Now it will most certainly be a court along with the Congress that will determine the system that will be used to crown a legitimate National Champion in I-A college football and the BCS will most certainly not be that system.Sorry BCS Boys, but you had your chance, but once again your arrogance, your disdain for core American principles and in our opinion the laws of this Nation, and as always your greed will have gotten the best of you, but this will be the last time you will have to worry about all of that.It will be a great day when the BCS Boys have to eat their words, shut their mouths and be forced by a court and the Congress to institute and run a system that crowns a real National Champion in I-A college football that is consistent with the principles and laws of our nation.It just so happens that a couple of these BCS Boys are some of the most arrogant men in the country today and it will be great fun to watch them get a little of what they have been giving to other people for years now.Get ready BCS Boys, and make sure your attorneys (BCS and personal) are nearby and ready to go to work….We only hope that evidence is not entered into a court under oath somewhere that the BCS Boys were meeting in private on how to limit competition among football teams that play I-A football.If there was ever such a meeting, or even one phone call that discussed ways to exclude “non-BCS” teams from have a full and equal footing in the BCS and an equal shot at the national title that is unfortunately going to be very bad news for the BCS Boys that were in on that meeting.In our opinion, and in the opinion of many, many attorneys, the BCS Boys will have committed a felony if they participated in such meetings and will thus have to be fully prosecuted for their actions by our government.Yes, this is going to be damn interesting.
1.Mike Sherman, Texas A&M – We believed that Mike Sherman was in trouble and on the Hot Seat, but after several days spent traveling around Texas in January we now believe that Mike Sherman is coaching the 2009 season for his job.After a 4-8 record in his first year at A&M, the challenge is very clear for Sherman in ’09:A winning record and a bowl game are a must OR the Sherman era in College Station is over.With a fairly easy non-conference slate of New Mexico, Utah State, UAB and Arkansas, A&M should enter Big 12 play at 4-0, but by no means does that mean that A&M will end the year with a winning or even a .500 record.The key games look to be Kansas State and Colorado on the road and Baylor at home, because the other 5 Big 12 games will be very tough to win.If somehow Sherman can get to .500 in 2009 and garner an invite to a bowl game, he will more than likely return for the 2010 season, but anything less and the Sherman era is over, especially if a sub .500 record in ’09 includes losses to Baylor and Texas Tech.If Mike Sherman is fired could that possibly mean that the Tommy Tuberville era would begin at A&M?Yes, that Tommy Tuberville coached at A&M under R. C. Slocum and that Tuberville is now out of job and looks to be wanting another crack at a head coaching job is very bad news for Mike Sherman, because it provides a legitimate alternative if Sherman should stumble again in his second season in College Station.
2.Steve Kragthorpe, Louisville – For whatever reason, things have just not gone very well for Steve Kragthorpe at Louisville and after posting 6-6 and 5-7 records in his first two years with the Cardinals, Kragthorpe is most certainly coaching for his job in 2009.The biggest thing working against Kragthorpe is that in 4 years at Louisville Bobby Petrino put up a record of 41-9 and there really is no good explanation for how far that Cardinals have fallen since Petrino left for the Atlanta Falcons two years ago.The challenge is very clear for Kragthorpe in 2009:A winning record and a bowl game.Anything less and the Cardinals will be looking for a new head coach come December 2009.
3.Al Groh, Virginia – Al Groh has been on the Hot Seat for the vast majority of the time since we cranked the Coaches Hot Seat website up in January 2007 and Groh certainly must understand that he is coaching the 2009 season for his job.After canning his son and bringing in former Bowling Green head coach Gregg Brandon to implement the spread offense, Groh is really doing the only thing he can do:Swing for the fences and hope for the best.As is the case with most coaches on the Hot Seat, Groh needs a winning season in 2009 and a bowl game trip to keep the natives from getting very restless, because the last time we checked in with our UVA buddies in Virginia they all had a list of “6 or 7” coaches that they would like to see replace Groh.It is either win or go home for Al Groh in 2009 and everybody knows and understands that, especially Al Groh.
4.Dan Hawkins, Colorado – Certainly Dan Hawkins did not expect that after 3 years at Colorado he would have put up a record of 13-24 (.351) and certainly the Colorado fans are not going to wait forever for Hawkins to turn this Buffaloes’ ship around.OK, OK the Colorado football program was in shambles, especially mentally, when Hawkins got to Boulder, but in year 3 many people expected Hawkins to make more inroads in the Big 12, but a 2-6 conference record in ’08 has really left a bad taste in the mouth of everyone and something must be done in Boulder, and QUICK.Colorado has a very tough schedule in 2009, including an opening game against big-time in-state rival Colorado State and a road trip to West Virginia.After that the Big 12 schedule gets cranked up and somewhere in the 12 games in 2009 Hawkins and the Buffs are going to need to find 7 or at the very least 6 wins or….Will Dan Hawkins get fired if Colorado puts up another losing record in 2009?Probably not, but Hawkins would be coaching the 2010 season for his job if the ’09 season does not end with a trip to a bowl game.
5.Lane Kiffin, Tennessee – We said when Lane Kiffin was hired at Tennessee that we did not personally dislike Lane, but that we did not think that Kiffin was remotely qualified to be the head football coach at a school like Tennessee and Kiffin’s actions in the last few weeks has only confirmed our feelings on this matter.There really is just no explaining the University of Tennessee hiring Lane Kiffin as their head football coach and since a few of us got to see Kiffin up close at Oakland Raiders practices and in games with the Raiders all of still do a double-take when we see Kiffin and ‘Head Football Coach, Tennessee” in the same sentence.We have thought from the start that Lane Kiffin was not even remotely prepared to be a head in the SEC and his actions in recent days only show not only how completely out of his element Kiffin is right now, but how different the SEC is from the Pac-10 conference.We still don’t think Kiffin has any understanding of the damage he has already done to “his” Tennessee football team by running off at the mouth in a very immature way about other coaches in the conference, and Kiffin and the Tennessee Nation should prepare themselves for some ass-kicking’s this fall that have not been seen in the SEC since Spurrier left Florida for the Redskins.With road games at Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Kentucky and home games against UCLA, Georgia, South Carolina and Vanderbilt, there is the very real reality that Kiffin will finish with a losing season in 2009 and we really doubt that Kiffin can survive an initial losing season in Knoxville, especially if there are several very large beat downs by SEC opponents of the Vols this fall.Yes, Lane Kiffin could very well be “one and done” at Tennessee, especially if he runs his mouth anymore before the season starts.
Our recommendation for Lane Kiffin:Shut up and let your assistants coaching ability and your team do the talking.Keep talking and not only will you be fired at Tennessee, your coaching career will be over before it really ever gets going.
Just a last little note about Lane Kiffin:Last fall we were kicking around the idea of what schools might be interested in Kiffin after he had been fired by the Raiders and the only school that we thought might at least interview Kiffin and where he would have at least a 50/50 chance of getting the head coaching job was San Diego State.But, we only believed that SDSU would consider Kiffin if their first three choices turned them down and needless to say when we heard that AD Mike Hamilton had interviewed Lane Kiffin and was seriously considering hiring him at Tennessee, it was nothing less than stunning to us here at Coaches Hot Seat.Good Luck to you Lane Kiffin.You and the Vols are going to need it.Of course, Jon Gruden may just be rested and ready to step in after the ’09 season in Knoxville if Kiffin really looks out of his element this fall.Jon Gruden in the SEC?Yes, with all of these other head coaches in that conference, that would be something to see….
Our prediction for Lane Kiffin if we had to go to a Lake Tahoe casino and make a bet on what will happen in the next year?Kiffin will have a losing season at Tennessee in 2009 and will only barely survive to return in 2010, and a second losing season in 2010 will end the Kiffin “experiment” in Knoxville.
6.Bret Bielema, Wisconsin – When you finish the season by barely beating a I-AA football team in Cal-Poly at home to finish the year at 7-5 and then you get blasted in your bowl game to a mediocre Florida State team 42-13, one would surely expect to find oneself on the Hot Seat and that is exactly where Bret Bielema is entering the 2009 season.After a 12-1 record in year 1, a 9-4 record in year 2, and a 7-6 record in year 3 at Wisconsin, we are starting to see a very clear pattern developing for Bret Bielema and a downward pattern like that is certainly not very encouraging.Of course, the disaster in the 2008 season was the loss to a very bad Michigan football team on the road in Week 4 after Wisconsin had started the year 3-0 and that loss reverberated throughout the rest of the season as it created some doubt within the Wisconsin football team on whether they were a good football team or not.With the Big Ten becoming a stronger football conference all the time, 2009 will be a very critical season for Bielema and Wisconsin, because the Badgers cannot afford to fall to the lower tier of the conference at this time.Wisconsin will face a key test in their opening game of the ’09 season when MAC team Northern Illinois comes calling and this will be a must win game against a very good team, because Fresno State arrives in Madison in Week 2 and if the Badgers are not careful an 0-2 start to the season is a real possibility.With trips to Minnesota, Ohio State, and Northwestern in the Big 10 and a season ending game at Hawaii a fast-start to the year is essential if Bielema hopes to get back the momentum he had a couple of years back.More than likely Bielema could survive a losing season in 2009, but another season in ‘09 that confirmed the downward trend since Barry Alvarez turned over the reigns would most certainly mean that Bielema would be coaching the 2010 season for his job.
7.Charlie Weis, Notre Dame – Now at 29 -21 (.580) after four seasons in South Bend, Weis enters the 2009 season coaching for his job.Only two people, Notre Dame AD Swarbrick and Charlie Weis really know what was said at that meeting in San Jose in December shortly after the loss to USC, but we believe that it was made very clear to Weis that it is either BCS Bowl game or “Bust” in 2009.What does “Bust” mean?Very simply, if Notre Dame is not invited to a BCS game at the end of the 2009 season, Charlie Weis will be out of a job.Yes, it is that simple and Weis is probably relieved that he now knows exactly what he has to do this year and that should mean that nothing will be held back as the Irish either have an above average or great season and play in a BCS bowl or Notre Dame will be looking for a new head football coach come December.Don’t cry for Charlie Weis if he gets fired, because not only will he have a huge buyout in his back pocket as he flies out of South Bend, but he also won’t have problem getting an offensive coordinator job back in the NFL.Can Weis take Notre Dame to a BCS bowl in 2009?With this schedule….
9/5/09NevadaNotre Dame, IN
9/12/09 at MichiganAnn Arbor, MI
9/19/09Michigan StateNotre Dame, IN
9/26/09at PurdueWest Lafayette, IN
10/3/09WashingtonNotre Dame, IN
10/17/09USCNotre Dame, IN
10/24/09Boston CollegeNotre Dame, IN
10/31/09Washington StateSan Antonio, TX
11/07/09NavyNotre Dame, IN
11/14/09at PittsburghPittsburgh, PA
11/21/09ConnecticutNotre Dame, IN
11/28/09at StanfordPalo Alto, CA
…if Weis cannot win at least 9 to 10 games and get his team to a BCS bowl game, he should be fired.
8.Paul Wulff, Washington State – After a dreadful 2-11 record (with the only wins against I-AA Portland State and a winless Washington team) in his first year at Washington State, including some massive beat downs by some Pac-10 teams, Paul Wulff is facing a very critical second season where his football team either better improve a lot or Wulff might find himself in real trouble come December 2009.Now with new revelations that Wulff committed a number of NCAA violations at his last job at Eastern Washington which has landed that school in some pretty serious trouble with the NCAA, Wulff has placed another bright shining light on himself that he did not need at this particular moment in time.The biggest thing working against Paul Wulff is that although Washington State was not burning it up under his predecessor Bill Doba, Doba at least fielded a competitive football team that put up a 30-29 record in Doba’s 5 seasons at Washington State.If Wulff cannot at least make Washington State a .500 football team, and quickly we might add, there will be tremendous pressure on Washington State to move in a different direction especially if Steve Sarkisian gets things going at Washington.
9.George O’Leary, UCF – George O’Leary really has been snake bit since he took the Notre Dame job in 2001 and was found to have falsified his resume which led to his firing in South Bend.After a short stint in the NFL, O’Leary took over a struggling UCF football program in 2004 and has put up a 26-36 (.419) in 5 seasons including a very difficult year in 2008 that included a 4-8 record.With O’Leary now working for a different AD than the guy that originally hired him at UCF, O’Leary must know that 2009 will be a critical season to both building momentum going forward but also keeping his job with the school.What does O’Leary really need at UCF in 2009 to return in 2010?From where we sit, at least a .500 record and a trip to a bowl game, with anything less almost certainly leading to a head coaching change at UCF. That calculus should be pretty straightforward for everyone to understand.
10.Bill Lynch, Indiana – After a very impressive first year at Indiana (7-6), Bill Lynch’s second Hoosier team took a step backward with a 3-9 record and that step backwards will put tremendous pressure on Lynch in 2009, just at the exact moment that the Big Ten conference is getting better and much deeper all the time.Can Bill Lynch turn things around and get the Hoosiers back to a bowl game in 2009?Hard to say, but Lynch will probably need a .500 record at least to have an argument that the Indiana football team is going in the right direction during his tenure in Bloomington.
As most music aficionados know the great Otis Redding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Redding) was inspired to write Sitting on the Dock of the Bay in Sausalito, California…..
