COACHES HOT SEAT BLOG

We have a lot to say on some of the reactions and behavior of head football coaches that have been about to be fired or have been fired, but time limits our ability to get to those comments right now….  We will get to them though….Let’s get to the Post Week 13 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings….

Hit it Johnny!

 

Post Week 13 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings

Link:  Coaches Hot Seat Rankings

Top 10 Coaches on Post Week 13 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings

1.  Charlie Weis, Notre Dame – No, Charlie Weis was wrong when he showed up in South Bend five years ago.  Notre Dame is not a “6-5” team but actually a 6-6 football team!  Oh, that’s rich and how appropriate that a guy that has popped off about every way possible about how the Great Charlie Weis would save Notre Dame got his ass handed to him by a team in Stanford that was filled with players for the most part that Notre Dame wouldn’t have recruited on a bet.  That Charlie Weis is a pompous arrogant ass is beyond question, as are most people that are in the Bill Parcells coaching tree, but his actions after the Stanford game when he was still on the Notre Dame payroll of not speaking to the media paints Weis as coward as well.  Think about the difference between Charlie Weis who is being paid millions of dollars and that he is afraid to talk to the media about his job status and our brave young men and women in the US military that are risking their lives everyday for practically nothing.  That’s the real problem with the Bill Parcells types, they talk this great game about how they know everything and everyone else can just go to Hell, but when you get right down to it, have Bill Parcells, Charlie Weis and anyone else in that coaching tree ever done anything for this country beyond paying their taxes and registering to vote?  We rather doubt it.  Do these coaches even realize that the entire world does not revolve around them and that acting like a pompous ass is not inappropriate but in fact says a lot about the character of the person acting that way?  We again rather doubt it, but Weis’ actions after the Stanford game did not surprise us a bit and now Charlie will be able to go back to the NFL which is filled with people and coaches that believe the entire world revolves them and the Hell with everyone else.  We here at Coaches Hot Seat are actually kind of sad to see Charlie Weis go, because the dichotomy between what he told people what he was going to do and what he actually did was all rather entertaining to us and Charlie offered up a great example of someone we could point to and say to our children:  “Don’t act like that guy.”  The bottom-line is that Charlie Weis told a lot of people what he was going to do and he utterly failed to deliver on those incredibly arrogant statements which makes anything that comes out of Charlie Weis mouth for the rest of his life about what will happen in the future subject to a great deal of skepticism.  Of course, in the NFL you can say anything and it will be forgotten two seconds later if you can get a QB to complete a couple of passes in a row!  Good Luck Charlie!

2.  Ralph Friedgen, Maryland – As we have said here for some time at Coaches Hot Seat, we like and respect Ralph Friedgen but it is impossible for us to not recognize that something has gone terribly wrong at Maryland in recent years under the Fridge.  Ralph is now 35 – 38 in his last 73 games at Maryland and there is just no way that kind of record can be satisfying to the folks in College Park and that record along with some of the erratic and uninspired play by the Terps in recent years has to be what is being discussed by the decision makers.  Should Ralph Friedgen be fired and can Maryland even afford to fire Friedgen ($4 million dollar buyout)?  That is a question we cannot answer because we are not there looking Ralph Friedgen in the eye, but if we were there and we did not think that the Terps would be a competitive team in the ACC in 2010 then yes, we would fire Ralph Friedgen, because if a team cannot compete for the ACC title every year then what the Hell is the point of even fielding a football team?  There is none.

3.  Dan Hawkins, Colorado – By all rights and if we were living in a normal world Dan Hawkins would have been fired this week.  With a $3 million dollar plus buyout and massive cuts in higher education in the state of Colorado we thought that firing Dan Hawkins and handing him millions of dollars to not coach football was a non-starter, but it is impossible to look at the win/loss trend at CU under Hawkins, 2-10, 6-7, 5-7, 3-9 for an overall record of 16-33 and not wonder just what the Hell is going on in Boulder.  Look at Colorado’s 2009 record and see that the Buffs have 3 wins against Wyoming, Kansas and Texas A&M (all at home in Boulder) none of which have a winning record.  Then look at who Colorado lost to, Colorado State (losing record in ’09), Toledo (losing record in ’09), Kansas State (.500 record in ’09), Iowa State (.500 record in ’09) and you have the Buffs playing 7 teams on CU’s ’09 schedule that had .500 record or worse and CU could only come up with 3 wins.  Yes, these are very strange days in Boulder, but a perfect storm of a very bad economy, public policy makers in Colorado that are turning the state into California II (which is a state where it is impossible for businesses to make profits and thus general revenues are plummeting and thus there is a lot less money for higher education), a school that have no extra money to buyout football coaches, a head coach that is graduating his players and that are staying out of trouble and it all adds up to a coach getting another year on the job.  We have been honest here at Coaches Hot Seat this year in that we think a lot of Dan Hawkins so it has not been easy for us to write about him each week of the season, but Dan Hawkins knows that what has happened with the CU football program is all on him and that it is only him that can turn this mess around.  When we watched Colorado play this year we see a football team that doesn’t look as strong as its opponents and a team that looked like it really didn’t know what the Hell it was supposed to be doing on either side of the ball.  If Dan Hawkins is smart he will take the announcement that he will be back for the 2010 season like someone just pulled a fire alarm because things have to dramatically change in Boulder or the CU football program could be an utter disaster at the end of next season and in the market looking for a new head football coach.

4.  Mark Mangino, Kansas – Reading the Kansas papers it seems like it is only a matter of time before Mark Mangino is fired at Kansas and we can only look at Mark’s record at KU, 50 – 48 (.510) – 5 – 7 in 2009, and wonder if there is something real here or is there an agenda behind the scenes in Lawrence.  We were not on the practice fields and in the meetings at Kansas in recent years but if some of the things that have appeared in the press by former players is true then Mangino should apologize for some of the things he has said, but if they are not true then he should stand up for himself and defend his coaching tenure at KU.  Since we have no way of knowing what is true and what is not, we can only sit and wait and see what the decision makers at Kansas decide to do.  Just on his record alone should Mark Mangino be on the Hot Seat?  It is a close call because of the fall off at KU in the last two seasons after the 12-1 record in 2007, but if there was no controversy going on behind the scenes in Lawrence then we rather doubt that Mark Mangino would be on the verge of losing his job.

5.  Paul Wulff, Washington State – It seems that even a shutout in the Apple Cup can’t get the folks in Pullman worked up as Washington State loses big in another Pac-10 game and runs Wulff two-year record at WSU to 3 – 22 (.120).  Yes, it seems that Paul Wulff could lose every game he coaches, even by very wide margins and he would not be on the Hot Seat in Pullman but Coaches Hot Seat is not in Pullman and in extreme cases like we have we judge coaches on the very simple standard of wins and losses and what any average man or woman off any street in America could have done if he was coaching the same team in the same games.  We believe that it would be next for impossible for any random man or woman selected off any random street in America coaching the Washington State football team over the last two years to lose 22 of 25 football games and that says about all you need to know about what is going on in Pullman.  The folks at Washington State say that “they know something we don’t” about Paul Wulff and the WSU football program so everyone in the public and in the Coug fan base should just shut-up and fall to the ground and kiss Paul Wulff and the decision makers’ asses in Pullman.  NOT!  There is nothing going on in Pullman behind the curtain other than a football team that is not competitive in I-A football and a head coach that looks wildly out of his element.  If you want to really know where Paul Wulff stands, just ask another head coach in the Pac-10 in private about what they hope happens at Washington State…..Shhhhhhhhh, keep this to yourself, but I hope Paul is in Pullman for A LONG TIME TO COME!   Why wouldn’t head coaches in the Pac-10 think that, because not in recent memory have the head football coaches in the Pac-10 had a guaranteed conference win on their schedule but as long as Wulff is leading the Huskies every Pac-10 team starts the season with a 1-0 conference record!  Yes, the folks in Pullman “know something we don’t.”  Please, the fact is that the folks OUTSIDE of Pullman are the people that know “something the folks in Pullman don’t know” and we will tell you what we know….Keep Paul Wulff in place because having a guaranteed conference win on the schedule is not something that comes along very often, and that reality was certainly not the case when Bill Doba and Mike Price were leading the WSU football program!  Again we way, would someone in Pullman please email us when you start playing football again.

6.  Dennis Erickson, Arizona – It seems that Dennis Erickson is not only losing a lot of games at ASU he has also now exported some of the lack of discipline that was so evident at Miami after what happened against Arizona on Saturday.  Dennis Erickson is now 19 – 18 (.514) in three seasons at ASU and that cannot be the record that Arizona State AD Lisa Love thought would be the kind of record that Erickson would have achieved to this point, especially the last two years of losing records (5-7 and 4-8).  We will say the same thing now that we said when Erickson first went on the Hot seat earlier this year, we were down in Scottsdale in the offseason and we were told that Erickson and his staff let-up after their first year at ASU (10-3) and from where we sit a combined record of 9 – 15 over the last two years only confirms that story in our minds.  The problem that Dennis Erickson and the Sun Devils now must face is that the Pac-10 is becoming a very difficult place to play when a coaching staff is not working around the clock all throughout the year and really what this comes down to is if Dennis Erickson and his coaching staff are REALLY COMMITTED to turning this thing around in 2010 or are they going to play golf and go fishing in the offseason.  Arizona State is not Miami and the ASU coaching staff cannot just rely on having dozens of NFL players on the sideline and that means that either the folks in Tempe get serious about football in the offseason or ASU will be looking at another losing season in 2010.  That is the reality of the situation, whether anyone at Arizona State wants to face up that reality is another story.

7.  Rich Rodriguez, Michigan – We are on the record in saying that we didn’t think that Rich Rodriguez was a good fit at Michigan for a variety of reasons, coaching style, system, approach to the game, and Year 3 for Rich Rod at Michigan will finally determine if we were right in that opinion.  We do believe that Rich Rodriguez is a very good football coach, but watching the offense he is running at Michigan and what Jim Harbaugh is running at Stanford is like the bizzarro world because Harbaugh is running the Michigan offense on The Farm.  Michigan is one of those places where a certain type of football, drop-back, hard-nosed running, tough defense, is the way the fans really expect their team to play and what Rich Rodriguez is running in Ann Arbor is almost the exact opposite of what has been traditional at UM.  Rich Rodriguez is now 8 – 16  (.333) in two years and we can imagine that almost any college coach in the country could have won more 8 games at UM the last two seasons, but then most coaches would not be implementing a totally different offensive system which goes to heart of the problem here, namely that AD Bill Martin made a very foolish hire in hiring a coach that brought such a completely different philosophy to Ann Arbor which in our mind just does not fit at UM.  Now, Rich Rodriguez could very easily turn this thing around at Michigan in Year 3, but he also HAS TO TURN THIS THING AROUND IN YEAR 3 or Michigan will be looking for a new head football coach in December 2010.  How many wins does Rich Rod need in 2010 to return in 2011?   Michigan has in 2010:

UConn

at Notre Dame

UMass

Bowling Green

at Indiana

Michigan State

Iowa

at Penn State

Illinois

at Purdue

Wisconsin

at Ohio State 

That is not an easy schedule, but we believe Rodriguez will need 8 wins and a winning record in the Big Ten to be back in 2011 and that means Rich and his Wolverines better improve a lot or there is not a chance in Hell they will sniff 8 wins with that schedule.  As we say, coach hard Rich!

8.  Mike Sherman, Texas A&M – Mike Sherman is now 10 – 14 (.417) in two seasons at Texas A&M and the apologists for Sherman in south Texas and elsewhere seem to forget that he took over from Dennis Franchione a team that went 9 – 4 and 7 -5 in Franchione’s last two seasons with the Aggies and most certainly Sherman did not take over some degraded or losing football program.  Mike Sherman in fact took over a football program at A&M that had a lot of talent and a team that certainly has enough talent to compete with almost any team in the Big 12 (save Texas and Oklahoma), but here he is with 10 wins in 2 seasons and one wonder just who has Mike Sherman beat in those 10 games? 

In 2008 Mike Sherman BEAT (4 wins):

New Mexico (losing record in ’08)

Army (losing record in ’08)

Iowa State (losing record in ’08)

Colorado (losing record in ’08)

In 2009 Mike Sherman BEAT (6 wins):

New Mexico (losing record in ’09)

Utah State (losing record in ’09)

UAB (losing record in ’09)

Texas Tech (winning record in ’09)

Iowa State (.500 record in ’09)

Baylor (losing record in ’09)

That’s right, in two seasons at Texas A&M with 10 wins on the board Mike Sherman has BEATEN….

1 TEAM WITH A WINNING RECORD (Texas Tech)!

Oh, by the way, Mike Sherman has lost FOUR games to teams that did not have winning records in the year he lost to them (Arkansas State, Kansas State, Baylor, Colorado).

Yes, it is indeed a fact that Mike Sherman has only BEATEN ONE TEAM WITH A WINNING RECORD and he has LOST TO FOUR TEAMS THAT DID NOT HAVE WINNING RECORDS in the year he played them!  Yes, that adds up to a 1 – 9 record against teams with winning records in the year he played them for Mike Sherman and a very impressive record of 9 – 5 against teams with .500 records or worse in the year he played them.  Oh, that is MIGHTY IMPRESSIVE, especially for Texas A&M football!  NOT!  Point of Fact:  Any random circus clown pulled off any random circus train as it passed through College Station and put in charge of the Aggie football program could have put up the record that Mike Sherman has put up in two years at A&M and we defy anyone to argue with that reality.

What else do you need to know about what Mike Sherman has accomplished at Texas A&M in two years, because he has accomplished NOTHING!

Maybe if this wasn’t Texas A&M, where RC Slocum put up a .715 winning percentage in 14 seasons and Jackie Sherrill had a .642 winning percentage in 7 seasons and Mike Sherman is now 10 – 14 in two seasons and he HAS BEATEN NEXT TO NO ONE this would all not be a big deal, but Mike Sherman is the head football coach at TEXAS A&M!  Mike Leach must really feel like a loser that he and his Red Raiders lost to Mike Sherman this season, but he has the fat girlfriends to blame for that!

Yes, Mike Sherman is on the Hot Seat and he should be on the Hot Seat, unless of course Texas A&M football no longer exists, which judging by A&M’s 2010 out-of-conference schedule that just may be true.  If Texas Governor Rick Perry is indeed running things in College Station as he has said in the past, then he is doing an awful job, but then let’s not blame Rick Perry for the piss poor job Mike Sherman has done with the Aggies.

9.  Todd Dodge, North Texas – We really don’t know what is going on at North Texas with Todd Dodge but we do know that in 3 seasons on the job at UNT he is 5 – 31  (.139) and that cannot be making the folks in Denton very happy.  Should Todd Dodge be fired at North Texas?  We really don’t know since we haven’t a clue if Dodge is about to turn the program around or now, but if the folks at UNT don’t think he is about to turn this thing around then they had better damn be out looking for a football coach that can….and yes there are some great assistant football coaches that could do a great job at UNT and certainly win more than 5 games in three seasons.  Todd Dodge was a Great high school football coach but jumping to the college game from high school cannot be easy and maybe Dodge is just a Great high school coach and there is nothing wrong with that…in fact, high school football needs all the great head football coaches it can get right now….  We are confident that Todd Dodge will have a million offers to coach if UNT does fire him and that if he goes back to the high school game he will win big again….

10.  Ron Zook, Illinois – Now that Ron Zook is assured that he is returning for the 2010 season he knows that he is on the clock, because the Zook and the Illini must produce next season or Ron will find himself out of job come December ’10.  Ron Zook did take over a struggling program at Illinois but he is 21 – 38  (.356) in 5 seasons, which includes 1 Big Ten title and Rose Bowl game, and that is not the kind of record that Illinois will be able to accept if it continues.  Zook and the Illini face a very straightforward task in 2010 and that is Ron must get Illinois to at least a .500 record a postseason game so he can show the program is again moving in the right direction.

2010 Illinois Schedule:

Missouri (St. Louis)

Southern Illinois

Northern Illinois

Ohio State

at Penn State

at Michigan State

Indiana

Purdue

at Michigan

Minnesota

at Northwestern

at Fresno State

That is a pretty manageable schedule, with 2 pretty tough out-of-conference games against Missouri in St. Louis and at Fresno State to finish the year, but if Zook and the Illini cannot find at least 6 wins with above schedule then Ron should probably be fired.  The task is clear, Ron Zook must make Illinois relevant again in the Big Ten and that means the Illini have a lot of work to do in the offseason because they are nowhere near relevant right now.

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We hope everyone had a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!  Nothing like being with family on such a great holiday and now we here at Coaches Hot Seat are getting ready for a great two days of college football!  We have the refrigerator at CHS Central filled with leftovers from our families Thanksgiving dinner and plenty of white bread for the turkey, a microwave to heat up the mashed potatoes and baked beans and plenty of cold beer and good wine to drink!  Let’s play some football!

We weren’t surprised that Colorado brought Dan Hawkins back – As we wrote in this Blog over the past week or so we weren’t surprised that CU brought Dan Hawkins back for a fifth year even though is overall record is a pitiful 16 – 32.  We rather doubt that Colorado had the muscle or boosters to raise the $3 million dollar buyout to send Hawkins packing and there was not a chance in Hell that CU would have been able to use public higher education money because Colorado is cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from colleges and universities in the state and handing Dan Hawkins $3 million would have been a disastrous PR hit (On a related note several of us here at Coaches Hot Seat have been doing business in the state of Colorado for years and the folks making public policy in that state are unfortunately going down the same track as the idiots here in California with high taxes, massive amounts of regulations and stupid laws everywhere one looks which is only causing business to flee the state just like it has been fleeing California for years.  Boulder, Colorado, the home of CU if anything actually has worse laws than the state as the morons running that city/county are basically at war with business and then the folks there in Boulder wonder why taxes of all kinds are in freefall.  Please, someone cue Forrest Gump because these folks in Boulder and the state of Colorado are not only business killers they are economy killers and thus killers of higher education.  One day the folks running higher education in our country will realize that and wake up…..well, maybe not, because we haven’t met a college or university president yet that wants to do anything but raises taxes on everyone and anything that moves.  Again, cue Forrest Gump, but don’t confuse folks that have never worked in a for-profit business with the facts)

As we said Dan Hawkins is 16 – 32 and although the folks at CU said that Hawkins will not be coaching under a set “win” number in 2010 we believe he will need at least 7 wins, maybe 8 to get a sixth year in Boulder.  Looking at Colorado’s 2010 schedule if Hawkins and the Buffs are going to get to 7 or 8 wins then they will need to become a much better football team across the board:

Colorado’s 2010 schedule

Colorado State – Denver

at California – Berkley, CA

Hawaii – Boulder, CO

Georgia – Boulder, CO

at Missouri – Columbia, MO

Baylor – Boulder, CO

Texas Tech – Boulder, CO

at Oklahoma – Norman, OK

at Kansas – Lawrence, KS

Iowa State – Boulder, CO

Kansas State – Boulder, CO

at Nebraska – Lincoln, NE

Yes, that is a tough schedule in 2010 for the Buffs but if Colorado was playing like CU was playing in the Bill McCartney years then 7 wins would be a breeze…….but, as we all know Colorado is not playing very good football right now.  With no cupcake out-of-conference games and 4 tough road Big 12 games that means there will be very little margin for error and of course Dan Hawkins will have to navigate that schedule starting out on the Hot Seat because the three coaches ahead of him, Weis, Friedgen and Groh look to be out of coaching in 2010 (Unless Maryland runs into the same buyout problem with Friedgen that CU had to face).  If only Colorado had Texas A&M’s 2010 schedule, but more on that in a minute!

We believe Dan Hawkins will need 7 wins in 2010 and at least a .500 Big 12 record to return in 2011.  Can he do it?  If he can’t he should be fired.

Texas’ performance against Texas A&M just proved what we have thought about the Big 12 – Texas was really exposed last night, especially on defense, and the game last night against A&M only confirmed what we have thought about the Big 12 all season, namely that the Big 12 isn’t that great in ‘09.  Texas A&M lost to Arkansas 47 – 19 earlier this year and now they are able to give Texas that good of game?  Please, Alabama blasted Arkansas this year and although we think Texas could beat either Alabama or Florida in a one-game Bogus BCS title game, we would now favor the Tide, the Gators and a few other SEC teams over Texas in any one-game matchup.  Texas is very lucky that the BCS does exist and it will not have to face a possible game against TCU because we think TCU would beat Texas on a neutral field which would of course make the Candy Asses that are running the Bogus BCS look like fools.  Well, the Candy Asses running the BCS have looked like fools for year and un-American as well so that TCU would beat Texas is no change to that reality.  In fact, we think Boise State, Cincinnati and TCU would give Texas a very good game, especially in a one-off game that the Bogus BCS is all about.  Can Nebraska beat Texas?  Yes, but only if they commit to scoring some points because Texas will score at least 21 or so points against the Huskers and if Nebraska tries to win a 14 – 10 type game they will get beat.

Mike Sherman and the Aggies went 6 – 6 in 2009 playing one of the weakest schedules in the country – If anyone actually believes that a 6 – 6 record by Mike Sherman at A&M in 2009 is anything but awful look at who the Aggies played out-of-conference:

New Mexico (1 – 10), Utah State (3 – 8), UAB (5 – 6), and Arkansas (7 – 4) for a collective record of out-of-conference teams of:  16 – 24.  Oh, that’s right Arkansas blasted Texas A&M 47 – 19 so A&M really only won three out-of-conference games against teams with a collective record of 9 – 24 or in other words A&M BEAT NODOBY out-of-conference in 2009.  Even with 3 cupcake wins, Sherman and the Aggies were only able to go 3 – 5 in a weakened Big 12 and now they get to jump and down and do probably the stupidest yell in the United States today:  “We’re bowl eligible, We’re bowl eligible!” or in other words, “We are mediocre, We are mediocre!” 

How many teams did Mike Sherman and the Aggies beat in 2009 that had winning record? (No not a mediocre .500 record but a WINNING RECORD!)  1 TEAM!  Texas Tech.  That’s right, Texas A&M beat one team with a WINNING RECORD in 2009!  Yes, things are going great in College Station!  NOT!

Here’s all we have to say to Mike Sherman:  GOT HOT SEAT?  Why yes you do and that is where you will be on Monday, back on the Hot Seat, and you will be there throughout the entire 2010 offseason and when the Aggies kick off next year. 

Thinking about 2010 we were wondering what AD Bill “Let’s give Mike Sherman an asinine contract” Byrne has schedule for the Aggies next season because we know Byrne and the folks at A&M love their cupcakes!

Stephen F. Austin

Louisiana Tech

Florida International

at Oklahoma State

Arkansas

Missouri

at Kansas

Texas Tech

Oklahoma

at Baylor

Nebraska

Texas

Oh, that’s RICH!  Those tough Aggies have scheduled three powerhouses to kick off the year in Stephen F. Austin, La. Tech and Florida International!  Man, is there really someone stupid enough in the Texas A&M fan base to buy season tickets to get those 3 garbage games?  If there is then P.T. Barnum is right, a sucker is born every minute!  The above schedule only proves to us what we have know for a long time, the people running A&M athletics are cowards and don’t have the guts to play real football teams because there only interest in the world is getting to 6 wins so they can jump around and yell:  “We’re bowl eligible, We’re bowl eligible!”  That is the yell of the morons and we cannot help but wonder why Americans think the US is on the decline, because when you have people celebrating mediocrity and former big-time football schools like Texas A&M putting together schedules like the one above then one can completely understand why the US is going to get its ass kicked by countries that actually have some guts in the next century.  As for what we really think about the Aggies 2010 schedule, you folks should be embarrassed with such a pitiful schedule, but then you have to protect and prop-up Mike Sherman’s precious ass because if he had to face legitimate teams he would get his ass handed to him.  If Mike Sherman can’t win at least 8 games in 2010 after being spotted wins over 3 cupcakes, just as he was in 2009, he should be fired but since winning and actually acting a REAL MAN has been so dumbed down at A&M we are expecting the folk in College Station to throw a party if Sherman can put another .500 record! 

Such is the sad state of the country where there are more REAL MEN in San Francisco, California than in College Station, Texas, otherwise known as Cupcake Central!

Let’s have a great two days of college football as we continue this long and entertaining holiday weekend!

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Before we get the Week 13 MUST WIN Games for Coaches and Teams we would like to wish everyone, including you Candy Ass Pussies that are running the BCS a……

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

  

We would like to send out a special HAPPY THANKSGIVING to our US military folks that are serving overseas.  A few of us here at Coaches Hot Seat have been overseas in the US military on Thanksgiving Day and we can tell you the food is often not that great (although we heard it is a lot better today) and one is a long ways from home and his/her family.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all of our US military personnel and God Bless each and everyone of you.  We are thinking of you and hoping and praying for your safety and we cannot express how much we appreciate your service to our great country!

 

13 Coaches and Teams Facing MUST WIN Games in Week 13

Mike Sherman, Texas – It is probably asking too much of Mike Sherman that he actually beat a legitimate football team, because as most everyone knows that reads the newspapers in south Texas poor, little, ole Mike Sherman is precious little baby and he must be given 14 years to turn the Texas A&M football program around and it is time that the Big Bad Wolf quit huffing and puffing and trying to blow his straw house down…..NOT!  We here at Coaches Hot Seat really wonder if for some reason you must be a verified Candy Ass to write about the Texas A&M football program if you work for a Texas newspaper because the newspaper folk in Texas have been crying a trail of tears for precious Mike Sherman since he arrived in College Station two years ago.  Wake up folks!  Mike Sherman is the head football coach at Texas A&M!  In case you folks have forgotten it, A&M could hire any random rhino from any random zoo on the planet as the Aggie head coach and he could win 6 games a year in College Station and not even work a 40 hour week.  So let’s see here, any random rhino from any random zoo in the world could win 6 games a year at A&M and Mike Sherman’s overall record is now 10 – 13?  What?  That’s right, worse than if A&M had hired any random rhino 2 years ago!  No, it can’t be the Candy Asses otherwise known as the columnists in south Texas scream, “Precious little Mike Sherman is not doing worse than a random rhino!”  Maybe Mike Sherman is precious and we all must hold hands and sing “She’ll be coming around the mountain when she comes” and give Mike Sherman years and years and eventually….he will get “things right” in College Station.  Please, someone send some male hormones to all newspapers in south Texas because this is getting flat-out embarrassing as the Mike Sherman apology train rolls on into the night…. Of course, Mike Sherman could have compromising pictures of all of these Candy Asses otherwise known as columnists in south Texas and that is the reason why they butter him up like a 20lb turkey each week hoping that he will eventually pop out of the oven with a legitimate win over a real football team!  Well, maybe not, but it is really is sad that this is what Texas A&M football has come to…..Once the place where Paul “Bear” Bryant walked the sidelines is now little more than a place where a head coach can put up a 10 – 13 overall record and have ever carney barker from Beaumont to El Paso singing his praises and kissing his ass!  As Joe Friday used to say:  “Just the facts ma’am.”  Mike Sherman is 10 – 13 over and if he loses to Texas on Turkey Day he will be 10 – 14 overall and for the slow ones in the audience that works out to 5 wins and 7 losses a season.  No, that is definitely not Texas A&M football but don’t tell that to the Candy Asses that cover the Aggies because they are way too busy trying to figure out how they are going to plant and keep their lips on Mike Sherman’s derriere!  Yes, Texas is MUST WIN Game for Mike Sherman, unless you have a bright red ass and write for a newspaper in south Texas!

Steve Kragthorpe, Louisville – Steve Kragthorpe is 15 – 20 in his third season at Louisville and he took over the program from Bobby Petrino who won 41 0f 50 games in the preceding 4 seasons and that set of facts makes the Rutgers game a MUST WIN for Kragthorpe but we rather doubt that if Steve and the Cardinals beat the 1967 Green Bay Packers coached by the Great Vince Lombardi that Kragthorpe would be brought back for the 2010 season so maybe Rutgers isn’t a MUST WIN Game at all!  We could be wrong though and Kragthorpe will be brought back to the UofL next season win or lose this week, but if his was brought back his ass will be hotter than Secretariat coming out of the last turn at Churchill Downs in the 1973 Kentucky Derby when the season kicked off next September!

Steve Fairchild, Colorado State – After a very nice first year at CSU Steve Fairchild and the Rams have fallen on hard times in 2010 and without a conference win this season the Wyoming game is a MUST WIN if Fairchild doesn’t want to start the 2010 season on the Hot Seat.  Now at 3 – 8 on the season there isn’t a lot that can be done to salvage the year, but a win over Wyoming would at least calm down the CSU fan base that is chomping at the bit after the Rams started the season beating Colorado before collapsing down the stretch.  Yes, Wyoming is a MUST WIN Game for Steve Fairchild and Colorado State, because a loss will rightly keep Steve’s ass nice and toasty during that long Colorado winter, but his ass want be warm because of any heater, it will because of the Hot Seat!

Dan Hawkins, Colorado – As this is being written Colorado AD Mike Bohn is winging his way back to Boulder to more than likely tell Dan Hawkins that CU will bring him back for a fifth year to coach the Buffs.  Since it would cost around $3 million bucks to send Hawkins packing that probably is the best move in the middle of a deep recession and that higher education in the state of Colorado taking a massive hit budget wise recently.  Still  there is just no getting around the fact that Dan Hawkins’ overall record at CU is 16 – 32 (.333) which is not only beyond awful it is a record that any random man or woman chosen off Pearl Street in Boulder could have matched.  Yes, Hawkins’ record is that BAD at Colorado and that is why this week’s game with Nebraska is a MUST WIN.  If Colorado loses to Nebraska they will drop to 3 – 9 on the year and there is just no rational explanation for such a pitiful record when the Buffs didn’t really haven’t played that tough of a schedule in 2009.  Yes, Nebraska is a MUST WIN Game for Dan Hawkins, unless of course Colorado has already decided to replace him, which would make the Nebraska game little more than a sendoff to Dan as he heads off into semi-retirement with $3 million bucks in his back pocket (although we don’t see that happening!).

Steve Spurrier, South Carolina – A few weeks back after South Carolina got their sixth week over pitiful Vanderbilt we lit a candle here at Coaches Hot Seat to recognize the end of Steve Spurrier’s coaching career when the Ole’ Ball Coach showed up a press conference and said (paraphrase):

“You know a lot of teams would like to have 6 wins right now.”

Yes, we lit a candle for Steve Spurrier because when Steve is bragging about getting to 6 wins then you know it is really over, especially compared to the Steve Spurrier that many of us knew at Florida.  Yes, we will tell our kids about the Spurrier that used to run up the score, throw zingers at Bobby Bowden and anyone else that would dare get in the way of the Gators (See Kiffin, wait until you actually do something in your life before you open your big mouth!) and generally wreak havoc across the SEC, but now it has come to this, Steve Spurrier, former Heisman Trophy winner, the best coach in the SEC since Bear Bryant, the former King of the SEC conference now openly bragging about getting to 6 wins.  Yes, light that candle!  Our children sometimes see South Carolina play under Spurrier and wonder why we think so highly of the man to which we can only sigh and say, “He WAS a great football coach, but now…….”  Yes, South Carolina is a very difficult place to win football games at, but still Steve Spurrier is 34 – 27 (.557) in 5 seasons in Columbia (Spurrier was 122 – 27 – 1 (.813) in 12 seasons at Florida) and if that kind of record is good enough for Steve Spurrier then the Spurrier we used to know is no more.  South Carolina is 6 – 5 on the year, with their only 2 legitimate wins coming against Mississippi and Kentucky, and if they lose to Clemson they are .500 on the year and guess what….Steve Spurrier will be on the Hot Seat entering the 2010 football season.  We think the world of you Coach Spurrier, but accepting mediocrity is not going to cut it here at Coaches Hot Seat and it would have never cut it with the Steve Spurrier that used to walk the sidelines of the Swamp as the Head Ball Coach.  Yes, Clemson is a MUST WIN Game for Steve Spurrier and South Carolina, but then “a lot of teams would be grateful to have 6 wins right now.”  Please, someone get us a barf bag because we are about to throw up!

Mark Mangino, Kansas – We are still not quite sure what really has happened at Kansas in this last week as it pertains to Mark Mangino but one thing for sure it seems there are people at KU that want Mark Mangino out.  Maybe the people at KU that want Mangino out are not powerful enough to remove him without some kind of “smoking gun” which it seems they are determined to find, but one thing for sure Mark Mangino will only make matters worse if he and his Jayhawks are not able to beat Missouri this week.  Mark Mangino is 50 – 47 (.515) in 8 seasons at Kansas which is roughly equivalent to putting up a .800 winning percentage at real football school so it can’t be the win/loss record that is driving this anti-Mangino train in Lawrence, but it seems that the folks driving that train will have a little more coal to throw on the fire if KU loses to Missouri.  Kansas is 5 – 6 on the ’09 season and they need a win in their last game to get .500 which would lead to their third straight bowl game and fifth bowl game in the last seven years.  Yes, Missouri is a MUST WIN Game for Mark Mangino but we are starting to wonder if there is really anything that Mangino can do to hold onto his job at Kansas.  Probably not, and if that is the case then someone is going to have a Hellava lot of explaining to do at the press conference announcing Mangino’s dismissal.

Bobby Bowden, Florida – The tea leaves seem to be saying that Bobby Bowden will be back in 2010 no matter what happens at The Swamp this week but it is a little troubling to us that anyone in Tallahassee or anywhere else on this planet believes that a 6 – 6 record by FSU in 2009 is anything beyond mediocre at best and downright awful at worse.  It was only a few years ago that a 6 – 6 record under Bobby Bowden at FSU would have had everyone from the average Seminole fan up to Bowden himself screaming that the world was coming to an end, but at the end of Bowden’s coaching career it seems that wins and losses don’t really matter at all.  In Paul “Bear” Bryant’s last year on the job at Alabama in 1982 he told a reporter that “I just can’t coach them anymore” in reference to his Alabama players and that was after putting up what was considered a very average8 – 4 record in that season.  Evidently at Florida State under this living legend 6 – 6 is not only accepted, it is something to be celebrated and rewarded, which just strikes us here at Coaches Hot Seat as very damn odd.  Yes, beating Florida would be big, but it does seem that Florida could beat FSU could beat 500 – 0 at the Swamp and there would be people blowing smoke up everyone ass telling people that things really aren’t all that bad at FSU.  Please, someone drop us an email when FSU starts playing football again because this is not the FSU or Bobby Bowden football that we grew up on and have known in our lives.

Paul Wulff, Washington State – Now at the end of his second year on the job at Washington State, Paul Wulff is 3 – 21 (.125) and badly in need of a win, any win, but especially a win in the Apple Cup to make the utter disaster that has been his tenure at WSU look at least a little better.  In Ty Willingham’s last year at Washington (2008) the Huskies gave away the Apple Cup game and we are guessing that there is hope that WSU can roll into Washington and get a big win, but we rather doubt that Steve Sarkisian and UW is going to allow that to happen.  Of course, it seems that Paul Wulff could lose the Apple Cup, lose every game in 2010, lose every game in 2011, lose every game in 2012 and the folks running athletics at Washington State would throw him a party and sign him to a lifetime contract!  Somewhere along the line at WSU the difference between reality and fantasy has been disconnected because the Washington State football team has been getting the Hell beat out of it by every legitimate football team they have played under Paul Wulff’s watch at WSU and that fact doesn’t seem to matter one whit to the folks in Pullman.  Maybe the problem in Pullman is that to fire Paul Wulff would cause someone to have to admit that he wasn’t the right hire to replace Bill Doba, who by the way put up a record of 30 – 29 (.508) in five seasons on the job at WSU.  Yes, Bill Doba was 30 – 29 in five seasons at WSU and was considered a failure and was run out of town on a rail but Paul Wulff is 3 – 21 and in many of those 21 losses the Cougs have gotten the living Hell beat out of them and Wulff is considered the second coming of Vince Lombard in Pullman.  Please, send some IQ pills up to Pullman soon before this gets really stupid!  Also, would someone at WSU or in the Coug fan base drop us an email when Washington State starts playing football against because right now it looks like that they are doing little more than playing with an Easy Bake Oven!  The cupcakes are ready!

Lane Kiffin, Tennessee – It was hard for us to predict what kind of record that Lane Kiffin would put up in his first year on the job in Knoxville but we predicted 5 -7 and the only game we have missed so far was the Tennessee win over South Carolina (We didn’t expect for Steve Spurrier to get to 6 wins in 2009 and just mail in the rest of the season, so bad on us for that!).  Now that Kiffin and the Vols have gotten to 6 wins they face a very important game against Kentucky because UK is they type of game that Tennessee should win in most years and in what will be Kiffin’s 12 th game on the job, but if he cannot beat UK then that makes us wonder what the Vols will look like in 2010.  We did predict an 8 – 4 record for Rich Brooks and Kentucky in 2009 and we called this UK – UT game for the Wildcats so it will be interesting to see if Brooks can rally his troops to finish off what will be a very good year.  If Kiffin and the Vols do lose to UK then that will be a 6 – 6 record in ’09 and almost assuredly Kiffin will enter the 2010 campaign on the Hot Seat with a very toasty rear-end!

Charlie Weis, Notre Dame – It seems like the writing is on the wall for Weis at Notre Dame and that the ND administration is going to be in the market for a new head coach early next week.  Yes, Stanford is still a MUST WIN for Charlie Weis because he would like to go out a winner at Notre Dame to stick it to the folks in South Bend and elsewhere that have said he couldn’t cut it as a head coach, but also because that is the way things are done by Jersey Boys!  The most identifying trait of Charlie Weis during his tenure at Notre Dame has been his incredible arrogance which was not limited just to his Big Mouth, but also to things like wearing one of his Patriots Super Bowl ring to a press conference after a loss in 2007.  More than likely Weis got that arrogance from Bill Parcels who is easily one of the most arrogant humans walking the planet right now, but who is also one of the biggest winners in NFL history.  Here’s the thing about arrogance though, if you are going to be an arrogant ass then you have to back it up and Charlie Weis most certainly did not back it up at Notre Dame.  He took someone else’s recruits in his first couple of years at Notre Dame and won a lot of games over mediocre competition but got his ass handed to him in the bowl games when the Irish played legitimate teams.  The 2008 and 2009 Notre Dame seasons have for the most part been filled with close wins over mediocre teams and close to big losses to the legitimate teams on the schedule and in the end what will cause Charlie Weis’ firing is that he came no where close to meeting the overall objectives and goals at Notre Dame which is (or should be) to win championships.  If you really want to know where Notre Dame is in the pecking order of college football in 2009 just look at the latest Sagarin Team ratings which have the Irish checking in at No. 46 behind Central Michigan, Houston, Kentucky, South Florida and even I-AA Villanova.  Yes, right now the Irish are an average college football team that could not beat Navy and UConn at home and if you are the head coach at Notre Dame in your fifth year on the job and you cannot beat Navy and UConn at home in South Bend then you should be fired and that is exactly what is about to happen to Charlie Weis.  Overall, we would grade Weis’ coaching at Notre Dame with a grade of C, not too good, not too bad, just basically an average job that any random high school coach could have achieved at Notre Dame.  Weis is 35 – 26 (.574) in 5 seasons at Notre Dame which is only marginally better than what Gerry Faust put up in 5 seasons, 30 – 26 – 1 (.526) and it is widely thought in college football that Gerry Faust’s hiring by ND was an utter disaster.  Even though Charlie Weis did struggle at Notre Dame and proved to not be up to the task at winning at place that is not all that hard to win at, we do believe that if Notre Dame hires a quality head football coach that has a proven track record of winning games and championships the Irish will be a very good football team again very quickly.  We pretty much know who we would try to hire as the next head coach at Notre Dame if we were making the call, and it will be very damn interesting to see which direction the Irish go because if they make a another mistake in this spot and ND wallows around for another fives year with a mediocre football program then Notre Dame football might be completely dead 5 years from now.  Yes, this is a very important hire for Notre Dame and they have an AD in Jack Swarbrick that has never hired a football coach and a president at ND that has proved to not be that adept at hiring football coaches.  That is a lethal combination and when you combine it with the hubris at Notre Dame that all too often and too quickly forgets the mistakes that have been made in the very recent past you have a recipe for disaster.  Avoiding disaster in the next head coaching hire is first up and then hiring a head coach that can actually win some games and championships is next.  We would recommend the folks at Notre Dame focus on the first hurdle before they try for the second and that means doing the hard and often tricky behind the scenes work that is necessary to land the coach that Notre Dame believes will return it to the promise land!  If the Notre Dame folks mess this up, and going by their recent track record we have every expectation that they will, Notre Dame football could be in some very deep trouble that even an entire network devoted to them will not be able to fix.  Of course, if they get it right……

Mark Richt, Georgia – Yes, things have fallen very quickly for Mark Richt at Georgia but for those that have been paying attention they have seen this debacle coming for a couple of years now as the play on the field has noticeably slipped, starting with the 41 – 30 whipping that the Dawgs took against Alabama in 2008.  Since that Alabama whipping, Mark Richt and Georgia are 12 – 8 overall and they are staring at a Georgia Tech team that may very well run that to 12 – 9.  That Richt and Georgia might be looking at a streak where they have won only 12 of their last 21 games would have been stunning to contemplate only a couple of years ago, because Richt had put up a record of 82 – 22 (.788) in his first 8 years on the job which made him one of the winningest coaches in the game (Hell, even now he is still the 8 th winningest coach in the game with a .765 winning percentage!)  Yes, the Georgia Tech game is a MUST WIN for Mark Richt because a loss in this spot will most certainly mean that he will be on the Hot Seat entering the 2010 season and the Hot Seat is not a fun place to be in a conference like the SEC.  As we have said in this Blog before when we watch Georgia play in the last couple of years, especially against the very best teams in the SEC, it looks like they are really struggling at the line of scrimmages and in tackling, especially later in the game when it looks like the Dawgs are wearing down.  One of our tech folks put together a series of about 30 plays where it looks like Georgia is getting good effort from their players but they are just getting blown off the ball, manhandled, or are not able to get a running back or receiver to the ground in a timely manner.  To us that points to some serious problems or at least a serious issue with the conditioning and strength programs at Georgia and that is something that can be corrected by adapting methods that are being used by the best teams in college football.  Just being able to make the right calls or come up with the best scheme is no longer good enough in college football and especially in the SEC conference, because the better teams have turned the physical side of their games up several notches in recent years and it looks to us that Georgia has fallen behind dramatically in this very important area.  If Georgia under Mark Richt wants to become a serious player again in the SEC then they had better damn get a lot stronger, a lot faster, and a lot more physical in the coming offseason or Mark Richt might very well find himself out of job come December 2010.  Yes, Georgia Tech is a MUST WIN for Mark Richt and Georgia because if the Yellow Jackets roll Richt’s rear-end will be rolling onto the fire!  Anyone want Smores!

Les Miles, LSU – Talk about a fast fall, it was only a couple of weeks ago that Miles and the Tigers were battling Alabama down to the wire, but after a brain-lock debacle at the end of the Mississippi game by the entire LSU coaching staff, Les Miles is finding out first-hand about how tough life can be on the Bayou when the win column is not being filled up.  The end of the LSU – Mississippi game confirmed what we have always known here at Coaches Hot Seat, namely that coaching football is not rocket science.  For fans that really follow the game of college football the simple decisions about when to punt, kick a field goal, call a time out, etc., are decisions that any random college football fan could easily make, even under the heat of battle.  The other things that go with coaching: preparation, evaluating players, recruiting, calling plays, the mental side of the game, motivating a team, etc., are all things that a coach learns on the job just as an average person learns in his job as he gains more experience.  The end of the LSU – Mississippi game was a situation where if the LSU coaching staff had just left the field and handed over the headsets to a couple of average LSU fans, LSU would have easily won that football game.  Once LSU got the ball down to the 30 yard line anyone with a lick of common sense would have run the ball three times and then called a timeout to kick the game winning field goal, especially considering how immature and inexperienced the LSU QB has proven to be this season.  Run the ball three times with your good backs and kick the ball to win the game.  That is what any average fan would have done and what LSU and Les Miles should have done but a pass play was called that turned into a disaster, a timeout was not called quickly that was a bigger disaster and then the coaching staff was not ready to run the field goal team on the field because the LSU coaching staff thought that the they were looking at the last play of the game and were not prepared for a LSU receiver to catch the ball and for 1 second to be remaining on the clock after the first down stopped it.  Yes, it was a massive brain-lock by the LSU coaching staff that cost them the game against Mississippi and when you are paying a head coach almost $4 million dollars a year there is just no excuse in the world for a brain-lock in that position.  Very simply, Les Miles and his coaching staff blew the game against Mississippi and they are now facing a MUST WIN Game against a surging Arkansas team that might very well roll into Death Valley and lay a whipping on the Tigers.  If that happens, Les Miles is going to find himself not only on the Hot Seat, but in a lot of trouble down on the Bayou!  Crawfish anyone!

Pete Carroll, USC – There has been a lot of debate this season around Coaches Hot Seat about what has gone wrong with Pete Carroll and the Trojans in 2009, because we started seeing cracks at USC during fall camp.  The first thing that really struck as odd was that Pete Carroll started a QB in Matt Barkley over a QB that had played and won games in the SEC conference, but also that Pete Carroll seemed at times like he was trying to talk himself into the idea that Barkley was the answer for the Trojans.  The Ohio State game was another yellow flag, because when a team thoroughly dominates a team in one season and then looks like it almost forgot to play football the next year against the same opponent, then something is clearly wrong (The problem with playing Ohio State close is that the Big Ten as a conference is playing only just above the MAC and with all the drama this year in if Iowa could stay unbeaten or not we were only hoping it would happen and that somehow Iowa would find itself in a meaningful bowl game against a legitimate football team, but it was not to be.  Ohio State is an OK football team, but if Ohio State played in the SEC they would get beaten like a red-headed step child as would the rest of Big Ten, which is a reality that the national media seems to forget as they move into the Big Ten love fest every year and forget that anytime a Big Ten team plays a power team in a game that actually means something to the players (that would be the national title game only since every other bowl game is a meaningless exhibition game that means about as much a pile of cow dung) the Big Ten gets pushed around, embarrassed and whipped).  Back to Carroll and USC.  Next up was the debacle at Washington where Aaron Corp looked like a guy that couldn’t start for at QB for any high school in the country forget a I-A college team, but it wasn’t just Corp, the Washington game was the first time that we saw Trojan players quit and not play hard, but it wouldn’t be the last.  The next debacle for Pete Carroll was against the Oregon Ducks where not only did USC get whipped, at least half the starters flat-out quit during the game and watched the Ducks whip them like there was no tomorrow.  Are you starting to see a trend here?  Thought so.  Next up was the almost loss to a really pitiful team in Arizona State which almost told us as much about the Trojans as the debacle the week before in Eugene.  Oh, that game in Tempe was ugly for USC.  The most recent debacle, but probably not the last for USC in 2009, was the whipping by a Stanford team that was filled with players that not only did USC not recruit, we rather doubt if there were more than 2 or 3 players on the Stanford roster that Pete Carroll would take right now if given the opportunity.  Not only did Stanford beat USC they whipped them like it was 1999 and Pete Carroll stood there on the sidelines wondering where did it all go wrong as his Trojans once against flat-out quit in a football game.  What was it Paul “Bear” Bryant once said:

“The first time you quit, it’s hard.  The second time, it gets easier.  The third time, you don’t even have to think about it.”

Yes, that about sums up the USC Trojans in 2009!

Memo to Pete Carroll:  It all went wrong when you started a QB in Matt Barkley that would be lucky to start at half the teams in I-A football and from August on you have been trying to convince anyone that would listen that Barkley was the second-coming of Joe Namath and Joe Montana all wrapped into one.  NOT!  The USC players took your decision to start Barkley as a signal that competition was no longer the deciding factor in who starts anymore at USC, which also extended to some other positions, and that has led to some players only giving half-hearted efforts during several games this year and the debacles at Washington and Oregon.  Throw in an assistant coaching staff that is often confused on the sidelines and Pete Carroll running around trying to do the jobs that are not being done by his assistants and you can add it all up and it comes out to a team that is as talented as any in the country that is sitting with a 7 – 3 record and three games where at least some of the USC players flat-out quit.

We now arrive at UCLA week for the Trojans and Pete Carroll has got to be very concerned that his team might just quit again in the LA Coliseum if they get behind and that would lead to Carroll’s greatest fear:  LOSING TO RICK NEUHEISEL AND NORM CHOW!

Yes, that is one of the Pete Carroll’s greatest fears that the guy he sent packing only a few years ago, Norm Chow, in order to promote Steve Sarkisian and Big Mouth Lane Kiffin could come into the LA Coliseum and beat Pete Carroll’s ass.  Oh, the nightmares that Pete must have!

Yes, the UCLA game is a MUST WIN Game for Pete Carroll and the Trojans because if USC loses to the Bruins then they might just lose to Arizona to end the season and USC would then be looking at 7 – 5 and everyone would be saying the same thing….

IT’S OVER.

Now, we don’t think it’s over for USC…..yet, but if Pete Carroll wants to continue to not play the best players on his football team then he is going to continue to have dissension (a dissension that Pete cannot feel, does not know is happening and is blind to because he does not look into those areas of his team’s psyche) that has led to his USC team quitting in at least two to three games this season.

Yes, Pete Carroll, you have a Hellava mess on your hands and if you want to trace back to where it all when wrong, remember the first time you came out of practice in August and started to talk up Matt Barkley trying to convince yourself and anyone that would listen that he was the best QB on the USC football team.  No, Pete Carroll, Matt Barkley is not only not the best QB on your football team, he wouldn’t even get a sniff at starting over a couple of 40-somethings on the Coaches Hot Seat flag-football team.

We will be watching the UCLA – USC game very closely to see if the USC Trojans quit again and get beat by another team with far less talent this season.  If USC does quit again and lose to the Bruins, Pete Carroll will have to do something that he hasn’t done in his entire lifetime….He will have to admit that he was wrong and then he will have to quit pussy-footing around with his football team and run their asses at practice until he finds out who really wants to play at USC and who doesn’t.  Our guess, there are at least 20 scholarship players that would flat-out quit before Pete even got them really running.

Yes, UCLA is a MUST WIN for Pete Carroll and the Trojans!

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A Washington PR Hack working for a Candy Ass that is representing Candy Asses?……..Yes, it be so! – Now that the Candy Ass BCS Boys have hired Ari Fleischer “Sports Communications” firm to try and bail their asses out of the biggest travesty in the history of sport on the planet Earth, the BCS, we thought it would be appropriate to visit Ari’s website to see what his strategies are when it comes to handling PR for sports folks:

www.fleischersports.com/home.php

From Ari Fleischer’s website:

“The way the press treats athletes and sports executives has become increasingly adversarial and conflict-driven. Athletes who are trained to give it all and leave it on the field now face a public and a media that demand more. On the other hand, players and executives who get it often find their careers are launched to higher, more successful, lucrative levels — thanks to the good publicity they receive.”

So the problem with the BCS is the publicity it has been getting?  NOT!  The problem with the BCS is that the BCS is a massive fraud that is nothing more than a bogus championship game and four other meaningless exhibition games that MEAN NOTHING AT ALL!  Yes, that is why the BCS is in the crapper publicity wise and there is not a thing in the world that Ari Fleischer or anyone else on the planet can do to alter the public’s view of the bogus BCS because the American people are not so stupid that they will drop to their knees and have a change of heart and mind just because a PR hack opens his mouth.  No, that is not how Americans live their lives.

Very simply:  The BCS is a fraud and it is destroying the game of college football and the people that are running the BCS do not give a damn about anything but counting money and holding onto power.  If anyone actually believes that any of these BCS Boys give two rips about any coach or player in Division I-A college football or even the fans that pay every cent of their salaries then you are an idiot and fool.  No, you are beyond an idiot and a fool, you are a Candy ASS BCS Lover! 

Yes, that is our opinion.

We will say that we have run into Ari Fleischer a few times over the years at political events and Ari is a nice guy and he worked for a terrific guy during his career, former Republican Senator from New Mexico Pete Domenici.  As for the two-and-a-half years that Ari was the press secretary at the White House we note he left in July 2003 which is about four months into the Iraq War, otherwise known here at Coaches Hot Seat as a stupid war started by a bunch of buffoons that didn’t know up from down which they did to oust a two-bit dictator out of a two-bit country (And that is coming from folks that actually were in a real and legitimate war in Desert Storm in 1991 that did exactly what we told the world we were going to do, remove Saddam’s Iraqi forces from Kuwait.  Of course, that we were in a real war differentiated us from 95 percent of the clowns that took us back into Iraq in 2003 that were serving in the National Guard, hiding out in college getting deferments, and generally doing all they could do to stay out of the conflict of their time, the Vietnam War.  That’s the problem when you have Candy Asses planning wars, they often make very big mistakes and the Iraq War is a $1 TRILLION DOLLAR mistake that poor Ari Fleischer had to defend, for four months that was….)

We think we know what is scaring the Hell out of the BCS Boys and that is that they see an Attorney General in Eric Holder who has proved in recent weeks that he will follow the laws of our country wherever they take him, even if following the laws of our country might cost him, his political party and his President politically.  We have been a little uneasy with the decision by AG Holder to bring the terrorists that committed 9/11 to New York to try them for their high crimes, but there is not doubt in our minds that US law requires us to try these bastards in our court system because they committed a crime in the United States.  Yes, we do worry about these bastard terrorists trying to put on a show trial or that putting them on trial in New York might lead to more terrorist attacks in that great City, but the law is the law and that means that we try these bastards in our courts and that we trust our US Justice department to muster the necessary evidence to both convict these bastards and put them to death if that is the eventual sentence.  Since a few of these bastard terrorists have already admitted they organized and committed 9/11 on videotape we are very confident they will be found guilty and put to death. 

What should really worry the BCS Boys is that if AG Holder will move to try the bastard terrorists that committed 9/11 in New York when that decision might very well cost him, his political party and the President politically in the next couple of elections then we also believe that if AG Holder finds that the BCS violates US law as pertaining competition, civil rights violations, and breaks other US laws then we are confident he will have the US Justice Department move against the BCS in the courts.  Yes, that should worry the Hell out of the BCS Boys, because at least from where we sit we believe it is very clear that the BCS violates the Sherman Antitrust Act, US Civil Rights Laws, US educational laws as it pertains to equal access for schools that get US financial aid and grants (which is every college or university in I-A football), and a few more US laws and that means that we believe that if an full and honest look by the US Justice Department is completed, the BCS Boys are going to find themselves and the bogus BCS in a lot of hot water.  No, not on Hot Seat, but in VERY REAL AND VERY HOT WATER!

As for AG Eric Holder we have run into him a few times over the years at political events and although the AG’s politics are too liberal for our liking we have always believed he is one of the straightest shooters in politics/government and that he will evaluate the 9/11 terrorists and where they should be tired AND the BCS based upon the laws of our country.

 Yes, the BCS Boys you should be very damn concerned!

 What really got our attention about the hiring Ari Fleischer’s firm is that the BCS really hired Ari Fleischer’s firm.  That the Candy Ass BCS Boys are concerned enough about what they see coming down the pike against their bogus BCS tells us a lot about what is really going on inside the BCS structure right now.  Let’s just be honest here folks.  The BCS Boys pushed Bill Hancock out there on stage in front of the pissed off public and elected officials because the BCS Boys don’t have the courage to go into the news media and defend their bogus BCS.  That’s right, not only is the BCS Bogus, but the people running the BCS are some of the most yellow-bellied, scared to death of defending what they know is a fraud, and cowardly people in the United States today.  Yes, it is our opinion that the BCS Boys are not only CANDY ASSES, they are COWARDS.  Yes, you are COWARDS and all of you BCS Boys should be ashamed of defending this travesty of a system in a country that was founded upon the idea that “All Men Are Created Equal.”  Take that Bill Hancock and try to explain to your grandchildren that for some reason the BCS is somehow exempt from the principles of the American Republic.  We know you can’t tell that to your grandchildren because like all of the other BCS Boys, you are a massive HYPOCRITE and when you get right down to it all of the BCS Boys should be embarrassed that they dare call themselves Americans.  Americans have not in their history supported and will not today support something as discriminatory and unfair as the Bogus BCS and that is reason that anyone that is not getting his pockets stuffed with BCS money will rightly say:  You BCS Boys Should Be Ashamed and Of Course All of You Can Go To Hell! 

 BCS “executive director” Bill Hancock’s beyond stupid comments on football being a “physical game.”

One of the things that BCS “executive director” Bill Hancock said the other day on the Dan Patrick Show was that one of the reasons that I-A college football could not have a postseason playoff was because football “was a physical game.”  Yes, we agree with Hancock that football is a “physical game” but for some very strange reason on every other level of football besides I-A they have a postseason playoff.  How in the Hell do you possibly explain that Hancock?  Pee-Wee, 70 lb., 90, lb, 105 lb., junior high, high school, Division II, Division I-A, and the NFL ALL HAVE A POSTSEASON PLAYOFF TO DETERMINE THEIR CHAMPION but Bill “executive director” Hancock believes that for some reason that the folks playing I-A football are somehow different and that is them and them only that are playing a “physical game.”  Of course that argument is beyond lunacy because anyone that has played organized football in his life knows that there is regular season and then there is a postseason playoff of the top teams to crown a champion…except of course for I-A football which uses the Bogus BCS.  We guess that Bill Hancock must think that the people playing I-A football are not the same type of MEN that play football at every other level in the United States of America.  No, that can’t be because we know the MEN that coach and play football at the I-A level and they are real MEN and they are real AMERICANS.  The non-Men are the BCS Boys and let’s just be brutally honest here:  The folks behind and running the Bogus BCS are not only not MEN they are pussies.  They are the opposite of real MEN and it is our opinion that they are not REAL AMERICANS, because REAL AMERICANS always settle championships on the field of play where everyone can see who the real champion really is.  REAL AMERICANS don’t hide behind bogus polls, computer dweebs in dark rooms writing code, drinking Mountain Dew and pumping out total bullshit and then putting all of that garbage together and calling it a “ranking.”  REAL AMERICANS settle things on the field of play where champions earn the title of champion by beating the best teams in their sport, not hoping that bunch or Candy Asses in ugly colored blazers that have completely opposite objectives and goals to the game of college football “choose” them to play in a bogus and meaningless exhibition game..  No, that is no how America works, expect for the Candy Ass Bogus BCS.  Therein lies the problem, we have bunch of pussies running the BCS that not only don’t know up from down, for the vast majority of them they would not have survived 10 seconds on a real football field with REAL MEN.

A “Physical Game” Bill Hancock?  Please, I hope that the arguments you have made so far in defending the Bogus BCS are not your best, because right now you are making an absolute fool of yourself and the Bogus BCS.

Come on, we all know what is really going on with the BCS and the bowl games with I-A college football, don’t we? – The bowl games OWN college football and if the bowl games told the BCS Boys to drop trow and piss on their desks the BCS Boys would be dropping trow around the country within moments of that order going out.  The bowls are beyond an absurdity for a college football postseason and are little more than creations to try and gin up tourist traffic in the dead of winter, hardly something that should be considered a tradition or something that any college football fan should give two rips about.  A game that has little more than a carney barker/travel agent trying to sell a tourist destination that oh by the way includes a meaningless exhibition game should not be what the college football postseason should be about, but then when you realize we have a bunch of pussies that would be lucky to know what’s in the Declaration of Independence really says forget about them knowing who wrote and ratified it, then it is easier to understand the real motives behind the Bogus BCS.

Just look at this idiocy with the BCS.  The Ohio State Buckeyes who are Big Ten Champions are scheduled to play in the Rose Bowl on January 1, 2010.  That is a 40 day break between Ohio State’s last regular season game and their meaningless exhibition game with at least a two-loss Pac-10 champion (that either lost to Boise State or Cincinnati earlier this year, but who cares about real games that actually happened, right?).  Now Bill “executive director” Hancock said in his interview with Dan Patrick that one of the reasons that these precious little football players couldn’t participate in a postseason playoff was because of their “final exams.”  Uh, Billy Boy, Ohio State’s “final exams” are scheduled for December 7 – 10.  So here we have a football team that will have 40 days between their last regular season game and their meaningless exhibition game against at least a 2-loss Pac-10 Champion (that either lost to Boise State or Cincinnati earlier this year, but who cares about real games that actually happened, right?) and OSU’s final exams are over December 10.  Can you say another bogus argument has just been blown out of the water by the Candy Ass that was making that argument who represents some of the biggest Candy Asses in America today, the BCS Boys?  Why yes we can!  Don’t forget the Washington DC based PR hack also! 

We all know what is going on here.  The bowls own college football and in our opinion use the coaches and players in Division I-A football like cheap whores in order to promote tourist destinations in the dead of winter.  Throw in free gifts and, shopping sprees for players (which for some reason doesn’t seem to fit with “amateur athletics” because we don’t see the NCAA basketball tournament or any other legitimate NCAA championships handing out gifts to “student-athletes”) parades, beauty queens, pie eating contests, visits to theme parks and about everything you can think of besides the playing of a real and legitimate football game and you pretty much know all you need to know about the BCS.  Oh, we can’t forget the greedy bastard BCS Boys that rather like keeping all the money and power and the Hell with teams that finish undefeated and don’t get to play for the national title.  No, we can’t forget that!

As for playing in the meaningless exhibition games that make up the BCS, only a real loser would give two rips if he or his team plays in a meaningless exhibition game that means nothing.  Americans play for championships and titles.  Losers claim to give a damn about a football game that means nothing….Oh, that’s right, playing in one of these meaningless exhibition games does pay well, which fits right in with the greedy bastards on Wall Street that value money over real things and the principles of our country which the BCS Boys also embrace with gusto!  Say you give a rip about playing in a meaningless exhibition game if you like, but sure the Hell don’t call yourself an American if you defend the bogus BCS which is nothing more than a sham run by a bunch of pussies.

Yes, that is our opinion and as for the opinion of the BCS Boys on their Bogus BCS they know very well where we think they can shove that….that’s right, right where the Sun don’t shine!

Now, let’s imagine and take a look at a college football postseason if Americans and not Candy Ass pussies were running it would actually look like!

Now let’s get to the Post-Week 12 Coaches Hot Seat Power Playoff Poll:

Coaches Hot Seat Power Playoff Poll, Post-Week 12

1. Texas*

2. Alabama*

3. Florida#

4. Boise State*

5. Cincinnati*

6. TCU#

7. Georgia Tech*

8. Pitt#

9. Ohio State*

10. Oregon*

11. Oklahoma State#

12. Iowa#

13. Clemson#

14. Penn State#

15. Virginia Tech

16. Oregon State

17. BYU

18. Mississippi

19. Miami

20. California

*Conference Champs

#At-Large Teams

Other Conference Champs

CUSA/SB – Houston*

MAC – Central Michigan*

We now use the above Power Playoff Poll to seed a 16-team college football postseason playoff tournament, although we would prefer that a committee similar to the committee for the NCAA basketball tournament be used to pick the 7 wild card teams and then seed the 9 conference champions and 7 wild card teams in the postseason tournament.  Below are the First Round Games if the season had ended after Week 12.

First Round Games – Friday/Saturday December 18-19, 2009

Texas – Big 12 Champion

Central Michigan – MAC Champion

 

Oklahoma State - #4 At-Large Team

Boise State – MWC/WAC Champion

 

Pitt – #3 At-Large Team

Iowa – #5 At-Large Team

 

Clemson – #6 At-Large Team

Florida – #1 At-Large Team

 

TCU – #2 At-Large Team

Oregon – Pac-10 Champion

 

Penn State – #7 At-Large Team

Georgia Tech – ACC Champion

 

Cincinnati – Big East Champion

Ohio State – Big Ten Champion

 

Houston – CUSA/Sun Belt Champion

Alabama – SEC Champion

Come on now, is there really anyone that isn’t a pussy that would favor the BCS over a legitimate 16-team playoff to determine the National Champion in college football?  Certainly there can’t be an American citizen that would favor the Bogus BCS over a playoff (unless he’s a pussy of course!)…..no way, Americans that were descended from the great fighters of the American Revolution, the Civil War, World Wars I & II, the Korean and Vietnam War, the fight for Civil Rights, the Cold War and the fight against the Soviet Union, and the fight against these bastard terrorists could possibly favor the Bogus BCS over a playoff!  No, it can’t be….unless you happen to be a pussy and believe us the folks behind the BCS are some of the biggest pussies and Candy Asses on the planet and you can take that to the bank because we have met a number of these folks and from what we saw they spend more time in front of a mirror worrying about their hair and clothes than actually doing an honest day’s work!  That is the sure mark of a pussy and these BCS Boys are real pussies!

Yes, Real Americans on one side of the debate and bunch of Candy Ass pussies on the other.  We know where we stand, but the real question is, where are you standing: With the Candy Ass pussies or with the American people?

By the way, the Free Dictionary defines pussy as:

A man regarded as weak, timid, or unmanly.

Yes, that about sums up the Candy Ass BCS Boys!

Coming Thanksgiving Day morning, the Week 13 MUST WIN Games and there are some doozies with some very well known and big-time coaches facing MUST WIN Games this week!

Happy Thanksgiving to ALL!

Tags: Uncategorized by Joe
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Another week of football and so much more to write about than there is the time to do that writing.  Before we get to the Post Week 12 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings let’s talk about a few things that have caught our attention:

 

Bill Hancock on Dan Patrick Show – The new “executive director” of the BCS was on the Dan Patrick Radio Show last week and that interview only confirmed our opinion of both the BCS and the people that are running it.  We wouldn’t know Bill Hancock if he walked by us in downtown San Francisco and we only had heard his name a few times around college athletics before he was put in as the spokesman of the BCS, but after listening to Hancock on the DP Show it is our opinion that the BCS Boys found a very good spokesman because Bill Hancock sounds like a Candy Ass to us.  (Listen to the interview with Bill Hancock and decide for yourself:  Hancock on Dan Patrick Radio Show).  In our opinion the arguments made by Bill Hancock for the BCS are beyond lunacy but is anyone really surprised that a guy getting paid by someone to defend something, no matter how bogus, would defend that something?  Bill Hancock may believe in the BCS, but if he does it is our opinion that he is a Candy Ass because it is our opinion that the BCS from the college presidents on down through the conference commissioners, the bowl executives and sadly, many college ADs are easily the biggest and most identifiable group of Candy Asses in America today.  When you have some free time look into the backgrounds of the people that are running the BCS and you will find that most of them have never in their lives run a for profit business that actually had to operate in the real world.  Sorry an athletic conference or a bowl game that has a built-in monopoly and is supported by a bunch of Candy Asses that wouldn’t last 5 seconds on a football field is not a real business.  Of course, in the real world as opposed to the Candy Ass BCS a very uniquely American thing happened over the weekend when the NCAA picked and seeded the college teams for the Division I Football Championship (old Division I-AA).  The BCS “executive director” (in our opinion full-time Candy Ass PR hack) Bill Hancock said in the Dan Patrick interview that football was “too physical” of a game to have playoffs, but then we look at the NCAA’s press release on the I-AA playoffs and what do we find?  The following teams seeded into a playoff bracket and guess what, they are playing the game of football: 

The 2009 NCAA Division I Football Championship game is slated for 8 p.m. Eastern time Friday, December 18, at W. Max Finley Stadium/Davenport Field in Chattanooga, Tennessee. ESPN2/ESPN2HD/ESPN360.com will televise the championship game. More games may possibly be televised in the first round as well as additional rounds. Television schedules and games times for all rounds of the 2009 championship will be updated daily at the NCAA Sports web site (www.ncaa.com/football).

November 28 at Missoula, Montana
South Dakota St. (8-3) at No. 1 Montana (11-0)

November 28 at Nacogdoches, Texas
Eastern Wash. (8-3) at Stephen F. Austin (9-2)

November 28 at Richmond, Virginia
Elon (9-2) at No. 4 Richmond (10-1)

November 28 at Boone, North Carolina (ESPNU/ESPNUHD at Noon ET)
South Carolina St. (10-1) at Appalachian St. (9-2)

November 28 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Holy Cross (9-2) at No. 2 Villanova (10-1)

November 28 at Lake Charles, Louisiana
New Hampshire (9-2) at McNeese St. (9-2)

November 28 at Carbondale, Illinois
Eastern Ill. (8-3) at No. 2 Southern Ill. (10-1)

November 28 at Williamsburg, Virginia
Weber St. (7-4) at William & Mary (9-2)

The 2009 championship field consists of eight automatic qualifiers and eight at-large qualifiers.

AUTOMATIC QUALIFIERS (8)

Montana	Big Sky Conference
Villanova	Colonial Athletic Association
South Carolina State	Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference
Southern Illinois	Missouri Valley Football Conference
Eastern Illinois	Ohio Valley Conference
Holy Cross	Patriot League
Appalachian State	Southern Conference
Stephen F. Austin	Southland Conference

 

AT-LARGE QUALIFERS (8)

Eastern Washington	Big Sky Conference
Weber State	Big Sky Conference
New Hampshire	Colonial Athletic Conference
Richmond	Colonial Athletic Association
William and Mary	Colonial Athletic Association
South Dakota State	Missouri Valley Football Conference
Elon	Southern Conference
McNeese State	Southland Conference

 

Can you believe it?  The NCAA is conducting a playoff in college football, which is the same system used at every level of football right down to the Pee-Wee football level, but for some reason the Candy Ass BCS Boys believe that it would be a travesty if I-A football did the same.  Dan Patrick pointed out that we could even use the bowls within the playoff and Candy Ass Bill Hancock (that is our opinion that Bill Hancock is a Candy Ass) said that is even not doable.  We encourage you to listen to the Hancock interview that is linked above and listen for yourself to the bogus reasons that I-A college football cannot have a playoff and then consider that every other level of football has a postseason playoff.  Yes, there might be a few Candy Asses in America that would choose the BCS over a postseason playoff in I-A college football, but there can’t be many that don’t work for or make money off the BCS, because the Americans we run into a regular basis in our jobs and moving about in our communities are generally not Candy Asses.

Yes, Bill Hancock not only do we think you are a Candy Ass you should be ashamed that you are defending such a bogus system.  Frankly, Bill Hancock is the perfect representative for the Candy Asses of the BCS that we believe not only don’t give a damn about the game of college football and the players and coaches that play the game, these folks don’t even know up from down.  A scary thought is that in organizations across the United States there are the same types of Candy Asses sitting in important positions and if you are worried about that then you should be very worried about the US’s chances to meet the huge challenges that face our Republic in the coming years.  If you cannot put together a playoff to determine a legitimate champion on the field of play in the game of college football, you sure the Hell would not have any chance to hold of the tsunami that is barreling down on our country from all corners of the world (and even from within as we destroy ourselves with absolute lunacy like borrowing trillions of dollars from our children and grandchildren).

Yes, it is our opinion that Bill Hancock is right where he belongs, defending the bogus BCS and the Candy Asses that run and defend it that are spread out all over the country and sadly, there are even a few Candy Asses in the media that will defend the indefensible

Good Luck to you Bill Hancock but we will give you the same warning that we gave the BCS Boys.  It is our opinion that the BCS violates the US Sherman Antitrust Act and a violation of the US Sherman Antitrust act is a felony.  That makes all of the things you are saying in the news media as an important and official record of what the people running the BCS believe are the real reasons the BCS should be allowed to exist in a country that has very strong laws concerning competition across state lines.  We certainly hope you have checked with your attorney if your comments in the news media might become part of a future federal court record and that you might be held responsible for your statements concerning the BCS.  Just a good natured thought on our part, because if you might possibly be indicted on federal felony charges for violating the Sherman Antitrust Act for your comments in the news media and your work for the BCS then that is something you and your family might want to be aware of before you get
“perp walked” out of your office! 

 We are concerned for you Bill!

So much more to write about but we will save it for Tuesday when we come out with the Post Week 12 CHS Power Playoff Poll and a seeded 16-team College Football Playoff.  Yes, a non-Candy Ass way to determine the national champion in college football on the field of play, which is evidently a foreign idea the supposed Americans that are running the travesty known as the BCS. 

Yes, there might be a few Candy Asses around that support the BCS over a Playoff, but be assured they are CANDY ASSES!

 

Kick it off Johnny Cash!

 

Post Week 12 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings

Top 10 Coaches on the Post Week 12 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings

1.  Charlie Weis, Notre Dame – Listening to Charlie Weis’ Sunday press conference it almost seems like Weis is resigned to being fired at Notre Dame…..or is it that he “wants” to be fired at Notre Dame?  We would love to see Weis’ contract at Notre Dame to see if his buyout would be reduced by any money he made a head coach at another college or in the NFL.  Most people with a lick of sense will include in a contract with college head football coach a buyout clause that pays the buyout over several years and that the buyout will be reduced if the coach takes another job in the coaching profession.  Our question is:  What if Charlie Weis took a job in the NFL as a head or assistant coach, would the money he made in that job reduce the buyout Notre Dame would have to pay him?  People may remember that when Mike Shula was fired at Alabama a couple of  years ago his $4 million dollar buyout (an absurd buyout amount for Mike Shula, but a man with a good attorney) was reduced by the money he has made as an assistant with the Jacksonville Jaguars.  Does Charlie Weis have the same clause in his contract?  Frankly, we rather doubt that Weis has such a clause because Weis and his agent rolled Notre Dame in 2005 with the threat that NFL teams were after Weis and that the Irish needed to pony up to keep him at South Bend.  Since we here at Coaches Hot Seat operate our businesses with the very simple philosophy that we pay our employees very well and that if they want to work somewhere else then they should go ahead and turn in their company car and computer and hit the road quick because if they want to work somewhere else then we don’t want them working for us, which means we would have reacted quite differently if Weis and/or his agent had walked into our office in Weis’ first year on the job.  First, we would have tossed Weis’ agent out the window and told Charlie that we are paying you very well and if you want to return the NFL then by all means get the Hell out!  In fact, we would have said:  “Charlie, we hired you to coach at Notre Dame and if you are telling me that NFL teams are calling you and your agent and you are interested in those offers then we need to call a press conference right now and tell everyone that you are not longer the head coach at Notre Dame.  So, which is it, do you want to stay at Notre Dame, or not?”  That is what the then Notre Dame AD Kevin White should have said, but instead he (and others?) dropped down on their knees and kissed Weis’ ass and that is why Notre Dame is looking at a $10 million plus buyout for a coach with less than a .600 career win/loss record.

As for Charlie Weis’ $10 million plus buyout (it seems to us that Notre Dame is trying to talk down the amount of the buyout after that $18 million dollar buyout number got out last week) we took a look at the University of Notre Dame’s Mission Statement:

“The University seeks to cultivate in its students not only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings, but also a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many. The aim is to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.”

So the University of Notre Dame has a “disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many.”  What? 

Memo to the folks at Notre Dame:  When you have a contract with a football coach that calls for at least a $10 million dollar plus buyout it is an impossibility for you to be seriously concerned with  “poverty, injustice, and oppression that burden the lives of so many.”

Maybe we are just out of touch, but it seems to us that if Notre Dame has a very clear choice that it must make over the next couple of weeks.  Either they fire their head football coach and pay him $10 million plus dollars to not coach the Irish football team which would violate Notre Dame’s mission statement or keep Charlie Weis on and make him finish the 6 years on his contract.  In fact, we agree with the guy that Tony Barnhart had on CBS Sports TV show last week that Weis should be required to finish out his contract so everyone could see both the wisdom, or rather lack of wisdom, of hiring Weis in the first place and what we think is the most asinine contract extension in college football history that Weis got in 2005.

Yes, the Internet is a great thing so let’s go back to October 2006 and watch the 60 Minutes piece of Weis and Notre Dame football!

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Watch CBS News Videos Online

As the 60 minutes profile on Weis says: 

“Steve Kroft profiles Notre Dame’s head football coach, Charlie Weis, whose expletive-laced tirades seem to be putting the fight back into the Fighting Irish.” 

Charlie is breaking down those Irish and no one in college football can outcoach him!  Yes, those are true statements!  NOT!

Oh, that’s RICH and SO DAMN ENTERTIANING!  Don’t you just love the Internet?

2.  Ralph Friedgen, Maryland – Couldn’t you just see that Maryland loss to FSU on Saturday coming?  For some reason the Maryland Terps under Ralph Friedgen have found a lot of different ways to lose football games in recent years and against FSU they may have taken that ability to a new level!  Maryland had FSU beat, several times in fact, but for some reason the Terrapin players just seem to melt like ice on a hot Maryland shore day now under Friedgen and that has to concern the Hell out of the folks that are doing the hiring and firing of athletic coaches at Maryland.  Ralph Friedgen is now 66 – 45 at Maryland but much more ominous is that Friedgen is 35 – 37 (.486) in his last 72 games which cannot be the kind of record that can keep many people employed at any BCS school save Duke or Vanderbilt.  Now, we haven’t a clue to what the folks at Maryland are thinking about Ralph Friedgen and their football program but we do know that the Terps are 2 – 9 in 2009 with Boston College left to play at home and even with a win over BC this will be one of the worst seasons in recent UM history.  Yes, Ralph Friedgen is on the Hot Seat right now and if he returns for the 2010 season he will be on the Hot Seat when things kick off in September 2010.  Maybe the folks at Maryland don’t mind their head coach putting up 9 losses in a season and being on the Hot Seat!  If so, more power to them! 

3.  Al Groh, Virginia – After getting beat at Clemson, Virginia coach Al Groh is in the same spot he was in before the weekend, which is that he need to make sure he has a moving company hired for the next couple of months as he transitions to his post-UVA career and maybe a return to the NFL.  Al Groh is now 59 – 52 (.532) in 9 seasons at Virginia which has included 4 losing seasons in those 9 years and a 29 – 31 (.483) over the past 60 games (6 seasons).  Yes, that kind of record over the past 6 seasons as the head coach at a BCS school justifies your firing and after Virginia Tech whips the Cavaliers in the last game we are confident UVA will move to fire Groh and  hire a new head football coach.  As for who Virginia will hire, we expect them to look for a new coach in the mold of Tony Bennett, their new head basketball coach.  Bennett is a young (40 years old), up-and-coming coach that UVA hired from Washington State and Bennett is the kind of coach that has a lot of upside in that he can be at Virginia for quite a while and he coaches with a style and demeanor that fits very well at UVA.  There are at least a dozen young coaches that are similar in outlook to Tony Bennett and we expect that a lot of very good coaches will be after what is a very good job that sits in a very nice sweep spot between realistic expectations at UVA and a solid place to coach at and raise a family (Charlottesville, VA).  Yes, the Al Groh era at UVA has one game left and unfortunately that one game is against Frank Beamer and the Hokies!  Watch out!

4.  Dan Hawkins, Colorado – Dan Hawkins is now 16 – 32 in four seasons at Colorado and that overall record is about all you need to know about Hawkins’ situation at CU.  We have heard from people in the media in Boulder that Hawkins is going to be fired;  We have heard from folks in the national media (CU alumni) that the money is there and that Hawkins will be fired;  We have heard from several people around the game of college football that Dan Hawkins will be fired and that CU has the money to fire him and hire a new staff.  Yes, we have heard all that, but our friends in Boulder that are Colorado alumni and live so close to CU that they can walk to the campus in only a few minutes tell us that Dan Hawkins will be back for the 2010 season.  They believe that Hawkins will be back in 2010 because higher education funding in the state of Colorado has been decimated and that to fire Dan Hawkins and send him on his merry way with a multi-million dollar buyout is a PR hit that Colorado might not be able to handle because the blowback would be very strong from such a move.  Now, we know here in California know that the handful of athletic coaches in this state that are hauling in millions of dollars each year are going to be on the firing line in the coming years as the state of California continues to implode and thus general revenues continue to spiral down or at best stagnate, and from what we read higher education is also taking a massive hit in Colorado.  Now, we haven’t a clue to what the Colorado AD, president, and chancellor are thinking about relative to bringing back Dan Hawkins in 2010 but we rather doubt they have the stomach to fire Dan Hawkins unless they feel that CU athletic department revenues will plummet if a move is not made to fire Hawkins.  Colorado is now 3 – 8 on the ’09 season and they have Nebraska left at home in Boulder (a team they should have beat in Lincoln in ’08) and from where we sit what happens against Nebraska probably doesn’t matter at all to if Hawkins will be back next season.  Stay tuned, this is going to be a damn interesting decision on Dan Hawkins at Colorado.

5.  Steve Kragthorpe, Louisville – In his third year at Louisville Steve Kragthorpe 15 – 20 (.429) and he took over an UofL program from Bobby Petrino in 2003 that put up a record of 41 – 9 (.820) in the preceding four seasons and that is really all you need to know about Steve Kragthorpe’s tenure at Louisville.  There really is no justifiable excuse why the Louisville football program has fallen so far in such a short period of time and that is why Steve Kragthorpe finds himself on the Hot Seat.  Louisville is now 4 – 7 on the ’09 season and they have Rutgers at home to finish the year and we believe that shortly after the last game UofL will move to find themselves a new head football coach.  The Louisville job should be very attractive to a wide field of highly qualified candidates because it is a BCS school and Bobby Petrino has proved that a coach can win a lot of football games at the school.  Yes, if were looking for a college head coaching position and the Louisville job came open it would certainly get our attention.

6.  Mark Mangino, Kansas – What a quick fall it has been for Mark Mangino at Kansas.  Only 6 weeks ago the Jayhawks were 5 – 0 and playing woeful Colorado and now 6 weeks later KU is 5 – 6 and Mark Mangino is as good as fired if you believe the newspapers in Kansas.  Wow!  What a turnaround and what a very strange series of events that has placed Mangino on the Hot Seat and it looks like on a track that is leading to his firing.  We here at Coaches Hot Seat have always felt that Mangino had a temper and that he got after and held his players accountable for their behavior on and off the field, but since we were raised in the 1970s and 80s and encountered many coaches that would be considered “wild animals” in today’s politically-correct world we never really gave Mangino’s personal behavior much thought.  Clearly, there are a group of parents of former KU players that seem to be after Mark Mangino and if this investigation is to be believed there must be at least a few current players that are not thrilled with Mangino’s behavior either, but the question that must be asked at Kansas before this train railroads Mark Mangino out of Lawrence is if Mangino’s behavior is out of norm for head football coaches in this country.  Our gut tells us that Mangino probably crossed a line that some players in today’s world feel is not appropriate, and if Mangino threatened players that they would be sent back to where they came from (like one of the complaints about Mangino that he would send a KU player back to Oakland, California, which to us if true makes us shudder because we know firsthand the great danger that young black men live with everyday in Oakland) then he has clearly crossed the line and that should probably lead to a reprimand at least and maybe a firing at worst if those allegations are actually proven to be true.  Yes, Mark Mangino is on the Hot Seat and if the newspapers in Kansas are accurate he has one game left against Missouri to coach and then he will be fired and he will have to fight to get his buyout money.  Damn, that just sounds very odd, especially how fast all of this has come down which to us almost sounds like it has been staged to at least some degree, which might say a lot about what is really going on at Kansas.  We are going to be fascinated to see what happens at Kansas over the next couple of weeks and if Mangino is fired then Kansas will certainly be a very attractive job, because of the job Mangino has done at KU over the past 8 seasons.  Mangino is 50 – 47 in 8 seasons at KU, which when you compare it to the pretty good job that Glen Mason did at KU over 9 seasons, 47 – 54 – 1, makes Mangino’s coaching job very impressive indeed.  Mangino has averaged 6.25 wins a year and Mason who was hailed as doing a great job at KU only averaged 5.22 wins a year.  We say that if Mangino made mistakes and Mark will admit he made mistakes then he should apologize for his mistakes and promise to do better, but if he will not admit to things that have credible evidence behind them to admit that they happened then he should probably be fired.  As always in America, we all admire someone that has the guts to admit when they were wrong and if Mangino did make some mistakes then he should admit to them or face the music, and the music in this case looks to be a sad blues song that doesn’t end well.

7.  Paul Wulff, Washington State – After losing to Oregon State on Saturday, Washington State is now 3 – 21 (.125) in 2 seasons with the Cougs and 1 – 10 in ’09 with only the Apple Cup left against Washington.  We have said in the past that Washington State was a good I-AA team and/or a good Division II team, but we have now come to a conclusion that if Washington State played against high school teams in the San Francisco Bay area it would lose at least 5 football games each year under Paul Wulff.  We haven’t a clue to what is going on at Washington State right now, but we do know that Wulff’s predecessor at WSU Bill Doba put up a record of 30 – 29 in 5 seasons and that Doba’s predecessor Mike Price put up a record of 125 – 84 in 14 seasons.  So let’s see here…

Mike Price – 125 – 84  (.598) – 14 seasons

Bill Doba – 30 – 29 (.508) – 5 seasons

Paul Wulff – 3 – 21  (.125) – 2 seasons

What?  Come on, this is getting just plain flat-out stupid at Washington State!  The saddest thing is that Paul Wulff could probably lose to Washington in the last game of the year and lose every game next season and the folks in Pullman would throw him a party!  Yes, they would put right on the cake Wulff’s record of 3 – 34  (.081)  and have it put on balloons as well!  Let’s have a party!

Please, someone drop us an email when Washington State gets back in the football business!

8.  Dennis Erickson, Arizona State – The only question we have for the folks at Arizona State is where do we sign up for a job where we can put up an overall record of 19 – 17 (.528) and a win only 9 of our last 24 games and still not be on the Hot Seat!  Well, at least here at Coaches Hot Seat we have Dennis Erickson on the Hot Seat and he should be on the Hot Seat after a second straight year of lackluster, disorganized and at times downright awful play by the Sun Devils.  After the loss to UCLA Dennis Erickson and ASU are now 4 – 7 on the ’09 season and they have Arizona at home left and if they should lose to UA then this will be the first time since 1994 in Bill Snyder’s third year on the job that ASU has lost 8 games in a season.  That is 15 years ago for the non-math majors and at least from where we sit Dennis Erickson and his coaching staff have a hellava lot of explaining to do on how they were able to win 10 games in 2007 and they are looking at less then 10 wins in their next 2 seasons on the job.  Yes, getting to the bottom of that conundrum is what the folks at Arizona State should be concerned with because ASU is looking at an improving Pac-10 conference that might just very well be tougher in 2010 and that means that Ericson and the Sun Devils might be looking at another sub-par season next year.  Yes, the first thing we would do if were sitting in the AD’s chair at Arizona State (Lisa Love we love you, but you need to get tough on Dennis!) we would call Dennis Erickson into our office after the Arizona game and tell him to get off his ass and get the ASU football program going in the right direction again or he will be down the road (more than likely retired at Coeur d’Alene!).  We really wonder if Dennis Erickson REALLY gives a damn if Arizona State loses 3 games or 8 games, but we do know there are hundreds of young up-and-coming coaches that would give a damn.  This one is on Dennis Erickson.  Either start coaching winning football or head on up to Idaho and go fishing and play golf everyday! 

9.  Greg McMackin, Hawaii – Anyone that stayed up to watch the Hawaii – San Jose State game on Saturday almost saw a 1-8 team beat a Hawaii team that has fallen to pieces since June Jones left in 2007.  Hawaii is 5 – 6 on the ’09 season after beating the worst 3 teams in the WAC conference: Utah State (3-8), New Mexico State (3-8), and San Jose State (1-9), that have a combined record in ‘09 of 7-25.  Now Hawaii re-enters the world of college football to finish the ’09 season as they have to play Navy and Wisconsin at home and they need wins in both of those games to get to a record better than .500 and gain a trip to postseason game.  If Hawaii does lose to two pretty good teams in Navy and Wisconsin then they will finish the ’09 season at 5 – 8 and Greg McMackin’s two year record with the Warriors will be 12 – 15 which would be quite a fall from the glory of the June Jones years in Honolulu.  Is Greg McMackin in danger of getting fired if the Warriors lose their last two games?  Who knows, because we doubt that Hawaii has the money to buy McMackin out of his contract or that they have the money to hire a new coach and staff.  Yes, a job in Hawaii where you cannot get fired even when you perform at sub-standard level!  Yes, that is quite a gig, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have Greg McMackin on the Hot Seat because if you are making millions of dollars coaching football and you are not performing then your ass should be roasting!

10.  Rich Rodriguez, Michigan – Even with Michigan AD Bill Martin saying after the Ohio State game that Rich Rodriguez would be back for the 2010 season that doesn’t mean that Rich Rodriguez isn’t on the Hot Seat…….BECAUSE HE IS!  Rich Rodriguez is now 8 – 16 in two seasons at Michigan which is big departure from his first two years at West Virginia, 3 – 8 and 9 – 4, and we believe that difference is due to the fact of just how badly the Michigan personnel were mismatched to the new head coach that Bill Martin hired.  We believe that Rich Rodriguez is a very good football coach, but he is so totally mismatched to almost everything at the University of Michigan, that we have some real doubts to if he will be able turn around things in 2010 with the Wolverines.  No doubt, when you put up two straight losing seasons and a 8 – 16 overall record at a school like Michigan your job status will be in question and Rodriguez will be under the gun in 2010 to put up a lot of wins or more than likely be fired.  What is a “lot of wins” for Rodriguez in 2010?  We believe that Rodriguez will need at least 8 wins and a better than .500 record in Big Ten play and as we look at the ’10 Michigan schedule: UConn, at Notre Dame, UMass, Bowling Green and then in Big Ten play at Indiana, Michigan State, Iowa, at Penn State, Illinois, at Purdue, Wisconsin, and at Ohio State, things look a little dicey.  In fact, wow, that is tough schedule and we can see the season swinging in both directions depending upon how the Wolverines start of the season, but one thing for sure unless Michigan dramatically improves on both offense and defense in 2010 they will have ZERO chance to win 8 or more games.  Rich Rodriguez has a very high hill to climb at Michigan, both to continue the transition from a pro-style offense to a spread offense and to get the UM defense at least back to the point it was at in Lloyd Carr’s last years and he will have to do all of that while his ass is sitting on the Hot Seat!  Yes, that is a Hellava challenge and if we were giving odds we would give Rodriguez no more than a 50-50 chance of winning 8 or more games in 2010 and that means that we believe there is a 50-50 chance that Michigan will have a new head football coach for the 2011 season.  If there is one thing we do know here at Coaches Hot Seat that we have learned since this website was started in January 2007, when a coach gets onto the Hot Seat either with us, the coach’s fan base, or in the mind of the general public, that coach very often finds it impossible to get off the Hot Seat, unless he is removed by his boss.  That should be oh so very comforting to Rich Rodriguez as he ponders what he is going to do with the 2010 Michigan football team.  Our recommendation:  The Wolverines have to start playing much better defense (82 nd nationally in 2010, 27.50 points per game) because without much better defense next season it will not matter how good the Wolverine offense gets in year 3.  Of course, finding a QB that can play without turning the ball over every other series would help as well (Michigan turnover margin 2010, ranked 112 th, -1.0!).

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