Week 3 Coaches Hot Seat Coaches and Teams MUST Win Games
Mike Leach and Washington State vs. UNLV – In his current job at Washington State Mike Leach took over a Cougars team that had won…
14 games
…over the past 5 years AND in contrast at Texas Tech Leach took over a team from Spike Dykes that had won…
35 games
…over the previous 5 years so clearly the situation of the football program was much more dire at Washington State than at Texas Tech and that means the turnaround in Pullman is going to be a tough one.
Washington State AD Bill Moos understands completely that one of the first stepping-stones to building a winning college football program on the I-A level is to get to bowl games on a consistent if not every year basis and if Mike Leach wants to get the Cougars to a bowl game in 2012 then beating UNLV on Saturday is a MUST Win Game.
Bo Pelini and Nebraska vs. Arkansas State – Early on this week in Coaches Hot Seat Central someone had on one of our TVs a replay running of the UCLA – Nebraska game from last Saturday and after watching that Debacle in Pasadena for the Cornhuskers again we believe that the entire Nebraska football team and especially the coaches including Bo Pelini should watch the following video as many times as necessary to learn the basics of TACKLING!
Darrell Royal Teaches Tackling
As for the Nebraska – Arkansas State game this is one of those…
IF YOU LOSE IT
….it will be the beginning of the end of Bo Pelini’s head coaching career at Nebraska because after the Debacle in Pasadena where the Cornhuskers looked at times like the Nebraska players have been coaching themselves if Pelini loses this game Coach Tom Osborne will no doubt on Sunday want to have a conversation with Bo Pelini to see how he wants the buyout in his contract:
In one payment or in smaller payments over the next few years.
Here’s a thought for the Nebraska football team: You are playing FOOTBALL which means you can HIT THE PLAYERS ON THE OTHER TEAM!
Jeff Tedford and California vs. Ohio State– There are very few things we enjoy more than fly fishing in the High Rockies on a beautiful fall afternoon after work and usually we back down one our Tahoe or Yukons down near the river so we can listen to a baseball game or something else on the radio and on Wednesday afternoon California AD Sandy Barbour was on XM Radio Channel 91 – College Sports Nation and Sandy said that when she was hired at Cal in 2004 the two jobs she was tasked with doing were:
“Renovating Cal’s Memorial Stadium and keeping Jeff Tedford at Cal.”
Hey, getting Memorial Stadium renovated was quite an accomplishment and after taking a good look at the new stadium and sports facilities at Cal over the summer the place just looks terrific….BUT….Sandy….have you been attending Cal football games in the last few years?
If not, here is Jeff Tedford’s record at Cal staring in 2007:
Is Jeff Tedford’s record at Cal over the past 5 seasons REALLY acceptable to Cal AD Sandy Barbour and the Cal alumni/fans?
OK, that’s fine with us.
As for this Saturday’s Cal – Ohio State game in Columbus the Buckeyes are 16 to 17 point favorites over the Golden Bears and understanding the fact that Tedford and Meyer have been good friends for quite awhile now…
….we believe that Meyer will take it easy on his “friend” Tedford and in a few games like that over the years where a “friend” decided to take it easy on a team coached by “friend” on the opposite sideline we have seen the heavily favored team lose and if Urban Meyer and his Buckeyes lose to Cal Meyer may just find what getting his rear-end warmed up is all about which Urban got a little taste of in his last year at Florida when the Gators went 8 – 5.
YES, Ohio State is a MUST Win Game for Jeff Tedford and his Cal team mainly because what comes after the Buckeyes…
USC in the LA Coliseum!
Charlie Weis and Kansas vs. TCU – Now let’s see here…
UCLA whipped Rice 49 – 24 in Week 1
AND
Rice beat Kansas 25 – 24 in Week 2
…and here comes TCU to Lawrence, Kansas in Week 3 and if Charlie Weis doesn’t want to get himself back on the Hot Seat again finding a way to beat the Horned Frogs is highly recommended!
OK, Kansas only won 5 games over the past two years under Turner Gill so maybe we should cut Charlie Weis some slack…..
NAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
…as they say in Jersey and besides would Bill Parcells have cut Charlie some slack?
No way in Hell!
Coach hard Charlie!
Gene Chizik and Auburn vs. La. Monroe – After watching Auburn play against Clemson and Mississippi State to go to 0 – 2 on the year and watching Gene Chizik’s press conference earlier this week….
….we are wondering something here at Coaches Hot Seat:
When is Auburn football going to start playing “Auburn football” again?
What exactly is “Auburn football” you ask?
Well, former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once wrote in his opinion on the obscenity case Jacobellis vs. Ohio (1964) that…
“Hard core pornography is hard to define, but I know it when it see it.”
Right now we are not seeing “Auburn football” under Gene Chizik and unless Gene Chizik wants to be known in the history as the…
“College head coach of Cam Newton.”
…instead of the Auburn football coach that….
“Coached an Auburn football team to a national championship that had Cam Newton as quarterback AND also had many other successful years at Auburn.”
….then Gene Chizik better get his football team playing “Auburn football.”
More to the point on exactly what “Auburn football” IS it is the kind of football that we have seen Auburn play both in TV and in person over the past 30 plus years “Auburn football” to us is…
“Playing with a passion for the game of football, jumping around, having fun, hitting people, hustling all the time, making the extra effort….did we say playing with a passion for the game of football?”
Gene Chizik is a very calm and cool customer as a head football coach but beyond Cam Newton’s raw ability to play the game of football what made the Auburn football team so good that won the national championship in 2010 – 2011 was the passion for the game of football that Newton brought to the Plains and unless Chizik or someone else on the Auburn coaching staff or team can light that fire again the Auburn football program is going to continue to fall behind Alabama and even other teams in the SEC and coaches at Auburn that fall behind Alabama AND other teams in the SEC ALWAYS get fired…..eventually.
Randy Edsall and Maryland vs. Connecticut– What a great lesson Randy Edsall’s departure from UConn to take the Maryland job right after the Fiesta Bowl without talking to his Connecticut players after coaching at the school for 7 years is for coaches in all sports everywhere and it seems that Edsall has learned that lesson as well:
Really Randy? You should have thought about that in your haste to take the Maryland job which shouldn’t have involved any “haste” since you were moving from UConn to Freaking Maryland…..not from Alabama to Notre Dame….not that even that move would require a coach to leave in the middle of the night.
Relative to what happened with Randy Edsall’s departure from Maryland and many other coaches leaving football programs in the middle of the night we are going to give some serious advice to head coaches everywhere which is not something we do often here at Coaches Hot Seat….give serious pieces of advice that is!
First of all college head football coaches should work to build a strong, honest and open relationship with their athletic director. It seems like common sense that head football coaches and ALL college coaches for that matter should do their best to build a strong, honest and open relationship with their athletic director BUT we see time and time again in athletic departments across America where there is private and sometimes open animosity between some coaches and their AD which is sometimes caused by the coach, sometimes caused by the AD and sometimes caused by both the coach and AD BUT whomever is to blame it is a pitiful and sad situation for a coach and/or AD to find him/herself in when the bedrock of strong athletic departments is coaches that have the backing of their AD and an AD that believes in his or her coaches.
Our recommendation is that an athletic director and head football coach should have lunch together with just the two of them somewhere close to every week of the year because in ALL college athletic departments that depend on the football team to drive exposure and revenues the success of the football program is paramount and thus the head coach and AD being on the same page is paramount as well and the better the head football coach and AD know each other personally the better for the both of them and in fact for the entire athletic department as well.
The goal should be that the athletic director and head football coach should have a very close but very professional relationship where either can tell the other ANYTHING and when the football program is struggling or down the AD needs the ability to speak frankly to the head coach about the state of the program with head coach understanding that the AD is doing nothing more than relaying a warning about potential trouble ahead if the program is not straightened out whether the troubles are on or off the field. The relationship between the AD and head football coach should be so close and so clear that when it comes time for the AD to fire a coach the coach will already know that he is going to lose his job AND on the other side of the ledger the AD should have a pretty good feeling if his head football coach is about to take another job and should at least be given notice from the coach that his agent is talking to another school about a potential job opening and if the coach is going to seriously consider the job and eventually take the job the AD should be the first to know.
An athletic director should not take another school being interested in hiring his head football coach as a personal affront because the other school being interested in the coach only confirms why the coach was hired in the first place and if the AD has a strong and open relationship with the coach he will be happy for him and wish him luck in his new job and make sure that the coach’s transition out of his old job is as smooth as possible which is also very important when making a coaching change especially in football.
Lastly, for those coaches that do take a head coaching job at another school there is nothing MORE important than making Damn sure that you leave your former employer in the right way AND that you spend whatever time is necessary telling your players in person that you are going to take another job and that you very much appreciated their efforts on the practice field and in the games that MADE THAT NEW JOB POSSIBLE!
The worst thing about Randy Edsall taking the Maryland job and not flying back from the Fiesta Bowl to Connecticut and calling a meeting for the next day to tell them his players he was leaving to take the Maryland job was that…
It was entirely FREAKING unnecessary Randy!
Geez, Randy, you were the head coach at UConn that due to the Bogus and Un-American BCS got a team with a 8 – 4 record that won the Big East conference title into the Fiesta Bowl with the UConn players who were ACTUALLY PLAYING IN THE GAMES which is what got you to be considered for the Maryland job in the first place and after all we are talking about…
MARYLAND FOOTBALL
….right?
Please, for Edsall to say in his press conference about leaving Connecticut that…
“I wish I could have talked to those players in person. But the circumstances in our profession didn’t allow that, and that’s something I have to live with.”
…sounds like the comments of a spy that was working for the KGB and defecting from the USSR to the United States during the height of the Cold War and is so out-of-touch with the REAL World that we are beginning to wonder if some of these head coaches realize that they are just….
FOOTBALL COACHES!
Geez, we have yet to meet ANY football coach that is so Damn precious that his ass should have leave a football program in the middle of the night without doing what people in the REAL World do all of the time which is make sure they give their employer notice which in the REAL World is usually two weeks at least and in Major College Football should be….
1 Day at Least
…which includes telling your AD in person first you are leaving and then talking to your players in person and with Randy Edsall having to have known before the Fiesta Bowl was played that he was thinking about or was going to take the Maryland job working out a way to notify his AD at UConn and talking to his players before leaving for Maryland would have been about as hard as flipping a light switch which also happens to be about as important moving from UConn to Maryland really is in the grand scheme of things that are going on in the world today.
Bottom-Line for Head Coaches:
1. Build a strong, open and honest relationship with your athletic director
2. If you are going to leave your current job for a new head coaching job how about leaving with a little class rather that ducking out the back-door like some kind of bum that was raised by wolves. Is that too much to ask?
As for the UConn – Maryland game Connecticut is a 2 to 3 point favorite in a game that Randy Edsall MUST Win if he hopes to get the Terps to a bowl game this season because the ACC is looking pretty tough this year and even a winning record in conference play will be tough for the Terps in 2012.
John L. Smith and Arkansas vs. Alabama – What if? What if John L. Smith lost to La. Monroe in Week 2 and then turned around and got his Arkansas team to beat the mighty Alabama Crimson Tide in Week 3?
Hey, these are exactly the kind of games that Nick Saban has tended to lose in his career meaning teams that Saban’s teams SHOULD BEAT sometimes sneak up and beat Nick Saban and as pitiful as Arkansas looked against La. Monroe if the Hogs did find a way to win this game we would recommend that Saban fly back to Tuscaloosa on a private plane by himself because we and most certainly the Alabama players would hate to see what Saban would be like on that plane ride back to Bama if John L. Smith won this game.
Oh, that would be UGLY!
Oh, by the way, Alabama is a MUST Win Game for Arkansas and the Hogs have NO Damn Chance to win this game.
Of course, if Bobby Petrino hadn’t been tooling around with a hot blonde on the back of his Harley we would have picked Arkansas to win this game and that reality must really piss-off Arkansas fans everywhere…..and it should piss them off as well!
Frank Spaziani and Boston College vs. Northwestern – Frank Spaziani in four seasons at Boston College has put up records of…
Overall: 21 – 20 ACC: 12 – 13
…which is noticeably below the performance of the head coaches that preceded Spaziani at BC….
Jeff Jagodzinski and Tom O’Brien
…and if mediocre football is OK with the Boston College fans then it is OK with us…
HOLD IT A SECOND!
We are Coaches Hot Seat and mediocre football is NOT TOLERATED at Coaches Hot Seat and that is why Frank Spaziani’s rear-end is on fire right now and why Spaziani and BC are facing a MUST Win Game at Northwestern on Saturday!
Bill O’Brien and Penn State vs. Navy – Hey, Bill O’Brien took over a next to impossible situation at Penn State BUT Penn State is still Penn State and there is plenty of talent on this Nittany Lions team to win some games this year and after two losses to open the 2012 season Navy is a MUST Win Game because if Penn State and O’Brien can’t get this thing going in the right direction this week the rest of this season could be a Complete Disaster and put O’Brien on a path to the Hot Seat that is a path that Bill O’Brien does NOT WANT TO GET ON!
Derek Dooley and Tennessee vs. Florida– We just love football games where both head coaches are facing MUST Win Games and that is what we have in Knoxville, Tennessee on Saturday night and if not for the USC – Stanford GRUDGE Match Game on The Farm on Saturday this battle between the Gators and the Vols is a game we would love to be sitting in Neyland Stadium to see. Derek Dooley can get off the Hot Seat with a win in this game and with games at Georgia, at Mississippi State, Alabama, at South Carolina, Missouri, at Vanderbilt and Kentucky still on the schedule this is a game that Derek Dooley MUST Win!
Will Muschamp and Florida vs. Tennessee– When you are a head coach in the SEC almost every conference game is a MUST Win Game especially early in the season because of what remains on the schedule and after the game against Tennessee on Saturday Will Muschamp and the Gators still have to play…
Kentucky LSU At Vanderbilt South Carolina Georgia (Jacksonville) Missouri La. Lafayette Jacksonville State Florida State
….and the above remaining schedule is what more than anything else makes the Tennessee a MUST Win Game for Muschamp and Florida. If Florida beats the Vols in Knoxville Will Muschamp and the Gators can take another step-forward to putting Florida football back into the “conversation” in Major College Football which is where the Florida football program should ALWAYS BE.
Gary Pinkel and Missouri vs. Arizona State– Just like UCLA in 2012 the Arizona State football team is playing a much different brand of football under first-year coach Todd Graham and that makes this Arizona State game against Missouri in Columbia a very dangerous game for the Tigers especially since Missouri is going to face the same kind of aggressive defense this week that was the difference in the loss to Georgia last Saturday.
With 7 SEC Conference games left AND a game at UCF Missouri cannot afford a loss in this spot to Arizona State and that makes this a classic MUST Win Game for Gary Pinkel and his Tigers.
Joker Phillips and Kentucky vs. Western Kentucky – Talk about a MUST Win Game with a record now of…
Overall: 12 – 15 SEC: 4 – 12
….in his third season on the job if there is a game that Joker Phillips and his Wildcats CANNOT lose it is this game Saturday against Western Kentucky. Very simply, Kentucky has more talent than Western Kentucky, Kentucky is playing Western Kentucky at home in Lexington and Kentucky is a 7 point favorite over Western Kentucky and that makes this a MUST Win Game for Joker Phillips.
Tommy Tuberville and Texas Tech vs. New Mexico– The New Mexico Lobos are still getting its feet under themselves with first year coach Bob Davie and after getting beat by Texas in Week Two 45 – 0 there is no reason in the world that Tommy Tuberville and Texas Tech should lose this game and we cannot imagine the Red Raiders will lose this game….
BUT
…if Texas Tech loses this game someone better get this song by the Great Don Meredith warmed up…..
….because the Party Would Be Over which no doubt would send Swiss Roll Little Debbie Boy in Memphis to the phone in hopes of finding a place for “Tubbs” to land in 2013.
Brian Kelly and Notre Dame vs. Michigan State – Brian Kelly and Notre Dame are facing a MUST Win Game at Michigan State this coming Saturday night and why do we have a funny feeling that the fantasyland that Notre Dame has beaten anyone in 2012 is about to pop against the Spartans and yet again send the Notre Dame football program into chaos and with the following schedule lined-up after this Saturday’s match-up….
Michigan
Miami
Stanford
BYU
At Oklahoma
Pittsburgh
At Boston College
Wake Forest
At USC
….going into chaos at this point in the season is not recommended for the Irish.
We are not quite sure what Brian Kelly has going with his “2-QB situation” with Golson and Rees BUT we do know that when the spotlight is bright as it almost always is with Notre Dame and will be with a nationally telecast game against Michigan State on Saturday night if this “2-QB situation” blows-up on Kelly it is going to blow-up in a very big way with everyone in the country watching and if that happens Brian Kelly would wake-up Sunday morning with a rear-end on fire and Michigan due in town in six days!
Oh, this promises to be a very entertaining game between Notre Dame and Michigan State!
Bret Bielema and Wisconsin vs. Utah State – After getting beat by a team (Oregon State) that had won 8 games over the past two years Bret Bielema and his Badgers must have looked at the schedule and thought that Utah State would be a good way for Wisconsin to get things going again BUT we have some news for Badger fans everywhere….
Utah State is a LOT BETTER team than Oregon State
…and the Utah State Aggies just like Oregon State will pop Wisconsin in the mouth and if the Badgers react like they did in Corvallis when they got popped in the mouth…..THEY WILL GET BEAT…..AGAIN.
Wisconsin is a 14-point favorite over Utah State and has four to five times as much talent as the Aggies which means that Wisconsin SHOULD win this game and MUST Win this Game because a loss in this spot would be a Complete Disaster for the Badgers, the Big Ten Conference and especially Bret Bielema!
Jon Embree and Colorado vs. Fresno State – In his second year on the job as the head coach at Colorado Jon Embree has put up records of…
Overall: 3 – 12
Pac-12: 2 – 7
…and with a Pac-12 Conference that is looking tougher everyday Embree and his coaching staff better get things going in the right direction or the natives in Boulder that are starting to worry that they are looking at Colorado’s SIXTH straight losing season which in today’s world of college football where schedules are loaded up with Cupcakes and .500 records are pretty easy to achieve SIX straight losing seasons for a program like Colorado is nothing less than a Complete Disaster. Fresno State also has a first-year head coach in Tim DeRuyter and even with a somewhat depleted Colorado roster this a game that CU SHOULD WIN and thus MUST Win or things are going to start getting Hot on the Front Rage of Colorado.
Mack Brown and Texas vs. Ole Miss – At 8:15 PM on Saturday night one of the biggest games of Mack Brown legendary and Hall of Fame coaching career will be played when the Texas Longhorns visit Ole Miss in Oxford because with Rebels having a first year head coach and coming off two-straight losing seasons this is a game that Brown and Texas SHOULD WIN and thus MUST Win. With games at Oklahoma State, West Virginia and Oklahoma up next for the Longhorns a loss in this spot to Ole Miss could turn into the first loss of four straight losses and if Texas loses four or more games for the third straight year there are going to be a lot of Longhorn fans that are going to start wondering how in the Hell ANYONE could lose 4 or more games a year at Texas when you can practically have ANY players you want in the state of Texas and thus SHOULD and MUST have as much or more talent than ANY team that the ‘Horns play on their schedule each year.
YES, Mack Brown and Texas MUST BEAT Ole Miss on Saturday night and if Texas football is going in the right direction they WILL WIN on Saturday night.
If Ole Miss beats Texas then it might just be time to completely clean house in Austin because we believe that Mack Brown could lose EVERY game and Texas AD DeLoss Dodds wouldn’t fire him which is a disastrous situation for ANY college athletic program and school to find itself in when both the AD and head football coach are unaccountable and can produce mediocre or worse results especially at a place like Texas where Howdy Doody….
…could win 8 games a year which means it is past time for Mack Brown and the Longhorns to start playing the game of FOOTBALL again!
