Tag Archive: Westwood

Post Week 7 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings – Give These Hot Seat Coaches Hell Johnny Cash! – The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny

 

Before we get to the Post Week 7 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings the members of Coaches Hot Seat have been reading a GREAT book the last few weeks which will give anyone a great perspective on life and one’s relative lack of luck in their lives on this Earth. The book is…

The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny, Michael Wallis, Amazon.com

…and not only does the above book provide an amazing history of the trials and tribulations of the Donner Party’s trip from the Midwest to California in 1846, it weaves into the story many important parts of American history that will change how you view our Great Country. As the great Civil War author and historian Shelby Foote has rightly said…

“One cannot understand America without understanding the US Civil War.”

…one cannot also really understand America without knowing about the massive movement of Americans to the West in the middle of the 19 th Century before and after gold was found in California in 1849.

The main lesson though we got from the book The Best Land Under Heaven is that no matter how bad things are in our lives they could be a Helluva lot worse which brings some great perspective to our daily lives and with that in mind let’s get to the latest ranking of multi-millionaire college head coaches on the Hot Seat who haven’t a care in the world beyond their asses now being lit-up!

Post Week 7 Coaches Hot Seat Rankings

Give These Hot Seat Coaches Hell Johnny Cash!

Thank Johnny!

1.  Butch Jones, Tennessee – If Butch Jones hadn’t committed so many verbal and personal gaffes at Tennessee the last five seasons he might have a fighting chance to survive to coach the Vols in 2018 with plenty of winnable games left on the schedule but after back-to-back home losses to Georgia and South Carolina it’s all but over for one of the most disliked men in Tennessee football history.

There’s an art + science to a college head football coach winning over both his football team and fan base and Butch Jones has amazingly alienated both to varying degrees at Tennessee and thus Butch has all but given up an important thing for coaches….”the benefit of the doubt”…when things get tough and with Alabama on deck for the 3 – 3 Vols Jones has now worked himself into a position where he better Damn have Chubby Boy in Memphis looking for an exit door to another head coaching job IF Jones wants to coach next season.

Here’s what Tennessee has left in 2017:

At Alabama
At Kentucky
Southern Miss
At Missouri
LSU
Vanderbilt

Our guess the Vols win 6 or 7 games at best in 2017 and there’s not a chance in Hell Butch Jones will survive that in Year 5 in Knoxville so the attention now turns to who will be the next head football coach at Tennessee which will be one of the most interesting hires in the upcoming weeks.

2.  Bret Bielema, Arkansas – If there is one thing we really distrust at Coaches Hot Seat it is anything categorized as a “slam-dunk” and Bret Bielema was described as such when hired at Arkansas in 2013 and yet here we are FIVE years later and Bielema now has on the board:

Overall:  27 – 30

SEC:  10 – 25

Nope….Bret Bielema was NOT a “slam-dunk” hire at Arkansas and in reality Bielema has made a Helluva lot of bad decisions in Fayetteville primarily around assistant coaches he has hired + failed to keep which is richly ironic since one of the reasons some claimed Bielema took the Arkansas job was that he couldn’t get more money for his assistants at Wisconsin! Bret Bielema has had ALL the Damn Money and Resources he has needed or possibly wanted at Arkansas and yet his record in SEC play is…

10 – 25

….so please don’t tell us Bielema hasn’t had every Damn chance to win games in Fayetteville because the reality is he has had EVERYTHING and he has FAILED miserably!

What is really scary at Arkansas is that there are otherwise smart people like Arky AD Jeff Long who don’t have the ability to admit they were “wrong” or even to make it clear that expectations at Arkansas are a Helluva lot higher than what Bielema has been not achieving with the Hogs and what a great lesson this is for everyone who should learn from this situation that…

When Wrong…Admit You Are Wrong…Learn From Your Mistakes…and Move the Hell On To Fixing the Damn Problem!

Instead Arkansas AD Jeff Long is in deep denial about Bret Bielema but then why wouldn’t Long be in denial since after all he has hired as head football coaches at Arky that in the end turned out to be…

Bobby Petrino – Total Damn Disaster
John L. Smith – Total Damn Disaster
Bret Bielema – Total Damn Disaster

Some may argue that Bobby Petrino won a Helluva lot of games at Arkansas, but there is not a chance in Hell we would have hired Petrino then or today to wash our cars because we have standards somewhere way the Hell north of Jeff Long and the University of Arkansas and when you set your standards low no one should be surprised that your ass ends up looking like a fool when a motorcycle accident happens!

After the loss to Alabama the 2 – 4 Hogs now have left on the schedule…

Auburn
At Ole Miss
Coastal Carolina
At LSU
Mississippi State
Missouri

…and does anyone with a working brain think Arkansas can win 4 of their last 6 games to get to even a .500 record in Bielema’s FIFTH year on the job?

Nope and that is why fans of Arkansas Football have one choice and one choice only…

Fire AD Jeff Long AND Head Coach Bret Bielema

…or let your football program be totally destroyed!

It’s YOUR choice fans of Arkansas Football!

3.  David Beaty, Kansas – Things are getting Very Damn Stupid at the University of Kansas and we write that because KU AD Sheahon Zenger has hired two head football coaches….Charlie Weis and David Beaty….and their combined records the last SIX seasons stands at:

Overall:  9 – 49

Big 12:  2 – 38

Geez….can someone explain to us how Kansas AD Sheahon Zenger is still employed in Lawrence?

Oh…current Kansas head coach David Beaty’s records are now…

Overall:  3 – 27

Big 12:  1 – 20

..and the 1 – 5 Jayhawks still have to play in 2017….

At TCU
Kansas State
Baylor
At Texas
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State

…which looks to us like a 1 – 11 record in Beaty’s THIRD season on the job.

Can ANY head football coach and the AD that hired him survive the above records?

Not in the Real World but is the University of Kansas part of the Real World?

Not really it seems!

4.  Mike Riley, Nebraska – The Cold Hard Reality of Mike Riley’s tenure at Nebraska are his records which after the Total Debacle home loss to Ohio State now stand at…

Overall:  18 – 15

Big Ten:  11 – 10

….which would get ANY coach fired in Lincoln and now there really is nothing that can save Riley’s job barring the Yellowstone Supervolcano erupting and ending all life on Earth!

With the above reality in mind it will be interesting to see who new Nebraska AD Bill Moos hires to replace Mike Riley between now and early December and we would be stunned if Moos tried to bring Washington State head coach Mike Leach to Lincoln since our friends in the Great State of Nebraska that we checked with aren’t really into a…

Head Coach blaming his players when HIS team gets its ass whipped as Washington State got whipped by California on Friday night!

…but then who the Hell wants a coach that gives blame when HIS team loses and takes credit when THEY win? As Paul “Bear” Bryant rightly said and which no doubt the Great Tom Osborne would agree with…

“If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it. That’s all it takes to get people to win football games for you.”

….which Mike Leach has turned on its head by essentially saying to his players:

When things go right I get the credit and when thing go wrong YOU get the blame!

Who in the Hell would want his Son playing for a coach that believes that kind of Total and Non-American Excuse Making Bullshit and where exactly was Mike Leach raised because Real Americans don’t raise Total Asses that care little about anything but their own Precious Ass?

Pitiful Mike Leach…just So Damn Pitiful and if you lost a couple more games it will be a Damn Pleasure to roast your Sorry and Pitiful Ass Mike!

The obvious choice of the next head coach at Nebraska is of course UCF HC Scott Frost but Frost might have several attractive offers to choose from in the coming weeks and if Frost does decide to go elsewhere Moos will have a career defining job to do that will determine the future fate of Nebraska Football so no pressure at all Bill and Good Luck to you in the new job as well!

5.  Barry Odom, Missouri – After the loss to Georgia on Saturday Mizzou head coach Barry’s Odom’s records now stand at…

Overall:  5 – 13

SEC:  2 – 10

….and the 1 – 5 Tigers still have to play in 2017:

Idaho
At UConn
Florida
Tennessee
At Vanderbilt
At Arkansas

…and our guess is that Mizzou wins 3….maybe 4 games…this season and that would be 4 wins or less TWO straight seasons and nothing short of a…

Total and Complete Disaster for Mizzou Football!

6.  Jim Mora, UCLA – For some reason between the 2015 and 2016 football seasons they quit teaching the UCLA Bruins football players how to tackle in Westwood and “Surprise – Surprise”…NOT…. in the last two seasons the Bruins under Jim Mora have posted records of…

Overall:  7 – 11

Pac-12:  3 – 8

….and now at 3 – 3 after the loss to Arizona what is still left on the schedule in 2017 is…

Oregon
At Washington
At Utah
Arizona State
At USC
California

….which looks like SIX wins at best for Mora & Company and is that acceptable to the folks at UCLA in Mora’s SIXTH year on the job?

It might just be!

7.  Todd Graham, Arizona State – Congratulations to Todd Graham and his Arizona State football team on beating the Mighty Washington Huskies which for some reason looked unprepared and borderline un-coached in Tempe on Saturday night….What’s Up With That Pete?….and with that win over the Huskies the 3 – 3 Sun Devils have to keep things rolling because head coach Graham needs 7+ wins to hang onto this job and here is what ASU still has in front of them this season:

At Utah
USC
Colorado
At UCLA
At Oregon State
Arizona

One of the toughest things for a college head football coach is to get his team down from the HIGH of a beating a top-ranked team and Todd Graham has his work cut-out for him in getting the Sun Devils re-focused to play a very tough Utah team in Salt Lake City on Saturday because a loss to the Utes on Saturday and Graham will be moving right back up the Coaches Hot Seat Rankings again!

8.  Gus Malzahn, Auburn – In a season where Auburn head coach Gus Malzahn needs no more than 4 losses AND a win over either Georgia or Alabama to save his job losing two games to Clemson and LSU with Georgia and Alabama still left on the schedule is definitely Not A Good Thing and the calculus for Malzahn is that he has NO margin for error between now and the first of December with the 5 – 2 Tigers still having to play games against…

At Arkansas
At Texas A&M
Georgia
La. Monroe
Alabama

Bottom-Line:

If Gus Malzahn loses to Georgia and Alabama to finish at 8 – 4 he’s DONE at Auburn

If Gus Malzahn loses another game but beats either Georgia and Alabama to finish at 8 – 4 he HAS A CHANCE at Auburn

Yep…this is about Gus Malzahn winning at least one of the two games against Georgia and Alabama and we would recommend that Malzahn and his Tigers not lose either of the next two games before Georgia comes to The Plains on November 11 because that would put Gus into a borderline impossible spot so…

Coach Hard Gus because your job in on the line EVERY week Son!

9.  Lovie Smith, Illinois – Can someone…anyone…explain to us why Lovie Smith is the head football coach at Illinois?

No one can explain to us why Lovie Smith is the head coach at Illinois?

Didn’t think so and now after nothing short of a Total Disaster of a loss to Rutgers at home which came into the game with 16 straight Big Ten Conference losses Lovie Smith’s records with the Illini now stand at…

Overall:  5 – 13

Big Ten:  2 – 10

…and they still have to play this season:

At Minnesota
Wisconsin
At Purdue
Indiana
At Ohio State
Northwestern

Hell…will Illinois win another game in 2017?

Hell..even if they do win 1 or 2 of their last 6 games to finish at 3 – 9 or 4 – 8 how could Lovie Smith stay employed at Illinois?

The reality is that there are some coaches that are Pro Coaches and there are some coaches that are College Coaches and then there are a TINY amount of coaches that can coach both Pro and College players and if there is one thing that coaches that have successfully coached in both the Pro and College games…think Jimmy Johnson and Pete Carroll…it is they have…

PASSION

…for the Great Game of Football and thus can motivate 18 – 22 year old kids and Lovie Smith seems to us to be…

Barely Awake Even During the Games

….so Please…how in the Hell can Lovie Smith ever win a Damn thing at Illinois?

Eventually Lovie Smith will be fired at Illinois because there’s not a chance in Hell he will ever make the Illini competitive in the Uber-competitive Big Ten Conference and when the firing of a coach is inevitable it’s ALWAYS best to get on with the firing which is something the AD at Illinois will either understand now or learn eventually in the next year or so!

10.  Steve Addazio, Boston College – Steve Addazio’s BC team beat Louisville on Saturday which was nice win BUT beating this year’s Louisville team is not going to be that big of a deal come the end of the season because Louisville couldn’t stop the prison team from the original The Longest Yard movie and with that win Addazio’s Eagles improved to 3 – 4 in 2017 with these games still left to be played…

At Virginia
Florida State
NC State
UConn
At Syracuse

Unlike Louisville most of the above teams actually play DEFENSE and thus we fully expect BC to finish with a losing record in 2017 and for Steve Addazio to lose his job come late November – early December because with these records on the board…

Overall:  27 – 31

ACC:  12 – 24

…how could Addazio possibly keep his job with another losing season this year?

Former College Head Coach Weighs-In on Attention To Detail and The Little Things – #5 Hot Seat Head Coach, Jim Mora, UCLA

 

Following on our last blog post about “Attention to Detail” and “The Little Things”…

The Importance of Attention To Detail and The Little Things To Coaches Winning Football Games, Coaches Hot Seat Blog, March 2017

…a fairly well-known former head coach in college football rang-up the CHS red phone this week and said about the above post:

“Something you learn as a coach is that when you have everything organized and ready to go for the team the players sense that the head coach and his assistant coaches have their Shit together and that gives the players confidence that the coaches know what the Hell are doing which is a big part of building that positive feedback loop. The assistant coaches see that the head coach has his Shit together which gives them confidence, the players see the head coach and assistant coaches have their Shit together which gives them confidence, and all that confidence pays huge dividends when things start getting tough in close games.”

Amen to that and the above observation goes right to something that a few of us here at Coaches Hot Seat witnessed personally in the US Navy one more than one occasion when our commanding officer was replaced by another commanding officer, and each time that happened the new CO brought with him his own management style to the ship and crew and in short order the entire crew made a determination if the new CO knew what the Hell he was doing or not and either added or lost confidence in the CO and the other officers on the ship. Now in most situations in peacetime a crew losing confidence in the commanding officer of an US Navy ship is no big deal, but in something like Desert Storm which a few of us went through the change of command in a CO was a HUGE deal and luckily for us was a very positive change for the ship and crew!

Any fans of great movies certainly know the movie The Caine Mutiny when the officers of an US Navy ship confront the captain of the ship played by Humphrey Bogart who is clearly losing his mind and thus putting the ship and its crew at risk:

Lesson from the Caine Mutiny for head football coaches:

Get and Keep Your Shit Together!

#5 Hot Seat Head Coach, Jim Mora, UCLA

Many years ago a Coaches Hot Seat member got a great lesson in working with someone that remains with him to this day that is an important thing in writing about the situation that Jim Mora now finds himself in at UCLA.

That Coaches Hot Seat member has told a simple story many times that when he was working in Manhattan for a large bank that he over time got into a bad working relationship with a younger person that worked for him and their relationship got so bad that the younger person (and valuable employee) left the company to work for another bank. Shortly after the younger person had left the bank after six-plus months of turmoil in the workplace an older executive at the bank called the CHS member into his office and told him this:

“Just a piece of advice as you learn how to manage people in the real world. There are always going to be lots of disagreements on all kinds of different things in any office, but what you should keep in your mind when reacting to those disagreements is this…think about how you would be viewed if you happened to see one of the people now working for you 20 years from now on the street. Would that person be happy to see you, would they want to have a drink with you to catch up with old times, would they want to have dinner to talk about what has been going on with their life? If not, then you have turned a common workplace disagreement into something much worse that will have forever broken the relationship between two people and that is something you must avoid at all costs. There is nothing wrong with setting clear goals and holding people accountable in the office, but disagreements in the workplace must be dealt with in clear ways by a manager…by a leader….because if they are not it causes all kinds of discord that makes the office an unenjoyable and unproductive place to work.”

The Coaches Hot Seat member then says that when he held in his mind when considering the people he was managing that he might see one of these people on the street 20 years from now and that he would want that person to have a positive memory of the CHS member his entire management approach changed which he says almost overnight immediately improved the atmosphere and more importantly the productivity of the office.

What does the above story have to do with UCLA head coach Jim Mora you ask?

Jim Mora needs to take the advice of the older gentleman above and manage his coaches, support staff and players at UCLA as people in such a way that 20 years from now on the street they will want to stop, chat, have a drink or maybe have dinner to catch up on old times as opposed to way that Jim Mora is now managing the UCLA coaches, support staff and players which in our opinion has set the Bruins football team up for disaster and failure.

Let’s look at Jim Mora’s win/loss records at UCLA:

2012:  9 – 4
2013:  10 – 3
2014:  10 – 3
2015:  8 – 4
2016:  4 – 8

Overall:  41 – 24

Pac-12:  25 – 20

Now since we are talking about UCLA football which has only a marginal history in college football compared to a powerhouse program like UCLA, the above Jim Mora records are not bad per se, but they are trending in the wrong direction and another losing record for the Bruins in 2017 will put the folks in Westwood in a Helluva interesting spot since Mora would have a…

$10 Million-Plus Buyout at the end of the 2017 season

…which is Totally Damn Absurd since there is not a Chance in Hell that UCLA Dan Guerrero could raise $10 Million-Plus Dollars to buyout Jim Mora even if the Bruins didn’t win a game in 2017!

Now let’s go to UCLA’s 2017 schedule:

Texas A&M
Hawaii
At Memphis
At Stanford
Colorado
Bye Week
At Arizona
Oregon
At Washington
At Utah
Arizona State
At USC
California

Damn! There is a chance that if UCLA starts slow in 2017 that they could easily be…

0 – 5 or 1 – 4

…heading to Arizona on October 14 which would put a tremendous amount of heat on Jim Mora and UCLA AD Dan Guerrero, but let’s give the Bruins some benefit of the doubt that they will play decent football this coming season and come up with some predicted records for 2017:

Overall:  6 – 6

Pac 12:  3 – 6

Now if we had to predict a worse case total Armageddon scenario for Jim Mora and the UCLA Bruins in 2017 their record COULD easily be overall….

4 – 8

Would Jim Mora lose his job as the head coach of the UCLA Bruins if he posted a second consecutive record of 4 – 8 in 2017?

No UCLA head football coach in the post World War II era has survived to coach a third season after posting two straight losing seasons and more often than not UCLA head coaches posting .500 records for two consecutive seasons…

Save Terry Donahue in 1989 and 1990 when he posted two straight losing seasons, but Donahue had taken UCLA to the Rose Bowl three times and Fiesta Bowl once in recent years

…. have lost their jobs and not given a chance to coach another season which leads us to think that if Jim Mora and his Bruins do have a losing season in 2017….

There is going to be Helluva LARGE money agreement to be worked out on how UCLA is going to pay Jim Mora over time as he is shown the door in Westwood!