HC Candidate/Rumors/Info Thread

[orientalnc]

We hired a guy from ECU years ago and it didn't work out so well.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

I don’t know who it is but I'm all for him.

 

[Techster]

Say what you want about Deion, but the guy does hit all the right notes with the media.

 

[Techster]

Recruiting potential will always be a factor for potential coaches to consider:

 

[684Bee]

Recruiting potential will always be a factor for potential coaches to consider:

I’d move us up one slot.

 

[JacketFan137]

I’d move us up one slot.

idk though. nebraska has a little bit less holding them back

 

[kg01]

I’d move us up one slot.

Agreed. Pretty sure we can count on AZSt to .... #ForkUp their hire.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

I

Recruiting potential will always be a factor for potential coaches to consider:

Recruiting potential will always be a factor for potential coaches to consider:

I would rate our recruiting potential 2nd behind the War Eagles. Location is important. Who wants to go to Nebraska or Wisconsin. Especially in the winter. And we have enough athletes in a 200 mile circle to field 5-10 teams.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

Deion would definitely make the biggest splash. And most of the names I’ve seen would be solid choices. We just don’t need to screw up this hire.

 

[Vespidae]

I would rate our recruiting potential 2nd behind the War Eagles. Location is important. Who wants to go to Nebraska or Wisconsin. Especially in the winter. And we have enough athletes in a 200 mile circle to field 5-10 teams.

As to recruiting potential, I agree the potential is there. Unrealized. I've been surveying my player students for 4 years asking, "Would you have considered Georgia Tech?" So far, not one "yes".

 

[slugboy]

I don't know about recruiting potential, but here are the recruiting rankings for the last 22 years, sorted by average recruiting rank, from https://collegefootballdata.com/exporter/recruiting/teams.

If we're sitting on untapped recruiting potential, there's very little sign of us ever accidentally tapping it. Yes, we've had good years, but almost everyone has had good years.

I have serious issues with the scores they put together--it's akin to astrology or phrenology. It's pseudoscience. But here's their pseudoscience in a nice table for ya.

School	Avg Rank	Avg Rank 2013-2022	Max Rank	Min Rank
Auburn	13.565217​	12.3​	30​	5​
Nebraska	25.956522​	25.8​	41​	8​
Arizona State	34.652174​	37.6​	103​	17​
Wisconsin	37.217391​	34.5​	65​	15​
Colorado	44.869565​	56​	74​	13​
Georgia Tech	47.173913​	49.8​	70​	15​

To me, it looks like having a multi-year plan and getting the key players you need on in "skill" positions and on the line is the way to go. Find a LB that you can grow into an all-ACC LB. Set up strength and conditioning to get them strong and agile but keep them from getting injured (Stanford was really good about that for a while).

TL;DR: have a good plan and execute on it. Get to know great players and try to get them to come to your school, but have a great team in a great environment and your odds of having great players goes up.

 

[orientalnc]

I think it would be interesting to watch the ECU @ Cincinnati game tonight. Mike Houston might be a more serious candidate than we realized. The Pirates were a mess before he took over in 2019. They ended the previous season with 56-6 and 58-3 defeats against unranked teams. The transfer portal was filling with unhappy ECU players. Houston's first season was a slight improvement. Not on defense, but they were scoring points and looked like a football team when they had the ball. 2020 was the COVID year, so I don't think those results should count for much. In 2021 they were 7-5 and all the losses were to teams with winning records. This year they look like a pretty good football team.

Greenville is just over an hour from my home and I usually drive up for a couple of games. But, since COVID we have stayed at home. If he can recruit to ECU he can recruit to Ga Tech. Greenville has to be the least "college town" atmosphere I know of. The campus is mixed in with suburban strip malls and big box stores. The downtown doesn't really exist. There is little or no night life in Greenville. Half or more of the student body lives somewhere other than campus housing. Game day atmosphere is nice and Greenville businesses show the purple and gold all over town. The alums are supportive, but for many fans the Pirates are their 2nd favorite team.

Mike Houston would not be a bad choice.

 

[bobongo]

Agreed. Pretty sure we can count on AZSt to .... #ForkUp their hire.

I'll bet they don't fork it up as bad as we did.

 

[ChicagobasedJacket]

Say what you want about Deion, but the guy does hit all the right notes with the media.

This list is one guy’s opinion.

 

[kg01]

I'll bet they don't fork it up as bad as we did.

They literally already did with the edwards hire so history is on my side.

 

[bobongo]

I think it would be interesting to watch the ECU @ Cincinnati game tonight. Mike Houston might be a more serious candidate than we realized. The Pirates were a mess before he took over in 2019. They ended the previous season with 56-6 and 58-3 defeats against unranked teams. The transfer portal was filling with unhappy ECU players. Houston's first season was a slight improvement. Not on defense, but they were scoring points and looked like a football team when they had the ball. 2020 was the COVID year, so I don't think those results should count for much. In 2021 they were 7-5 and all the losses were to teams with winning records. This year they look like a pretty good football team.

Greenville is just over an hour from my home and I usually drive up for a couple of games. But, since COVID we have stayed at home. If he can recruit to ECU he can recruit to Ga Tech. Greenville has to be the least "college town" atmosphere I know of. The campus is mixed in with suburban strip malls and big box stores. The downtown doesn't really exist. There is little or no night life in Greenville. Half or more of the student body lives somewhere other than campus housing. Game day atmosphere is nice and Greenville businesses show the purple and gold all over town. The alums are supportive, but for many fans the Pirates are their 2nd favorite team.

Mike Houston would not be a bad choice.

I don't know if he's the answer, but I would hope the powers that be don't shy away from him just because he's ECU and Bill Lewis came from there.
Lots of fans would immediately jump on that, even if it's completely irrelevant. Every rough patch would be met with, "Here we go again with another ECU retread".

 

[Vespidae]

I don't know about recruiting potential, but here are the recruiting rankings for the last 22 years, sorted by average recruiting rank, from https://collegefootballdata.com/exporter/recruiting/teams.

If we're sitting on untapped recruiting potential, there's very little sign of us ever accidentally tapping it. Yes, we've had good years, but almost everyone has had good years.

I have serious issues with the scores they put together--it's akin to astrology or phrenology. It's pseudoscience. But here's their pseudoscience in a nice table for ya.

School	Avg Rank	Avg Rank 2013-2022	Max Rank	Min Rank
Auburn	13.565217​	12.3​	30​	5​
Nebraska	25.956522​	25.8​	41​	8​
Arizona State	34.652174​	37.6​	103​	17​
Wisconsin	37.217391​	34.5​	65​	15​
Colorado	44.869565​	56​	74​	13​
Georgia Tech	47.173913​	49.8​	70​	15​

I don't put any stock in these rankings ... it's not who you can recruit, it's who can you keep?

The reality is there ARE players in the recruiting zone for AU ... GA, AL, FL, and MS (some). Still, Auburn's problem is that of the top SEC schools that have the most players in the NFL, Auburn is last. Florida (33), Oklahoma (40; coming soon), Georgia (48), LSU (57) and Alabama (65) all have more, and in some cases, many more ... players with a path to the League.

And that gets back to the complaint against Gus. Schools like GA, AL, and LSU are running programs that are moving players directly from college into the NFL. AU wasn't. And the perception gap was growing. It wasn't developing players and getting them ready (even Harsin said the physical conditioning of Georgia was far superior to that of Auburn) and that in turn, affects the attractiveness of the school to other hi-pots.

 

[whitegoldsphinx]

I don't know if he's the answer, but I would hope the powers that be don't shy away from him just because he's ECU and Bill Lewis came from there.
Lots of fans would immediately jump on that, even if it's completely irrelevant. Every rough patch would be met with, "Here we go again with another ECU retread".

It's sort of like saying my business won't hire any Germans because Hitler is from Germany.

 

[leatherneckjacket]

I think it would be interesting to watch the ECU @ Cincinnati game tonight. Mike Houston might be a more serious candidate than we realized. The Pirates were a mess before he took over in 2019. They ended the previous season with 56-6 and 58-3 defeats against unranked teams. The transfer portal was filling with unhappy ECU players. Houston's first season was a slight improvement. Not on defense, but they were scoring points and looked like a football team when they had the ball. 2020 was the COVID year, so I don't think those results should count for much. In 2021 they were 7-5 and all the losses were to teams with winning records. This year they look like a pretty good football team.

Greenville is just over an hour from my home and I usually drive up for a couple of games. But, since COVID we have stayed at home. If he can recruit to ECU he can recruit to Ga Tech. Greenville has to be the least "college town" atmosphere I know of. The campus is mixed in with suburban strip malls and big box stores. The downtown doesn't really exist. There is little or no night life in Greenville. Half or more of the student body lives somewhere other than campus housing. Game day atmosphere is nice and Greenville businesses show the purple and gold all over town. The alums are supportive, but for many fans the Pirates are their 2nd favorite team.

Mike Houston would not be a bad choice.

I think it is fair to compare Houston to Chadwell since they were both coaching at FCS schools at the same time and then were coaching at teams that moved up to FBS. I would say Houston and Chadwell have had similar success at FCS, but Chadwell has done much better at Coastal Carolina then Houston has done at ECU. I acknowledge that there mitigating circumstance at ECU, but there is a pretty big gap between how the two teams have played the last few years. I am not saying that Houston is a bad coach or would be a horrible hire. I just think Chadwell has shown that he is ready for the next step to a P5 program while Houston still has some work to do at ECU to show that he is ready.

 

[bobongo]

It's sort of like saying my business won't hire any Germans because Hitler is from Germany.

Same thing.

As long as he doesn't wear tight polyester pants and no socks, I'm fine with him wherever he's from...