One Right, and Two Wrongs, on College Football Coaching Carousal

The next two days I want to talk about some college coaching changes that have occurred since the regular season ended. Today I want to focus on three new coaches. I got some feeling about all three of these hires, only one of which am I on board with.

The first is the one I like. I think Wisconsin hit an absolute home run when they lured Luke Fickell away from Cincinnati. Fickell has been up and coming for a few seasons now. He turned Cincy into a power. They are the first non power five school to make the playoff. They gave a good fight to Alabama last year. He has gotten solid recruits to commit. He coached some solid first round NFL picks in his time at Cincy. He was just waiting for an opportunity. And it is not like Cincy isn't a power, but Wisconsin is a better job. The facilities are better. It is easier to get higher rated recruits. They have a very historic past. They just needed a coach who can help usher them into this new era of college football. Fickell is the guy to do that. This hire, as a Michigan fan, scares me for the future. Wisconsin is down this season, but they will not be down for long. Fickell is going to get solid players, turn this team around and they will be back to being an upper tier Big Ten team. That is also another reason why I do not mind him leaving Cincy for Wisconsin. Sure, Cincy is joining the Big 12 next year, but the Big 12 is not the Big 10. The Big 10 and SEC will most likely be the only two conferences left in major college football in the next five to seven years. Fickell made the right choice. Wisconsin will be good again very soon.

Now to the other hires I do not like.

Matt Rhule is a big name in college football. He turned Temple around and then did the same thing with Baylor. He parlayed that into an NFL job and failed spectacularly. The Panthers were bad. He was under prepared. He didn't seem to have the edge needed to coach in the NFL. So I get the move back to college for him. He is the leader. He is the boss. He is the CEO. He gets to call the shots. He is also getting paid handsomely. But I just do not see this as big a move as some others do. I remember last year when Jim Harbaugh was flirting with the NFL, again, and Rhule was being mentioned as a possible replacement if he were to leave Michigan. I told anyone who would listen that I did not want that. Rhule is an old school type coach. He plays a boring style of offense. He likes to slow the game down. He wants to control the clock and play tough defense. He is an old school Big 10 coach. I will give him credit for letting his offense run a little more up tempo at Baylor, but that was when he had the athletes to do that. Nebraska has some athletes, but they do not have the type he had at Baylor. They also do not have the players to run Rhule's old school offense or defense. He is going to have to recruit and recruit hard. I do not know how much he will want to do that after being in the NFL for two plus years. Rhule also doesn't seem like the Midwest type. He's from New York. He played at Penn State. He has coached Temple and Baylor. None of that screams Midwest. I just do not think the transition is going to be as smooth as others do. It is going to take time, and as we saw with Scott Frost, Nebraska fans want success now. They do not want to wait. I think if the fanbase is patient it could pay off, but it is going to be two or three years before they are truly competitive under Matt Rhule.

The final hire, the one I despise the most, is Auburn bringin on Hugh Freeze. Freeze comes with a plethora of problems. He has been sanctioned to hell. He has all of his wins from Ole Miss vacated. He had to go back to Liberty to coach, but he was all but forgotten about by a bunch of college football fans. He also ended his Liberty tenure with a whimper. They got beat in their last two games after winning something like seven in a row. He also may be a decent coach, but there are too many off field issues with him. Freeze is a cheater. He has been condemned as a cheater. He got caught. But somehow he failed upwards. Auburn should have just stuck with Cadillac Williams. He did a good job taking over for that blowhard Bryan Harsin. He had that team and fanbase energized. And I understand that Freeze has kept him on staff, but now that he has a taste of head coaching, I cannot imagine Cadillac Williams sticking around too long as an assistant. This hire has me scratching my head more than any other so far. Freeze brings too much baggage and it is only a matter of time before he messes up again. Auburn could have done better.

Time will tell on all these guys, but Luke Fickell to Wisconsin is the only one that makes any immediate sense to me.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Who Will Be the Next USC Football Coach?

I knew Clay Helton was not going to last past this year unless USC won the title. Well, he only lasted two weeks. USC got absolutely crushed, at home, by Stanford. The Cardinal football team just crushed them early and rode that momentum to an easy two touchdown win. It was a solid win for David Shaw and Stanford. It cost Helton his job. He was not long for USC's head coaching job pretty much from the moment he was hired.

Truth is that Helton was not the first choice, and USC's much praised alumni made that well known. And Helton never did "enough" in the eyes of the school to keep him around. He had a solid record since taking over in 2015 at 46-24. But his best season was in 2017 when they finished 11-3, but got beat in the Cotton Bowl. Every other season was 8-5 or 5-7. He had one ten win season, but he was much more inline with the seven or eight win seasons. Unfortunately that does not cut it at a school like USC. They have national title aspirations. They are a blue blood team. They were once dominant. They used to get the best of the best recruits. Then Pete Carroll left, the school got disciplined and they have not recovered. Lane Kiffin didn't work. Steve Sarkisian didn't work. And now Clay Helton has not worked.

I have seen the names being mentioned, and it looks like USC is going to shoot for the stars. The first name I saw was Luke Fickell. I do not like that guy at all. He is a total asshole. But he has turned Cincinnati into a real playoff contender. They are a very legit top 10 team. They can play. He has squashed the rumors, but every coach mentioned for this job will say they have no interest.

I saw James Franklin was mentioned. He has built Penn State back into a perennial top 20 team. Again, I do not care for Franklin as a person, but he has won everywhere he has coached. He did it at Vanderbilt, but left them a total mess from which they have not recovered. And now he has Penn State back in the national conversation after a very odd season last year. Franklin to USC actually makes a ton of sense to me, but I do not know if he will leave Penn State just yet.

Whenever a major head coaching job opens, or is even talked about possibly being opened, Matt Campbell's name comes up. Campbell has turned Iowa State into a good team, but they seem to fall flat in big time games. Iowa State was supposed to beat Iowa this year. It was their time. Iowa beat them pretty handily. They also lost some odd games last year. Campbell will get his shot eventually, but USC would be trading Helton for a slightly better version of Helton if they hire Campbell.

PJ Fleck is another name I see and this one makes zero sense to me. Fleck did turn Western Michigan into a very good team, but he has only had one good season with Minnesota. He can coach the kids up, but Minnesota is not as dominant as I think they hoped when they hired him a few years back.

Mario Cristobol was mentioned, but I do not see him leaving Oregon any time soon. He is building something good in Eugene. And as it does any time a big job is opened you get the former star coaches or former/current pro coaches.

Bill O'Brien has come up on lists. I'd say no thank you.

Bob Stoops has been out of the game way too long. He is no Mack Brown. I also do not think he wants to come out of retirement.

Tony Elliot, Clemson's offensive coordinator, is on a few lists, but he seems rather comfortable where his is right now.

Of course, Urban Meyer is being mentioned, especially since the Jags got bombarded by the Texans in his first game as a NFL head coach. If Meyer were to leave the Jags for this job, he is no better than Bobby Petrino. In fact that would be worse. Not only would is prove that he couldn't cut it at the highest level, but that he was not prepared to do it at the highest level.

Looking at this list I think the job comes down to three guys, Fickell, Franklin or Campbell. If I were a betting man I bet Franklin leaves PSU for this job. That makes the most sense to me. He is a proven winner, can recruit and would fit it very well in Southern California.

That is how I see this whole USC coaching search ending, but it will take some time, all season long in fact, before they eventually try and lure Franklin away from his current job. And I bet he takes it. It is too good a job not to.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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