A Sea Of Red

ECU gets the ball rolling on this year’s edition by telling Mike Houston “it’s not you, it’s me” and moving on.

But it’s really you….

Florida announced that Napier will be back for his fourth year next year.
It’s a little surprising but I do think it’s the right decision.

What makes it the right decision?

Believe me, I’m all for coaches keeping their jobs. But in today’s day of open portal and NIL, a program can be expected to enhance faster than ever. Is he just too expensive for them to buy out right now? What gives?

My thinking behind it being the right decision is that Florida has had a lot of turnover since Meyer. New coaches every 3 or 4 years clearly isn’t working (and maybe Napier won’t either) for them. Napier recruiting class has gotten better each year he’s been there including this upcoming class and they do have a decent amount of young talent. They’ve looked better as the season has progressed. Albeit not a lot better…but slowly getting better.

Here’s the biggest one in my opinion. They’ll be gutted of talent yet again if he’s fired. Mainly Lagway who I think is very good. The new coach would come in to bare cupboards again and have to start over from scratch.

JK37 wrote: ↑November 8th, 2024, 6:39 pm What makes it the right decision?

Believe me, I’m all for coaches keeping their jobs. But in today’s day of open portal and NIL, a program can be expected to enhance faster than ever. Is he just too expensive for them to buy out right now? What gives?

Unless it's just been a disaster on the field with no signs that things will improve or there are off the field issues I think coaches should still get 4 years even in the NIL era. From everything ive observed napier runs a clean program so thats not an issue. Yes you can turnover a roster pretty quickly through the portal but your depth is still mostly going to come through high school recruiting and his oldest recruits are redshirt sophomores. If he still hasn't shown enough progress next year that's when you let him go.

The quality of recruiting classes grows less and less sognificant every year. Is the state of the program better in Gainesvile than before he arrived? Some might suggest this may be the program bottoming out. The vote of confidence from the AD is often the kiss of death for a coach. We shall see.

UNC is getting rid of Brown but he’s still coaching this weekend.
The ESPN article had HCJC as a potential hire but that one doesn’t particularly concern me. Who knows though.

When chadwell stops getting mentioned everytime there's a P4 job opening that's when I'll get concerned.

Ill flame wrote:When chadwell stops getting mentioned everytime there's a P4 job opening that's when I'll get concerned.

This. He wins, so it will come up every time there's an opening.

Call me naive, but I'm really not worried about him leaving in the next couple years.

I doubt HCJC would be interested in going to UNC. They have the ugliest uniforms in all of sports. Can't imagine another skool wearing that nasty baby blue. Would they??????

Chadwell doesn’t fit the culture in Chapel Hill just my $.02. Could be wrong.

Yeah, I don't see the Carolina gig being the end destination for Coach Chadwell. Of course, I could be wrong. But that is not likely to be the last attractive opportunity to pop up in the next few days.

Let the record show that I have always liked Mack personally. He & Sally are great people. Mack is one of the few major head coaches to fully comprehend the role PR can play in your success as a coach and leverage it all the way to the top of the profession. The man could charm just about anyone with his East Tennessean awshucks persona. I ran into him randomly a few times in Houston long after my days covering him in Austin. He always remembered my name and would ask about my wife who he used to watch on TV. He'll enjoy his grandkids fully.

As for the reference to DJ Lagway, I would be shocked if he stayed in Gainesville more than one more season regardless of the coach. DJ is from nearby where the Flames play tomorrow. Florida was lucky to hold onto him after an early verbal and a last minute NIL push from A&M. Most of the locals here believe that he was a shoe-in to be an Aggie next season until Marcel Reed's surprising emergence midseason. He may still wind up back home in Texas. NIL money is going to be tempting now that DJ has improved late in the season.

JK37 wrote: ↑November 27th, 2024, 9:06 pm Chadwell doesn’t fit the culture in Chapel Hill just my $.02. Could be wrong.

The only culture any fanbase really cares about is winning and he does plenty of that. I don't pretend to know exactly what chadwell would want out of his next job but I've always thought UNC would be toward the top of that list behind Tennessee and Clemson.

Remember when Larry Fedora was supposed to lead UNC to the promise land

HCJC had plenty of opportunities to make the jump to the P4/5 over the past 3 years. He decided to come to LU in what was a lateral move (at least in terms of school history and stature), although he got a very nice raise. He’s a great fit culturally for LU, we offer nearly unlimited resources and the same level of facilities P4s have. I would be surprised if he chose to jump ship this soon, especially after all of the bluster about him promising his wife this was home for a while and that they wouldn’t be moving again anytime soon…

Humble_Opinion wrote: ↑November 29th, 2024, 11:09 pm HCJC had plenty of opportunities to make the jump to the P4/5 over the past 3 years. He decided to come to LU in what was a lateral move (at least in terms of school history and stature), although he got a very nice raise. He’s a great fit culturally for LU, we offer nearly unlimited resources and the same level of facilities P4s have. I would be surprised if he chose to jump ship this soon, especially after all of the bluster about him promising his wife this was home for a while and that they wouldn’t be moving again anytime soon…

Look no further than former HCHF. He basically had the same situation. HCJC even said if they played as poorly as they did at the beginning of the season he would not be here. Well….they never got any better ….so…

Except we KNEW from day one that this was a re-hab opportunity for Freeze and the first-best opportunity that came along for him to return to the SEC-level coaching job he would be gone. And while he often said how much he loved it here, he never made a statement like HCJC did about a long-term commitment to Liberty.

We were 4 plays from being undefeated this season.

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑November 30th, 2024, 11:00 am We were 4 plays from being undefeated this season.

We were 4 plays away from losing 4 more games.

We played the weakest schedule in FBS. There might even be a FCS school or two in the MVFC that had a tougher schedule. The "we were only x number of plays away from winning more games" narrative doesn't work against teams we should beat by 3+ TDs.

Ill flame wrote: ↑November 30th, 2024, 3:28 pm We played the weakest schedule in FBS. There might even be a FCS school or two in the MVFC that had a tougher schedule. The "we were only x number of plays away from winning more games" narrative doesn't work against teams we should beat by 3+ TDs.

I don’t know this but I would assume there were multiple FCS teams with stronger schedules than us and multiple FCS teams that could consistently beat us.

This is pure speculation on my part but I think Ryan Day may be in trouble at OSU. It sounds ridiculous but I think they are getting antsy up there.

Ohio state is in the same boat as Penn state. There's no obvious upgrade available so they'll keep riding it out with their current coach hoping they break through. The last thing anyone wants is a Nebraska situation where they fire the good but not great coach then become irrelevant.

That’s a really good point I’ll flame and is probably the correct choice for each program.

Surprisingly the UCF job is open. Gus is leaving to be FSU’s new OC.