Last Resort: Who's your no-name hire?
Fast forward to Dec./Jan. Hoke is gone. Harbaugh has rebuffed. Mullen to Florida. Stoops stays put. Les eats grass, etc. MgoBlog is flaming wreckage of ennui and disappoint. But we still need a coach. Who is your no-name hire?
We'll just say Bob Stitt is No Name Emeritus, as for all the play he's gotten on this board you'd think he was on par with Mullen, so you can exclude him.
I'll throw mine out there for a start. Craig Bohl up in Wyoming. Their record this year won't be terribly impressive, but it's his first year after an elite run at ND St. with a Manball O and a stifling D (impressive in the FCS). All our current guys would be a roster fit for his system. He looks pretty serious too, dare I say Schembeclerian?
November 12th, 2014 at 1:04 AM ^
There's a good chance I'll be scouting a lesser SEC team to follow, because if I'm going to have my soul crushed, it might as well be a team for which I have no emotional connection whatsoever.
Go Commodores.
November 12th, 2014 at 1:33 AM ^
Nothing wrong with a good Anchor down. (My best bud went there, so I'm biased).
V
November 12th, 2014 at 5:31 AM ^
i ever played ball with was a 4 year starter at vandy. lock-down corner, big enough to play safety, and when we got thin at QB his athleticism (sp?) and intellect led him to do a great job replacing our former denver broncos QB who got dinged up for a short period of time.
November 12th, 2014 at 6:39 AM ^
Kirby Smart
November 12th, 2014 at 1:44 PM ^
For enough MGoPoints, I'll come to Michigan....
November 12th, 2014 at 2:47 PM ^
Go on...
November 12th, 2014 at 1:06 AM ^
November 12th, 2014 at 3:58 AM ^
Didn't he just sign an extension on his contract
November 12th, 2014 at 6:33 AM ^
I'm not sure we'd have to dig much deeper than Mark Stoops either. That may not be a bad thing either. Given the talent and resources, he could be a heck of a find. By all accounts, he seems to be one hell of a recruiter and defensive coach.
As far as his contract extension, it's been mentioned on here several times that he does not have a buy-out in his contract. I haven't looked it up to verify it, so take it FWIW.
November 12th, 2014 at 7:07 PM ^
I would not mind having him at all. He's not my first choice, but he's not that far down my list.
November 12th, 2014 at 6:47 AM ^
November 12th, 2014 at 6:48 AM ^
That doesn't mean anything. Contracts have buyouts. Michigan will simply pay his buyout.
November 12th, 2014 at 8:23 AM ^
November 12th, 2014 at 1:51 PM ^
So yes, it is very small.
November 12th, 2014 at 1:12 AM ^
Better than Hoke, but still not what we need and season ticket sales will plummet.
November 12th, 2014 at 3:54 AM ^
if getting a coach with a career .602 winning percentage to make a lateral move from a rebuilding SEC blue blood to a rebuilding B1G blue blood is your "last resort", that's pretty fucking incredible.
November 12th, 2014 at 6:37 AM ^
Right? I'm surprised he didn't go with Nick Saban as his last resort.
November 12th, 2014 at 1:13 AM ^
Mike Ditka
November 12th, 2014 at 2:11 AM ^
Why not? It would help the team's "toughness"
November 12th, 2014 at 9:17 AM ^
Now remember, the name of the hurricane is Hurricane Ditka.
November 12th, 2014 at 1:13 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
November 12th, 2014 at 1:17 AM ^
that's a tough one but I would have to go with Jim Harbaugh.
November 12th, 2014 at 11:39 PM ^
I lol'd
November 12th, 2014 at 1:21 AM ^
David Cutcliffe from Duke. He isn't a no-name, because I think most people (here) know who he is, but I've seen very little mention of him for this job. That's probably because he's relatively old (60), but I care less about age than most here. Give us 5-10 good years and that's more than enough for me.
Cutcliffe inherited maybe the worst major conference college football program, replacing a coach who went 6-45 overall before Cutcliffe took over. His team has improved steadily, won the ACC Coastal division last year, and is 8-1 right now. He's a reigning national coach of the year and has an excellent record with developing QBs. He also seems like a good guy who would be a good spokesman for the university, and I assume that he's working within some actual academic requirements and expectations at Duke.
Cutcliffe's not at the top of my list, but I think Michigan could do much, much worse.
November 12th, 2014 at 3:55 AM ^
He along with Whittingham both rebuffed TN in their 2010 search. So I think he is quite loyal to Duke and is not going anywhere at his age. People don't want to hear this but the TN job is very similar to the UM job and I could make a case in modern football, more attractive to recruits and coaches (better conference, the easier side of that conference, and potentially less stringent player acceptance standards). For a guy from the south who coached at Ole Miss, a jump to TN seemed a lot more natural than UM.
But in terms of qualifications I'd agree with you that Cutcliffe is a guy that would fit - in fact I had him in my signature during the Brandon era because Brandon is in love all things Duke.
November 12th, 2014 at 7:46 AM ^
November 12th, 2014 at 5:15 PM ^
Look at Chris Petersen. He rebuffed people for years, than finally left Boise. Sometimes it takes time, especially when a coach realizes the ceiling on his current program.
November 12th, 2014 at 6:25 AM ^
I'd rather get Doroen from NC State... specially if he gets bowl elegible this year... something that took Cutcliffe 5 years at Duke to achieve(granted, Duke was in much worse shape than NC State when Cutcliffe took over).
Cutcliffe already had a second tier job at Ole Miss and failed... I don't think he'll do much better than perpetual 7 and 8 win seasons here.
November 12th, 2014 at 7:39 AM ^
November 12th, 2014 at 5:12 PM ^
I've been pleasantly surprised at the lack of CC: Hugh Freeze threads. I'm not sold on Mullen just yet as an elite coach, but at least Mullen seems to be more on the Richt side of the ethical scale. Sure Freeze has turned Ole Miss around, but all signs point to him being DIRTY. Is "Hugh Sleaze" a thing yet? We've had more than enough paying player scandals for one lifetime, thanks...
November 12th, 2014 at 8:06 AM ^
Dave Doeren has won one conference game in two years at NC State (his only HC job at a Power 5 school). He might not be a bad coach, but there's no way he can get the Michigan job with a resume like that.
November 12th, 2014 at 8:52 AM ^
I've written about 10 in depth CC pieces (including Doeren and Stoops) and aside from a very few guys like Graham and Meyer and Brian Kelly it takes almost all other coaches til year 3 to truly make an impact where you see all the "behind the numbers" improve and some signature wins. Same with Harbaugh at Stanford - he did have the massive upset of USC but his year 3 back to back wins vs Oregon and USC came along with truly improved offense/defensive stats.
It is impossible to judge either Doeren or Mark Stoops on a fair basis right now. Next year will begin to tell the tale on both. Stoops especially inherited a tire fire only matched by what Harbaugh had at Stanford.
I just wrote a very long a$$ piece in diaries on Gary Anderson by the way this morning if anyone is interested. I would put him right there with Stoops or Butch Jones in the "tier 3 candidates". And he probably would be by far the safest of the 3.
November 12th, 2014 at 1:54 PM ^
The problem with hiring a coach at 60 is that he could take 3 years to turn things around and hit his groove and then boom: retirement in a couple of years.
November 12th, 2014 at 1:30 AM ^
Nate Scarborough
November 12th, 2014 at 1:24 AM ^
Head football coach at the United States Naval Academy, a position he has held since the 2007 season. Niumatalolo played college football at the University of Hawaiʻi. As a quarterback he led the then-Rainbows to their first postseason bowl game in 1989. Niumatalolo is the second person of Polynesian descent to be named head coach of a NCAA Division I FBS college football program and the first ethnic Samoan collegiate head coach on any level. Niumatalolo was inducted into the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame on January 23, 2014
November 12th, 2014 at 1:26 AM ^
Todd Graham, if that counts as a no-name coach
November 12th, 2014 at 2:19 AM ^
Man, I think you guys should google Todd Graham. He sounds like a flake and a bit of a scumbag.
November 12th, 2014 at 6:21 AM ^
I want nothing to do with Todd Graham. No thank you.
November 12th, 2014 at 7:19 AM ^
November 12th, 2014 at 8:13 AM ^
November 12th, 2014 at 1:39 AM ^
Yes he's 65. Don't care because the way he runs his program at Coastal Carolina is completely different from how every other coach does things, so to hell with the normal age curve for coaches. 10-0 this year, has won or shared conference title every year as a HC, made it deep into FCS playoffs and is doing all this at a school that has classes in doublewides because they have no money.
And by God I'm fascinated at how an actual CEO (he's a former CEO of TD Ameritrade and some folks estimate he's a billionaire) can rethink the way a coaching staff does its job. He is meticulous in his preparation and the way he collects data that he uses for various decisions and evaluations, and he forces his assistants to be efficient in how they do their jobs. His staff and him work 9 hour days! And it works!
November 12th, 2014 at 1:52 AM ^
November 12th, 2014 at 4:02 AM ^
Wow, had no idea he was coaching .
November 12th, 2014 at 10:57 AM ^
but he is so into that school I just don't see him leaving
November 12th, 2014 at 1:40 AM ^
Anyone who is HC of a Power 5 program is not a no name. Come on guys, get weird.
November 12th, 2014 at 1:55 AM ^
November 12th, 2014 at 2:02 AM ^
November 12th, 2014 at 2:15 AM ^
Who is Miles, Stoops or Mullin?
November 12th, 2014 at 4:06 AM ^
Yep. Or Narduzzi. Or Sumlin. That sums up most people's groups - one guy due to being at a rival and defeating a lot of offenses tailor made for him (run based QBs) and one guy who relied on Manziel. Glad both of them have been exposed this year to a degree because they both have some serious flags.
I do get a kick out of recency bias though. A year ago Sumlin would have been top 3 for almost every person on the board despite a complete neglect of defense in his career. Now after a few bad losses with a brand new QB no one talks about him. Meanwhile at this exact point last year Dan Mullen was 4-6 with 2 games to go with exactly one power 5 conference win, vs 2-10 Kentucky. Now everyone wants him.
Meanwhile an excellent coach like Patterson who had 2 down years due to switching from the Mountain West to Big 12 would have been scoffed at as a candidate. While this year is basically choice 2 or 3 for most now - but if they had lost 2 more games by say 3 pts combined and been 6-3 instead of 8-1 people would not even acknowledge him ;)