Stan Parrish out at Ball State
Ball State fired coach Stan Parrish on Tuesday after two lackluster seasons with the Cardinals.
Athletic director Tom Collins said in a statement, "As we evaluated the on-field performance and the football program in its entirety, we decided it was time for a change in direction in the leadership of the program." Sources told Joe Schad of ESPN.com on Monday night that Parrish would not return.
Ball State went 12-2 and won the MAC West in 2008 under then-coach Brady Hoke. But after he left for San Diego State, Parrish was promoted from assistant head coach to head coach.
Ball State just finished up a 2-10 season. In two years as head coach, Parrish went 6-18. Parrish was on the MAC football conference call on Monday, but his future was never addressed. He said this about his team:
"We had two games in hand that we gave away. I thought we could have been a six-win team," Parrish said. "We did not take that step defensively I thought we were going to take. We have a lot of very good skill players. The key is to develop that toughness and get better and move forward from here."
Offensive coordinator Eddie Faulkner will serve as interim head coach.
Parrish is the second MAC coach who will not return to his team next season. Kent State coach Doug Martin announced Sunday night he was resigning after the season finale Friday night.
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:37 PM ^
to bad he doesnt coach defense
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:39 PM ^
Ouch. National champion at Michigan and fired at Ball State. Maybe just maybe it is about the players and not the coaches that ultimately determine wins and losses.
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:43 PM ^
Yet you clicked on the post. Jeez, just some info on a former offensive coordinator that helped us win a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!!
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:44 PM ^
the wrong pic. I have updated it.
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:51 PM ^
Well, we know for sure that Brady Hoke has good timing. Has a team ever gone from 12 wins (his last year at BSU) to 2 in one season? Doubtful ... he struck while the proverbial iron was hot.
- - -
Elsewhere, look at what a bizarre career Stan Parrish has had:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Stan_Parrish
He tore it up at Division III Wabash (surely beating DePauw a few times in the process), jumped to Marshall, and was likely viewed as a rising star just before turning 40 and leaving for the big time at (D'oh!) Kansas State. Then, *20* years later he gets another shot. Crazy.
November 23rd, 2010 at 8:54 PM ^
He did win a National Championship and a Super Bowl. He's not a bad coach. Maybe just not head coaching material.
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:05 PM ^
My post was intended as a comment on luck and timing. Who knows? If Stan had chosen a less barren place to try high Division I football, he might have succeeded [1]. His arc up to that point was pretty nice. A similar scenario with some obvious differences (in track record and level of football) is playing out with Ron English at EMU.
[1] A few years later Bill Snyder succeeded at KSU, so it clearly was possible to do.
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:06 PM ^
Just because somebody is a killer coordinator and struggles a tad as a head coach doesnt mean they're a bad person.
Your Pal,
Charlie W
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:13 PM ^
Also just because someone has killer hair and struggle a tad at both coordination and head coaching doesn't mean they're a bad person.
Your Other Pal,
Gerg
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:18 PM ^
Hoke is going to get another nice promotion because he took over the SDSU job at just the right time. Chuck Long had raised the recruiting profile and cleaned up a lot of the mess in that program but never got to reap the rewards on the field (axed after just three seasons) so Hoke got a quarterback who had already thrown 16 TD's against just 9 INT's as a RS freshman under Long (a kid, Ryan Lindley, whose recruiting ranking saw him fall within a couple spots of guys like Nick Foles at Arizona and Kellen Moore at BSU).
Hoke is going to cash a very nice check in part because of the natural progression from 2 to 4 to 7/8 wins that can come when a quality QB goes from his freshman to sophomore to junior season (and the bottom half of your nine team league features four 9+ loss teams). Combine that with not so high expectations and recent history and it equals $$$$ for Hoke.
Maybe he can give Stan another job.
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:05 PM ^
suggests something was seriously awry. There's got to be more to this than wins and losses.
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:11 PM ^
Nah, I'm gonna guess 6-19 after a 12 win 2008 seson was enough to say goodbye
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:33 PM ^
For people associated with a program like Ball State not to realize that that 12 win season (which came out of nowhere and still didn't result in a MAC Championship or a bowl win against Tulsa) was an enormous outlier makes no sense. Bill Lynch never won more than 8 games there and Hoke had never won more than 7 (he did so the year before, the only winning season in his first five at BSU).
To expect anything resembling that to continue and not to see a dramatic dropoff coming shows just how myopic college football fans/administrators can be everywhere.
November 23rd, 2010 at 11:06 PM ^
After a 9-4 season is reason to fire someone, especially when they're at a traditionally better program than Ball State. Oh, not so much? Still seem so responsible?
November 23rd, 2010 at 9:45 PM ^
Such is life in the MAC. A team has a nice pattern of success going for even a little while, then the coach leaves for something better, his players graduate, and pretty soon the program is at the bottom of the league for a few years until the next "up-and-coming" head coach is found.
See: CMU (Kelly/Jones and Dan Lefevour, Antonio Brown, etc.), Ball State (Hoke and Nate Davis), Bowling Green (Meyer), etc.
November 23rd, 2010 at 11:22 PM ^
of good assistant coaches who were just plain lousy head coaches. The Detroit Lions have spent the better part of half a century hiring them, and then firing them.