Spring Preview 2009
The 20 Big Questions ...
No. 10
By
Pete
Fiutak
With spring ball
underway, here are the 20 Big Questions to start off the offseason.
10. Ten coaches who need to win big this year are ...
Some of these
big-name coaches will be gone next year if they don't have big seasons,
some will be on double-secret probation in 2009 without a strong 2008,
and some just need to turn things around and make their already good
teams special again.
Three Big-Name Coaches Who'll Be Gone
Without A Big Year
Al Groh, Virginia
There are
12 teams in the conference and ten went to bowls. Duke, as expected, was
one team that missed out. Virginia was the other. Groh has been hanging
around by a thread over the last eight years with his tremendous
recruiting classes of the early part of his tenure failing to pan out,
and the struggles with consistency over the last few years putting the
spotlight on for 2009. While going 56-44 over eight years is decent,
it’s not like the program is getting any better in an ever improving ACC
and it’s not like anyone will be picking the Cavaliers to win the ACC
this season. Groh has been great at cranking out a few pro talents every
year, OT Eugene Monroe and LB Clint Sintim are the stars going into this
year’s draft, but the offense has been inconsistent and the defense
hasn’t picked up the slack.
Steve Kragthorpe, Louisville
It wasn’t all that long ago, 2006 to be exact, when Louisville was a
late Rutgers field goal away from playing for the national championship.
It wasn’t like the Cardinals were a fluke, either. That team, led by QB
Brian Brohm and coached by Bobby Petrino, beat eight teams that finished
with winning records with the only loss coming to the Scarlet Knight
team that finished 11-2. Petrino bolted for the Atlanta Falcons, but the
success was supposed to keep on coming with Steve Kragthope the hot head
coach of the moment. It was supposedly a coup for the Cardinals, but the
team was a major flop in 2007 going 6-6 and missing out on a bowl game
for the first time in a decade. The offense didn’t do much last year
scoring more than 24 points against just three FBS teams while a 5-2
start turned into a 5-7 disaster with a five-game
losing streak to close things out. After the Cardinal fans had a taste
of success under John L. Smith and then Petrino, another season without
a bowl, and without being a factor in the Big East race, won’t do.
Charlie Weis, Notre Dame
You never get a second chance to
make a first impression. Being an arrogant blowhard is nothing new for a
college football head coach, in fact it’s usually a prerequisite. But
when you come in bragging that your team will have a “schematic
advantage” over everyone else, and your personality is about as pleasant
as getting the back of your thigh shaved off by a cheese grater, there’s
going to be a backlash when there are lean times. When you’re known as
an offensive mastermind and your team comes up with the worst offensive
year in the history of Notre Dame football, job security will be an
issue. The Irish wasn’t all that bad last year, but the mediocre season
and a blowout loss to USC all but kicked Weis out on his can. Instead,
he was given one more year with a “BCS or bust” demand/threat. To be
fair, forgetting about the Ty Willingham coaching time frame side of the
equation, had he been able to sell the idea that he deserved a year for
his recruiting classes of a few years ago to mature, people would’ve
bought it. With a light schedule and a team good enough to come up with
a double-digit win season, the potential is there to come up with a
great year, even if the Irish fall just short of getting to the BCS.
Weis probably doesn’t have to get to the BCS to keep his job as long as
the team shows major signs of improvement, but anything less than a big
step forward will mean a new era in South Bend next year at this time.
Four Big-Name Coaches Who'll Get One More Chance If They Don't
Rock in 2009. One More.
Bret Bielema, Wisconsin
It
wasn’t all that long ago that Bielema was seen as college football’s
hottest young head coach. He was so highly thought of that he was locked
up and anointed in a succession plan by Barry Alvarez. As is always the
case at a big-time school, one disappointing season, especially one with
so many disastrous moments, starts to get some fans buzzing about making
a change. Bielema is still considered a rising coach, and he’d get
another job in a heartbeat if he’s let go, but he was badly outcoached
at times. Even though Wisconsin is no longer considered in the mix like
it was last year, the potential is still there for there to be a quick
turnaround if the defense toughens up and if there’s better quarterback
play. A second straight down year, even a losing one, won’t mean Bielema
will be gone, but the program will have to show signs that it can get
back on the fast track in the near future.
Gene Chizik,
Auburn
There will be a very,
very short leash on the Chizik
era. He has put together a tremendous coaching staff and he’s in far
better situation talent-wise than he was in at Iowa State, but he has
done nothing, nothing,
to show that he’s worthy of being a head coach anywhere, much less
at a place like Auburn. The word rebuild doesn’t fly for the top SEC
schools with a win-now-or-else attitude, especially for a program with a
fan base that has to sit back and groove on the rising success from its
arch-rival. Did offensive coordinator Tony Franklin get time to get the
pieces in place to properly run the attack last year? Yeah, bad example,
but considering all the controversy and skepticism surrounding the
hiring of Chizik, he can’t afford a losing season in year one if he
wants to breathe relatively easily in year two.
Rich
Rodriguez, Michigan
In the be careful for what you wish for
department, there was a segment of the Michigan fan base that couldn’t
wait to see Lloyd Carr move on. Going to the Rose Bowl and winning Big
Ten title games were nice, but year after year of not being in the
national title hunt, after winning it all in 1997, started to wear a bit
thin for some. Even with the huge 2006 season, when the Wolverines were
this close from being in the
national title, all the warm and fuzzy feelings went bye-bye with a Rose
Bowl loss to USC. The idea was that the button-down program needed to
undergo a philosophical change, within reason, or at least needed some
new blood. Greg Schiano said no and Les Miles couldn’t take the job he
so desperately wanted because he had a little thing called the national
championship getting in his way, but Rich Rodriguez was hardly a booby
prize. Remember, RichRod had West Virginia a healthy Pat White away from
playing for the 2007 national title (which, oddly enough, might have
meant the timing would’ve worked out for Miles to be even more in the
mix for the Michigan job since it would’ve been a West Virginia – Ohio
State BCS Championship), and also remember that Michigan needed to
undergo a major personnel face-lift. Everyone knew that the pieces
weren’t in place for the Wolverines to be great last year, but no one
saw a 3-9 disaster complete with a loss to Toledo and a 42-7
embarrassment at Ohio State. Rodriguez needs to show that the program is
on the right track, and a fantastic recruiting class was a good start. A
winning season would be better.
Steve Spurrier, South
Carolina
When you’re winning SEC championships and cranking out
offensive juggernauts, rotating the quarterbacks and monkeying with the
attack makes you quirky. A genius. When you go 28-21 in four years, get
destroyed against an arch-rival (Clemson) and fail to show up in the
bowl game (a 31-10 loss to Iowa), things aren’t working out well, even
if you’re an all-timer of a legend. A Steve Spurrier-led team was 97th
in the nation in yards?! 96th in scoring?! 112th
in rushing?! Most galling was the lack of effectiveness from the
quarterbacks that led the nation’s 93rd most efficient
passing game. The biggest problem was the lack of improvement as the
quarterbacks kept throwing interceptions, the offense kept sputtering,
and the team kept failing with a three game losing streak to close
things out (scoring just 30 points in the defeats). Considering the
Gamecocks lost their final five games of 2007, and with the team failing
to come close to being in the race for the SEC title, Spurrier has got
to show off why he’s still considered one of the great coaches in SEC
history.
Three Big-Name Coaches Who Won't Be Fired, But
Need To Get Their Mojo Back
Dan Hawkins, Colorado
The
Buffaloes were devastated by injuries in a 5-7 season, and while it was
a bad break for last year, losing four of the last five games and seven
of the last nine, it’s a plus for this season with an influx of talent
about to kick in thanks to the return of so many key contributors.
That’s the hope, anyway. With a disastrous 13-24 start, the Hawkins era
hasn’t exactly worked out as expected when he was lured away from Boise
State. Even so, he’s not on any sort of hot seat and there’s no talk
whatsoever about anything other than how improved the Buffs should be.
He’s still considered an elite head coach and he’s still thought of as a
tremendously inventive offensive mind, but the results have to start
kicking in.
Rick Neuheisel, UCLA
Neuheisel is one of
the best offensive coaches in the game. Norm Chow is the offensive
coordinator. So how is it that QB Kevin Craft never got any better? Why
is it that the offense got worse as the season went on? The 4-8 record
wasn’t expected, but it was accepted considering there was so much work
needing to be done to stock the depleted shelves. To be fair, losing the
No. 1 and 2 quarterbacks (Ben Olsen and Patrick Cowan) before the season
didn’t help matters, and a nightmare of an O line proved to be a killer.
A fantastic recruiting class was a great step forward considering
Neuheisel came to Westwood claiming he was ready to go head-to-head with
USC for players, but it’s going to be at least another year before the
Bruins can make some noise in the Pac 10 race. In the meantime, getting
to a bowl game would be a solid sign that the program is headed in the
right direction.
Bill Snyder, Kansas State
There’s no
question that Snyder did one of the greatest jobs in the history of
college football by taking the miserable program and making it one of
the nation’s powerhouses. However, lost in the memory of all the success
was the clunker of an ending to his era going just 9-13 in the two years
after the high point, the 2003 Big 12 Championship win over Oklahoma.
It’s not like Ron Prince was awful in his time in Manhattan, but there
didn’t appear to be much hope of being back in the hunt for a conference
title any time soon. KSU has always needed to rely heavily on JUCO
transfers to succeed, but the formula didn’t work under Prince. Now,
it’s been six years since Kansas State was relevant, and while Snyder
doesn’t have to do anywhere near the work he had to do the first time
around, this won’t be easy in a far improved Big 12.