Head Coach Candidates?

wilycoyote24

All Star
Joined
Mar 3, 2005
Posts
707
Reaction score
0
Location
Austin
After all this we end up with a Rich Rod lackey, someone so highly thought of by his assistants, that they bailed on him to go to Arizona.

I guess UA's recent dominance against ASU will continue indefinitely! I agree with most here. This hire isn't good for anyone in the state.
 

Diamondback Jay

Psalms 23:1
Joined
Feb 28, 2004
Posts
4,910
Reaction score
1
Location
Mesa
Completely unexpected and out of the dark.

Living in Pittsburgh and having a wife that works at Pitt's Medical Center (thus she gets perks of season tickets for free) I've been subject to Pitt games this season and here's what I can tell you about Graham.

Pros:

He CAN run a pretty nice offense when the pieces are in place. I don't think it will take him long to have some success in Tempe. While Pitt's offense sputtered, putting a high octane offense out there with Tino Sunseri as your only viable QB is the proveribal square peg/round hole scenario. Also, I can't help but think a healthy Ray Graham and Dion Lewis returning would have made his offensive hopes substantially better.

He generally runs a disciplined team, which doesn't make many blockheaded penalties or errors.

Can recruit in Texas, Oklahoma and landed a few Californians.

Cons:

He's EXTREMELY stubborn with his ways. There's no budging with him, he's either going to run his high octane plans or go down in flames. When Graham went down, there was zero adaptation.

He threw Sunseri under the bus.... OFTEN. He seems to be one who instead of taking accountability for losses, will shift blame to the players.

Him calling ANYONE of his staff "mercenaries" is the paint labeling the kettle. This is a guy who has gone one-and-done at TWO jobs now (he also ditched Rice after one year for Tulsa) and don't think for one second if a more high profile job opens and he's doing respectably, he'll stick around. He'll bolt from Tempe as quick as he's bolting from Pittsburgh.

Recruiting wise, he's extremely one dimensional. Little emphasis on defense, even though he started his coaching career as a defensive coordinator.

For the question of him being like Wanny, he's not.. Not even close, neither good nor bad.

I'm truly not nuts about the hire, because some of his cons are alarming, especially his stubbornness. Fact that he'd rather get beat 56-3 than adapt his game plan is frightening at best. The fact that he'll have his UHaul packed and will be heading up I10 for a more high profile job before anyone knows he's gone is also alarming. To tell his team he's quitting via text is as low as it gets, as is verbally agreeing to a contract extension with the team that one year earlier gave you your HC break, only to accept a job with another school 20 minutes later is dirty.

I don't like it.. I really don't.
 
OP
OP
AsUpRoDiGy

AsUpRoDiGy

Magnanimous
Joined
Apr 13, 2009
Posts
6,825
Reaction score
5,141
Location
Phx
Ironic thing is, we created this thread well before ASU fired Erickson and were already discussing the various HC possibilities. ASU's Athletic Department had no idea what direction they were going in the entire time.
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
555,325
Posts
5,425,686
Members
6,329
Latest member
cardinals2025
Top