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Former OU Head Coach John Blake has died

texifornia

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Go Pokes

Go Pokes 979

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Has a major blue blood program ever made a worse hire than John Blake?  This guy stirred up a racial controversy on his own team when he was with the Cowboys.  His practices apparently were a disorganized mess.  Won 35% of his games at OU.  I'm having a hard time coming up with one worse.  Gerry Faust comes to mind.  

Oh, and RIP.  

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TornACL

TornACL 7805

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3 minutes ago, Go Pokes said:

Has a major blue blood program ever made a worse hire than John Blake?  This guy stirred up a racial controversy on his own team when he was with the Cowboys.  His practices apparently were a disorganized mess.  Won 35% of his games at OU.  I'm having a hard time coming up with one worse.  Gerry Faust comes to mind.  

Oh, and RIP.  

The Schnellenberger-Blake back to back hires were stunningly bad. 

You almost want to throw Gary Gibbs in there as well, but I give Gibbs a pass since he had to deal with the dumpster fire of Switzers departure, NCAA sanctions, etc. 

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Surly Bevo

Surly Bevo 25803

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14 minutes ago, Go Pokes said:

Has a major blue blood program ever made a worse hire than John Blake?  This guy stirred up a racial controversy on his own team when he was with the Cowboys.  His practices apparently were a disorganized mess.  Won 35% of his games at OU.  I'm having a hard time coming up with one worse.  Gerry Faust comes to mind.  

Oh, and RIP.  

Counter-point.  He recruited the vast majority of the players who won a national championship and to my knowledge never botched a coin flip.

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victory88

victory88 5785

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13 minutes ago, Go Pokes said:

Has a major blue blood program ever made a worse hire than John Blake?  This guy stirred up a racial controversy on his own team when he was with the Cowboys.  His practices apparently were a disorganized mess.  Won 35% of his games at OU.  I'm having a hard time coming up with one worse.  Gerry Faust comes to mind.  

Oh, and RIP.  

One comes close.  He won 43% of his games.  Lost to Kansas, some how managed to lose a coin toss, never recruited, had 3 kicks blocked in the same game, had 90 yards of offense in a shitty bowl .... I can go on. 

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Go Pokes

Go Pokes 979

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2 minutes ago, victory88 said:

One comes close.  He won 43% of his games.  Lost to Kansas, some how managed to lose a coin toss, never recruited, had 3 kicks blocked in the same game, had 90 yards of offense in a shitty bowl .... I can go on. 

At least Charlie had a track record of success prior to coming here.  For me, that's the tie breaker.  Blake was a DL coach for 3 years with the Cowboys after being an assistant coach in college for 6 years.  Never a coordinator before he got the job and never was a coordinator after getting fired.  He had no business getting that job and he lived up to it.  So I'm not basing the question on results, though to be in this discussion, the results are going to need to be pretty awful.  I'm talking head scratchingly odd hire that went down in flames.  That's why Gerry Faust comes to mind, but at least he had an amazing track record as a head coach in high school.  Blake had zero track record of success doing anything except recruiting and he was woefully unprepared.  Since blue bloods rarely have to think outside the box to hire a head coach, I think we may have to bring college basketball into the mix just to find someone that even comes close to Blake's level of weird hire and terrible performance.  

This question has been bouncing around in my head for 20 years and I've never actually brought it up to anyone.  Just in case anyone is wondering why I seem so interested in the subject.  Oh, the cherry on top is that they only hired him because Switzer basically talked them into it.  I imagine they stopped taking hiring recs from him after this one.  

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BurntOrange&White

BurntOrange&White 42027

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Has a major blue blood program ever made a worse hire than John Blake?  This guy stirred up a racial controversy on his own team when he was with the Cowboys.  His practices apparently were a disorganized mess.  Won 35% of his games at OU.  I'm having a hard time coming up with one worse.  Gerry Faust comes to mind.  
Oh, and RIP.  

Charlie Strong?
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Saint Austin

Saint Austin 776

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[CSB] I went to his football camp at OU before my 8th grade year. My jr high coach was a big Sooner fan so our whole team went up there while Blake and his assistants put us through drills during the day and we fucked around their dorms at night. OU Football was at its worst, at least in my lifetime, during this time, so it was hilarious to me and my friends when he talked about how their days of whipping up on Texas and Nebraska again were just around the corner. Turns out he wasn't wrong, even if he wasn't the one at the helm when their turnaround happened. [/CSB]

All that is to say, RIP.

Edited by Saint Austin
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Nicole44

Nicole44 22326

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Said before 59 is young. My dad died at 62–massive heart attack in his sleep. It’s weird reading the article about Blake bc they were saying he had lost weight (or trying to lose more?) and was out walking when it happened. Makes me wonder if he’d seen a doctor or was being told to lose  weight by a doctor. Obviously it’s not my business. It’s just a lot of people around his age are being told to get out and exercise and it appears from the articles I have read he was doing exactly that when he died. 

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Underdog

Underdog 29257

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3 hours ago, Go Pokes said:

Has a major blue blood program ever made a worse hire than John Blake?  This guy stirred up a racial controversy on his own team when he was with the Cowboys.  His practices apparently were a disorganized mess.  Won 35% of his games at OU.  I'm having a hard time coming up with one worse.  Gerry Faust comes to mind.  

Oh, and RIP.  

Was thinking Charlie "We'll be at a schematic advantage over our opponents" Weis @ND but wiki tells me he did better than I realized, although his first 2 seasons were probably due to Ty's recruiting. 

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Hook1997

Hook1997 5542

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1 hour ago, Nicole44 said:

To be fair I thought it was Aaron Rodgers that was gay. 

No defiantly Aikman, just seems odd when those rumors got fired up and he suddenly married someone that worked for the team shortly after.  Then they got divorced like 10 years to the day almost.  Conspiracy Aikman talk lol.  

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ChiTownDoc

ChiTownDoc 21363

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3 hours ago, TornACL said:

The Schnellenberger-Blake back to back hires were stunningly bad. 

You almost want to throw Gary Gibbs in there as well, but I give Gibbs a pass since he had to deal with the dumpster fire of Switzers departure, NCAA sanctions, etc. 

I was gonna say this.  That back to back was mind numbing.  
 

RIP to Blake.  Was a genuinely good dude.  Just couldn’t coach for shit.  Wish he was able to stick around and recruit for Dickeater.  Would have been huge.  

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Blotto

Blotto 24046

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4 hours ago, Go Pokes said:

Has a major blue blood program ever made a worse hire than John Blake?  This guy stirred up a racial controversy on his own team when he was with the Cowboys.  His practices apparently were a disorganized mess.  Won 35% of his games at OU.  I'm having a hard time coming up with one worse.  Gerry Faust comes to mind.  

Oh, and RIP.  

Rich Rodriguez (15-22, .405) replacing Carr(122-40, .753, 1 NC) at Michigan was pretty ugly . Also, Charlie Weiss at ND (35-27, .565) and KU (6-22, .214) b2b. Yeah, KU isnt a blueblood, but Weis was such a fraud. 

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Nicole44

Nicole44 22326

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57 minutes ago, Hook1997 said:

No defiantly Aikman, just seems odd when those rumors got fired up and he suddenly married someone that worked for the team shortly after.  Then they got divorced like 10 years to the day almost.  Conspiracy Aikman talk lol.  

It honestly shouldn’t matter. It just appears as though Rodgers dates beards. Jmo. When the Packers won the SB there were all kinds of pics of his roomie and him. Doesn’t mean it’s true. There are plenty of guys who get married  to females as well that are gay. 

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Go Pokes

Go Pokes 979

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Rich Rodriguez (15-22, .405) replacing Carr(122-40, .753, 1 NC) at Michigan was pretty ugly . Also, Charlie Weiss at ND (35-27, .565) and KU (6-22, .214) b2b. Yeah, KU isnt a blueblood, but Weis was such a fraud. 

RR was an accomplished coach, but that was just an awful fit. I’d say based on what a mismatch it was, he would qualify. Weiss at ND is pretty good. He was pretty “accomplished” (thanks Bill), but a total fraud.

This really highlights just how awful the Blake hire was. Those are damn good examples, especially Weiss, and they really don’t even come close to Blake. So far, you can kind of justify the hires (he was a successful HC before, he was a successful coordinator), but there is just nothing I can think of to justify a guy who hadn’t even been a coordinator getting the OU job. I think it can be blamed on hubris by the ou AD. He probably figured “we’re OU. He can recruit. We’ll be great”. With Switzer as your standard bearer, I guess I don’t blame him.
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tx 3 putt

tx 3 putt 78843

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7 hours ago, Go Pokes said:

Has a major blue blood program ever made a worse hire than John Blake?  This guy stirred up a racial controversy on his own team when he was with the Cowboys.  His practices apparently were a disorganized mess.  Won 35% of his games at OU.  I'm having a hard time coming up with one worse.  Gerry Faust comes to mind.  

Oh, and RIP.  

mike shula says 'hi' 

 

RIP Coach Blake

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Dennis Taylor

Dennis Taylor 19396

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9 hours ago, Fondren & Main said:

I thought the Aikman shit was stirred up by Skip Bayless.  Didn’t Troy get caught trying to DM a young hottie recently because he tweeted it instead of a DM?  All because he’s old and how does technology work!?

If 2013 is recently, then yes

https://www.google.com/amp/s/larrybrownsports.com/everything-else/troy-aikman-embarrassing-dm-mari-morrow/190703%3famp

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