GJ Kinne: The next great offensive mind of CFB?

[Helobious 9,454]

Some poor P5 program is really going to take a chance on Kinne and get burned horrendously. So far his coaching career has involved inheriting a talented group of players at UIW, then getting them to transfer with him to Texas State. Dude knows nothing about building a winner.

[GJ Winne 177]

Kinda feel like that's a stamp of approval, given your history.

[Herpa Derpa 6,126]

21 minutes ago, Helobious said:

Some poor P5 program is really going to take a chance on Kinne and get burned horrendously. So far his coaching career has involved inheriting a talented group of players at UIW, then getting them to transfer with him to Texas State. Dude knows nothing about building a winner.

You make stupid seem smart.

Getting a talented group from UIW to follow him to TXST (and a boatload of other transfers from all over, including the '23 and '24 QBs) resulted in building a winning program.

 

[ClubWhatever 12,144]

He didn't seem too upset about the loss in the post game, especially considering bad fundamentals caused one of the turnovers that cost them the game.

[GJ Winne 177]

GJ Kinne continues to build something special in short time at Texas State

In between the mascot riding a motorcycle onto the field and a mariachi break sometime during the second half, there was a football game on Thursday night.

Texas State lost its first game of the season, falling 31-28 at UFCU Stadium to an Arizona State team that was picked to finish last in its first season in the Big 12, but has won three straight to start the season.

It was a battle of the party schools, and it’s clear that, regardless of the result, Texas State head coach GJ Kinne is building something in San Marcos.

“The message afterward was just to stay together,” Kinne said. “We’re going to go win a bunch of ballgames.”

In less than a year and a half, Kinne has turned Texas State from a laughingstock into a sleeping giant.

In three seasons under Everett Withers, the Bobcats failed to win more than three games. 

That was followed by four years with Jake Savaital as the head coach, where the Bobcats took a small step forward by winning four games in back-to-back seasons, but failed to really break through.

Texas State brought in a different kind of coach when they hired Kinne before last season. The son of a former Baylor linebacker and coach built Incarnate Word into the top offensive team in all of college football in his one year in San Antonio.

He brought in 49 new players in his first year, about half of which came from the transfer portal, beat Baylor in Waco in his first-ever game and led Texas State to their first bowl game in school history, where it beat Rice in the First Responders Bowl. 

Thursday night felt like a culmination of everything.

With a Power Conference school coming to San Marcos for a standalone Thursday game on national television, the Bobcats didn’t disappoint.

Thanks to 268 passing yards and four touchdowns by former Sun Belt Player of the Year quarterback Jordan McCloud, Texas State put up 400 yards of total offense in the loss to Arizona State.

The Bobcats built a two-touchdown lead in the first half only to see the Sun Devils storm back with a pair of touchdowns in the final four minutes of the first half to tie things up. 

McCloud was about to get rocked by an incoming Arizona State defender late in the third quarter but stayed composed in the pocket to throw a 44-yard dime to Jaden Williams and reestablish the Texas State lead.

Arizona State forced a pair of fourth-quarter turnovers, and reigning Big 12 Offensive Player of the Week Cam Skattebo rushed for a touchdown and Ian Hershey kicked the game-winning field goal with under three minutes to go.

“When a good team like that, a Big 12 team, comes to your house, and you have an opportunity to capitalize, you’ve got to be able to capitalize,” Kinne said. “Most of the time, we’ve done that. We didn’t get it done and it’s just part of football. 

“We’ll learn from this, we’ll be battle-tested. Sometimes you don’t realize why, but it’ll play itself out.”

Texas State has more than a week to figure out what went wrong in the second half on Thursday before taking on Sam Houston in its final non-conference game on Sept. 28 in Houston.

Until then, the party in San Marcos rolls on.

“I hate it for the kids that we weren’t able to get that win, but I think we earned a lot of respect around the country tonight," Kinne said.

[GJ Winne 177]

Quote

mariachi break sometime during the second half

This was absolutely awesome, btw.  Singer from our mariachi band solo'd during a timeout and just CRUSHED the whole time.  Towards the end as the teams were coming back onto the field, the production person was trying to usher him off, but dude had his eyes locked on the officials w/ the countdown timer at the other end and belted out his song until that thing hit zero.  Dude was straight up money and he had the crowd HYPED as we returned to play.

[deter 314]

Well, well, well. 40-39 .

[GJ Winne 177]

Gotta like that:

 

[Evil Bill Obrien 3,284]

14 hours ago, GJ Winne said:

Gotta like that:

 

If I'm not mistaken, that puts GJ at roughly double the next highest paid SBC coach and would be 3rd or 4th highest paid coach in the new PAC12...very interesting stuff

 

Not to mention we got more KDamp duck tweets:
 

 

[RoyalBevo21 768]

It’s interesting to see schools take such large gambles. Have any of these huge extensions for unproven coaches ever “hit”?

[GJ Winne 177]

What's your definition of "hit"?  This protects us from an easy snipe, so we don't have to sweat a winning season means losing our coach to someone w/ a little more money, and it gives us some cash back when he's inevitably (hopefully) poached away.  The best thing is we are insured a stable coaching situation for the next couple of years, which we desperately need.  The only downside is if Kinne turns into Spavital overnight, and I don't see that happening.

[RoyalBevo21 768]

1 hour ago, GJ Winne said:

What's your definition of "hit"?  This protects us from an easy snipe, so we don't have to sweat a winning season means losing our coach to someone w/ a little more money, and it gives us some cash back when he's inevitably (hopefully) poached away.  The best thing is we are insured a stable coaching situation for the next couple of years, which we desperately need.  The only downside is if Kinne turns into Spavital overnight, and I don't see that happening.

Hit = Gary Patterson at TCU, Kyle Wittingham at Utah, PJ Fleck at Western Michigan, Scott Frost at UCF, Chris Peterson at Boise St. 

 

Basically, winning a conference title and a BCS/NY6 game.

[GJ Winne 177]

Well, it looks like you have your answer.

[Beau Vine 54,230]

What does the buyout look like?

[Evil Bill Obrien 3,284]

2 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

What does the buyout look like?

Not an official source but read it was in the neighborhood of $10 million, Defiantly won't stop a committed poaching effort but at least an attempt to keep GJ from being low hanging fruit for another year or two. 

[RoyalBevo21 768]

37 minutes ago, RoyalBevo21 said:

Hit = Gary Patterson at TCU, Kyle Wittingham at Utah, PJ Fleck at Western Michigan, Scott Frost at UCF, Chris Peterson at Boise St. 

 

Basically, winning a conference title and a BCS/NY6 game.

Were those guys given large extensions previous to winning big? 

[UnivTex34 1,763]

Someone I trust in the AD there (not related to football) claims the only way this happens is if a Pac12 announcement is imminent. They were actually hoping he was going to get bought out this year for an influx of cash to the department (if they were staying put in SBC).

 

Shall be interesting.

[Beau Vine 54,230]

4 minutes ago, Evil Bill Obrien said:

Not an official source but read it was in the neighborhood of $10 million, Defiantly won't stop a committed poaching effort but at least an attempt to keep GJ from being low hanging fruit for another year or two. 

Good to hear.  To me, that's more important than the term or the salary.  

Kinne pretty clearly knows what he's doing, and there's zero chance that he's in San Marcos through 2031 because someone is going to come buy him away.  

[GJ Winne 177]

12 minutes ago, RoyalBevo21 said:

Were those guys given large extensions previous to winning big? 

You're on the same internet we are.  Get to clickin.

[Beau Vine 54,230]

25 minutes ago, RoyalBevo21 said:

Were those guys given large extensions previous to winning big? 

I'd like to see your list of coaches who were given large extensions by G5 schools and didn't win big.

 

[RoyalBevo21 768]

32 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I'd like to see your list of coaches who were given large extensions by G5 schools and didn't win big.

 

I’m asking, not accusing. Hopefully it works out for the Bobcats.

[Evil Bill Obrien 3,284]

30 minutes ago, RoyalBevo21 said:

I’m asking, not accusing. Hopefully it works out for the Bobcats.

It's a silly unnecessary question to ask when in the grand scheme of things. A. all of those coaches you mentioned were hired/given raises in the pre-CFP era, really no way to actually compare them to what GJ just got apples to apples. And B. With the kind of fugazi money getting thrown around in college football these days, this contract is insignificant overall. Yeah it will be a big deal to Texas State if it all falls apart and they are on the hook for $14 million, but barring total disaster Kinne (and his staff) gets more money and whoever comes to hire him away in a year or two has to pay up significantly more and sets up TXST to go try and do it all over again, but starting with a significantly bigger bankroll. 

[GJ Winne 177]

It's also kind of funny to see a fan of a team coached by a guy making $10M+ per year, calling a $2M contract "big".  I mean, I get it, but it's still a bit humorous.

[torre 1,286]

Kinne's contract is similar  to the contract UTSA gave Traylor in '21.    Would think the buyout is similar.

 

Quote

UTSA announced a long-term extension for coach Jeff Traylor on Sunday, signing him to a $28 million deal that runs through 2031.

Traylor's new contract includes a buyout of $7.5 million if he leaves UTSA before or during the first year of the contract, which begins Jan. 1, 2022. It drops to $7 million in the second year, then by a million each year until the sixth year. Between then and season 10, he would be responsible for 25% of all of his remaining compensation.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/32521412/utsa-extends-football-coach-jeff-traylor-2031-28-million-deal

 

[GJ Winne 177]

No one has any clue what the contract looks like until the details are released, but I highly doubt it looks anything like Traylor's.  I don't think we'll front load it, and I don't think we're letting Kinne go for 25% of remaining when he's poached.