GJ Kinne: The next great offensive mind of CFB?

[Helobious 9755]

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 6317]

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 12277]

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 3493]

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 912]

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 912]

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 55824]

What does the buyout look like?

[Evil Bill Obrien 3493]

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 912]

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 1765]

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 55824]

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 55824]

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 912]

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 3493]

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 1293]

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.

[LTtxfan 49909]

Texas State likely to lose their OC...

 

This 30-year-old has become one of the hottest offensive coordinators on the job market

Texas State offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich has been a person of interest in multiple Big 12 offensive coordinator searches.

Zach Barnett         2 hours ago

Quote

It's early, but this job cycle has already seen one Gen Z Texan secure a premier offensive coordinator role when Ben Arbuckle, a 29-year-old from Canadian, Texas, landed the Oklahoma offensive coordinator job after two seasons at Washington State. 

We're close to seeing another, as Texas State offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich has factored into multiple Power 4 offensive coordinator opportunities.

Leftwich, 30, is the son of longtime college offensive line coach Spencer Leftwich. He was born in Denton, Texas, at the beginning of his father's 9-year run coaching North Texas's offensive line. Future moves took him to Tulsa, back to North Texas, back to Tulsa, and then to Pitt where Mack graduated from North Allegheny High School in suburban Pittsburgh. 

The younger Leftwich followed his father to UTEP, where Mack played quarterback and Spencer coached the O-line. (Here's betting Mack Leftwich remains the only player UTEP's ever signed from Wexford, Pa.) Injuries ended his playing career a year early, which accelerated his move into the family business. 

After spending his senior year of 2016 as a student assistant at UTEP, Leftwich took a Texas high school coaching job in 2017 before landing a GA role at Incarnate Word in 2018. This led to the most important connection of Leftwich's young career, though it happened by accident.

Leftwich joined an UIW staff led by Eric Morris. After one year as a GA, Leftwich coached quarterbacks for Morris from 2019-21, which is where he identified a small-town quarterback from a Wing T offense by the name of Cam Ward to be the Cardinals' quarterback for the class of 2020.

Ward's success earned Morris the offensive coordinator job at Washington State, and Leftwich a promotion. When Morris left for Pullman, new UIW head coach GJ Kinne made Leftwich his offensive coordinator. 

Incarnate Word reached the FCS semifinals in what turned out to be Kinne's only season at the school. When Kinne landed the Texas State job, he brought Leftwich along as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Though the Bobcats run Kinne's offense, Leftwich calls the plays.

“I want Mack to be the best offensive coordinator in the country. I want him to score every time, and I hope every play he calls is the best. He does a great job with those guys, and, for me, we have a great relationship," Kinne said before his first game at Texas State. "I don’t want to breathe down his neck, so to say. Let’s give him some freedom. You got to let those guys do it. If you hire them, let them do it.”

Texas State hadn't reached a bowl game in a decade of FBS membership before Kinne's hiring, but has since gone 2-for-2. This year's team ranks 21st nationally in yards per play (6.48), 14th in passing efficiency (155.74), and 11th in scoring (37.1 points per game).

Now, Leftwich is arguably the most in-demand name on the Power 4 coordinator market. Sources tell FootballScoop he's been a person of interest in the offensive coordinator searches at Arizona, Houston, Texas Tech, Utah and possibly others. 

Its safe to say the man has options. FootballScoop sources say look for a decision soon enough. 

 

 

[GJ Winne 177]

On one hand, we're the #6 Total Offense/#11 Scoring Offense in  FBS, on the other, I put at least 2, and maybe 3, of our losses on his playcalling.  Somewhat reminiscent of Greg Davis frustration pre-VY.

Looks like Chad Morris will slide into the OC spot.  Nice to have a guy w/ that kind of resume on the staff to tap.

[LTtxfan 49909]

2 minutes ago, GJ Winne said:

Looks like Chad Morris will slide into the OC spot.  Nice to have a guy w/ that kind of resume on the staff to tap.

Yeah, Chad Morris might be next head coach at Texas State once GJ Kinne leaves...

 

[mr. sunshine 2852]

It's like cutting a sandwich in half to eat. You can start with the rightwich or the leftwich

[GJ Winne 177]

13 hours ago, LTtxfan said:

Yeah, Chad Morris might be next head coach at Texas State once GJ Kinne leaves...

 

That would be fine with me.  Shouldn't be for another couple of years with GJ's contract extension.  If we can keep him for another 3 years and then hand off to Morris, that feels like the continuity we haven't had since Fran, but with a much higher ceiling.

[Evil Bill Obrien 3493]

13 hours ago, GJ Winne said:

On one hand, we're the #6 Total Offense/#11 Scoring Offense in  FBS, on the other, I put at least 2, and maybe 3, of our losses on his playcalling.  Somewhat reminiscent of Greg Davis frustration pre-VY.

Looks like Chad Morris will slide into the OC spot.  Nice to have a guy w/ that kind of resume on the staff to tap.

Gotta take the bad with the good, there were defiantly a few games where I was either screaming internally at the TV or in person that the offensive play calling was garbage and ended up losing. Not sure it was all on Leftwich or just whatever players he had available those particular games but it was rather frustrating at times. Very interested to see where he lands, does Utah outbid Tech or does a 3rd or 4th suitor swoop in last minute.

[Evil Bill Obrien 3493]

Guess Tech isn't gonna get cucked by Utah after all:
 

So we roll with Chad Morris at OC or go grab another young up and comer? Rick Bowie from Abeline Christian perhaps?

Edited December 5 by Evil Bill Obrien

[GJ Winne 177]

51 minutes ago, Evil Bill Obrien said:

Gotta take the bad with the good,
Not sure it was all on Leftwich 

100% good with bad - we're scoring more points than we ever have overall, so hard to complain...but that's what fans do, no?  Especially fans of a team that had the potential for 10 wins and ended up 7-5 w/ some really poor showings from the offense.

I put East/West playcalls on the OC.  I put 3 straight runs when 1st down got you 1 yard on the OC.  I put trying to run a 5'9" 185# RB between the tackles over and over on the OC.  I've said it plenty before - our offense doesn't idle very well at all.  It needs to be aggressive to work properly, and sometimes Mack just goes into putt-putt mode.  The 4th quarter against Arizona State was maddening.  Scoring 14 @ODU who gives up 28ppg was brutal. Scoring 17 at home vs Louisiana after having them beaten in Lafayette last year only to choke that way was crippling.  After the last 10 years of 2 and 3 and 4 wins, it feels wrong to complain about 7 wins, but the reality is that we coulda, shoulda, woulda had at least 2 more wins with better offensive gameplans/playcalling.

39 minutes ago, Evil Bill Obrien said:

So we roll with Chad Morris at OC or go grab another young up and comer?

I don't think there's any question it's Morris.  We're not going to bring him in to be the veteran on the staff and then hire over him when he has the resume he does.