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Auburn traded in a Cadillac for an Escort. 

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35 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

also adding that Mendenhall stepped down out of the blue to "take a break".... definitely something going on at Virginia I think

Doubtful. UVA is a hard place to coach. You deal with academics like ND without the football draw.

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BearSchlong

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Doubtful. UVA is a hard place to coach. You deal with academics like ND without the football draw.
Been getting an earful from my sis and her UVA booster friends, the sentiment is that football is overlooked and that they want a few years of "a rising tide floats all boats, i.e. academics, prestige, national perception" attention on the football program.
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Francisco 2.0

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4 minutes ago, Wally Fairway said:

I am going to need a flow chart that shows 2021 team coaches & players and where they ended up for 2022. 
 

 

You gonna need a lot more than that.

Here's an Athletic article from a few years ago about how the firings at Ole Miss and Mississippi State alone affected 300 coaches:

 

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The coaches wearing headsets all agree on what was said. Some aren’t sure who blurted it out. Rich Rodriguez believes it was Mike MacIntyre, Ole Miss’ defensive coordinator. Some coaches down on the sideline, unaware of what had just happened, didn’t understand at first. They all have slightly different recollections of the exact wording. But it’s a moment they’ll never forget.

“Oh my God, we may have just gotten fired.”

 

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Whoever it was saw Elijah Moore’s touchdown celebration and immediately sensed they were doomed. The Ole Miss receiver dropped down, crawled to the back of the end zone, turned and lifted his right leg, pretending to urinate like a dog. That choice will forever live in infamy, an indelible scene in Egg Bowl history. The penalty wasn’t just 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct. It was the missed extra point. The 21-20 loss to Mississippi State. And the head coach’s firing that would have far-reaching effects in the coaching industry.

 

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The losers of the 2019 Egg Bowl seemed determined to fire their coach, but ultimately, neither Ole Miss’ Matt Luke nor Mississippi State’s Joe Moorhead could save their jobs after that fateful Thanksgiving night in Starkville. The rivals’ offseason coaching changes didn’t just affect the members of their respective staffs. Those firings ended up impacting the jobs of nearly 300 coaches or staffers throughout the country.

 

Spoiler

Fifty-two FBS schools lost or hired a coach or off-field staffer as a result of the post-Egg Bowl shakeups. FCS, Division II, D-III, junior college, high school and even six NFL staffs were affected. When all of the families involved are taken into account, the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people were changed.

All because a receiver lifted his leg in the end zone? No, not quite. Moore did not cause all of this. But all the change and chaos begins there.

“A lot of little things added up to an explosion,” former Ole Miss staffer Tayler Polk said. “And now a lot of people’s trajectories change. It’s crazy to think about, but a lot of people’s trajectory has changed just because of one game.”

For many, those changes brought life-altering opportunities to move up in the coaching business, pushing them in new directions. Some have had to start over after tough setbacks. And some still haven’t been able to find work.

Even for those who were directly impacted, it’s hard to fathom that just two job openings spurred hundreds of new hires. Upon hearing just how many people were tied together by this chain of events, new Mississippi State coach Mike Leach replied with astonishment: “Three hundred coaches?! How?”

 

 

Moore crossed the goal line with four seconds left to cap a wild 17-snap, 82-yard drive. Penalties were called on or after six plays.

Down seven, Matt Corral kept Ole Miss’ hopes alive with a 57-yard pass to Braylon Sanders on fourth-and-24. And with 28 seconds left, it looked like the Rebels had finished the job.

When Mississippi State jumped offside on fourth-and-4, Corral quickly scrambled and connected with Sanders on a 9-yard touchdown. Had the officiating crew allowed it, Moore’s celebratory moment could have been avoided. Then again, there’s no telling how overtime might have played out. The tension had been rising over those final two minutes.

Chris Rippon (former Ole Miss associate AD and special teams consultant): I’ve always said I’ve experienced 99 percent of the things that can happen. Big games, rain games, snow games, you name it. But I’m never gonna say I’ve experienced everything. Certainly, last year’s Egg Bowl was that. It was crazy.

Bruce Tall (former Mississippi State defensive consultant): It was my first time coaching in that game and, being around those players, you could tell how important it was to them. A lot of times in rivalry games, one team is significantly better than the other and it ends up losing some luster. Not the Egg Bowl.

Ryan Garrett (West Virginia State receivers coach/former Ole Miss graduate assistant): Honestly, that whole week it was, “Be the bigger man.” We were preaching it and preaching it.

Joe Moorhead (Oregon offensive coordinator/former Mississippi State head coach): We needed that game for bowl eligibility and to keep the Egg in Starkville. I saw the flag go up, but I didn’t see what happened.

Jacob Peeler (Texas State offensive coordinator/former Ole Miss receivers coach): One of our (directors of football operations), Nolan Jones, said he just got a 15-yard penalty. I’m like, “What?” All of it was just chaos.

Garrett: I didn’t see it, since he caught it on the other sideline. But the guys in the box did. So obviously everybody’s going nuts on the sideline. You couldn’t even tell what everybody was yelling about on the headset, but you hear it. I was like, “Wait, what? What do you mean fired? We just scored.” And then you see the flag.

Moore’s fake urination celebration was partially an homage to former Ole Miss receiver DK Metcalf, who did the same after scoring in the 2017 Egg Bowl. Granted, Metcalf and Ole Miss had a safe 23-6 lead when he pulled the move, which he had borrowed from Odell Beckham Jr. And Metcalf’s penalty was enforced on the kickoff, not the extra point.

Ole Miss wasn’t so fortunate in this instance: The penalty turned Luke Logan’s score-tying extra point attempt into a 35-yard kick.

Charles Clark (Memphis defensive backs coach/former Ole Miss cornerbacks coach): I was 50-50 on whether our kicker was gonna make this to go into OT.

Rippon: I was getting the kickoff team ready. What were we gonna do after we tied the game? Are we gonna sky it or squib it, what was the best way? I was down on the opposite 35 and Luke had run out, getting ready to kick the PAT. Then I look and see the official moving the ball back. I’m like, “Oh my God.” I hadn’t even paid attention.

So I’m running down there to try to yell to Luke to settle down. He just got lined up and missed it. And, you know, I can’t tell you exactly what went through my mind. But I said, “This is not good.”

 

Garrett: Matt Luke is really, really special. Because he loved Elijah all the way through that. He didn’t blame. It would’ve been really easy for him after the game or at any time to yell at Elijah. But what was done was done. Coach Luke handled it so well, and I think that made it easier for all of us to handle it well.

Tayler Polk (Central Arkansas outside linebackers coach/former Ole Miss GA): That’s the definition of a coach. I have tons of respect. Because there’s plenty of people in this profession that could give two craps, honestly, about the kid when it comes down to it. But he genuinely cares for ’em. There’s no reason to go undercut somebody if that’s your guy. You go battle for him, you stick up for him and you take it for him. And he did.

Garrett: Elijah felt terrible. You could see that. It wasn’t like he was laughing or anything. I mean, he was in a dark place, too.

Peeler: Riding the bus back to Oxford after the game, I couldn’t piece it together in my mind. Elijah is the most disciplined kid. That was completely out of character.

Mississippi State recovered the onside kick and went into victory formation. The Bulldogs had their sixth win in Year 2 under Moorhead and were going bowling. Ole Miss’ 4-8 season was over. And with a 15-21 record in three seasons, Luke was on shaky ground.

Clark: I had a bad feeling walking into the locker room. It was just an eerie feeling.

Polk: It’s hard to even think about reliving the plays one by one. Gosh dang, man. But there’s several to go back and watch the tape. I could only watch it once because I almost spiked my iPad. I was so angry, it almost makes you vomit.

Brennon Chapman (former Ole Miss assistant director of player personnel): When I saw how we’d lost on Twitter and then you see FOX and ESPN and everybody’s tweeting about it, I was like, “Oh. We’re fired.” The bus was just real quiet and it was like, “I don’t know if we’re coming back from this one …”

Luke and his Ole Miss staff would have to wait three days for a verdict from athletic director Keith Carter, who had just had the interim tag removed from his title a week earlier. In the meantime, the coaches tried to shift their focus to recruiting and moving forward. 

Clark: What threw me off was the next day we had a staff meeting and they told us to go out on the road recruiting. We got on the road, but then on Sunday night we got the call that we had a coaching change.

Chapman: Yeah, that was weird. (Associate AD) Tyler Siskey said Coach Luke was meeting with the AD on Sunday morning and we’ll know where we stand. He came back up there at noon and was like, “Hey, Coach Luke said everything went well, we’re good, he’s about to hit the road.”

Rich Rodriguez (former Ole Miss offensive coordinator): After the game, I thought we’d still be OK. Who knows what was going on behind the scenes? I was actually with Matt when he found out. We were going to see a kid (quarterback commit Robby Ashford) that we were meeting at a fast-food restaurant. Matt got a call and was gone for 15 minutes. He came back in and his face looked totally different. He says, “I gotta fly back to Oxford right now and meet with the AD.” They didn’t tell him why. We knew.

Peeler: (Offensive line coach Jack Bicknell) and I are just sitting in the front driveway of this recruit’s house. We didn’t go anywhere for like 10 minutes, just sitting there trying to process it. Where do we go next? We’re finding out that our life has been turned upside down, in the most vulnerable human moment you can have. My wife was about to have our first child. This was a week before my son was born. It’s crazy, man.

Polk: Yeah, it was freakin’ tough, man. You lose some close ones. College football is a production business. We weren’t able to get it done. But it freakin’ sucks. I don’t know of a better way of putting it or making it more elaborate. It freakin’ sucks.

I love Ole Miss. I put my freakin’ heart and soul on the line for it. Coach Luke did that daily. To see it end the way it did for him, it still hurts me.

Chapman: I felt bad for him, Elijah. I mean, I was legitimately worried about him. He put so much of that on himself after everybody got fired. I actually called him after we got fired and was like, “It’s not your fault. There was a lot that went into it. You doing that didn’t get everybody fired.” If Elijah doesn’t do that and the kicker still misses the extra point, do you think we still get fired? There’s still a chance. So you can’t say he’s the reason we got fired.

 

The Ole Miss coaching search only took six days. For Luke’s staff, the time spent in limbo was uncomfortable. Nobody knew where they stood. Should they line up the next gig or cross their fingers and hope the new coach will keep them?

New head coach Lane Kiffin chose to retain assistant coach Derrick Nix and his predecessor’s brother, assistant AD for player development Tom Luke. A few recruiting staffers stayed on, too. Everyone else needed to find work.

Reilly Jeffers (Lipscomb Academy assistant/former Florida Atlantic GA): When Lane got the job, we were in the conference championship. We’re 10-3 and we whipped UAB. Lane tells us, “Hey, I accepted a job at another spot.” And you’re all excited, but reality started to set in when he said, “I’ll let you guys know what’s gonna happen.” Then, over time, it slowly started trickling out who is going and who’s not.

Clark: You’re under contract. You can’t just walk off. It’s my alma mater, so I still want them to do well and I want to get these guys signed. So I’m still recruiting and trying to be honest with the recruits, but I had no info about who the coordinators might be. I couldn’t really tell them anything. The kids would ask me: Are you gonna be my coach? “Well, I’m here now.” But you can’t lie to them. It is hard on a family. They didn’t know where they were gonna be, and I couldn’t tell them anything.

Peeler: The day my son was born, it’s 7-something in the morning and they’re breaking my wife’s water. I get a call from Lane Kiffin. He was nice but very brief. I’m sure he had no idea. He said, “We’re gonna move in a different direction. Best of luck.” It hit me: I’m being let go on the day my first child is being born.

Garrett: The day I found out I wasn’t coming back, I was gonna go in the office that day. We were about to be back, and I got a call that morning. When that happened, you go into … I don’t wanna say desperation mode, but it’s like, OK, what am I doing now?

Rippon: When I found out Lane wasn’t going to retain me, I never had a chance to talk to him, which was surprising. I knew his brother Chris, I knew Lane, I knew Monte. I just figured there was going to be at least some communication. That never happened. But that’s the profession. You have your idea of what you’re gonna do and people you want to bring.

Chapman: There were about 33 or 34 people that were in the staff meeting every day. Coach Kiffin got there, and everybody but Coach Luke was still there. A week goes by and there’s 15 of us left. And then another week goes by, we come back from the coaches convention and there were like four of us left. I’m like, “Yeah, this is changing quickly.”

Polk: One by one, people started getting picked off, and it was like, good gosh, man. It definitely gives you some perspective like, holy crap, this is reality.

Chapman: Within five minutes of us walking out of the team meeting where they told us (Luke was) fired, my phone started ringing with a Pennsylvania phone number. It was Joe Moorhead. Coach Moorhead offered me a job to come down there. I told our AD I was gonna take it and he told me to wait until he had the coach in place and he wanted me to stay. So I told Moorhead I was gonna wait and that I’d given Keith my word I would do that.

Lane got there and when I met with Lane, he basically said, “I heard he may not make it if they lose the bowl game. You don’t wanna go there. I’ll give you a raise if you stay.” I let Moorhead know I was gonna stay. And then, obviously, Moorhead did get fired.

Moorhead proudly declared they’d have to “drag my Yankee ass out of here” after winning the Egg Bowl. But the one-point victory did little to quell the internal uncertainty about how to move forward.

After Mississippi State lost 38-28 to Louisville in the Music City Bowl, AD John Cohen decided to move on from Moorhead on Jan. 3. Moorhead had gone 14-12 in two seasons after taking over a program that had a losing season two years before he arrived. He is one of only two Bulldogs head coaches to depart with a winning record in the past 60 years.

Moorhead: To get fired after going 2-0 in the Egg Bowl, knowing how much my family was committed to being in Starkville for a long time, and how we were building the program for long-term sustained success, we’d really made an effort to make that our home and we were deeply ingrained in that city and that community. That was the most disappointing thing.

Tall: It shocked me. Moorhead is one of the best recruiters I’ve ever been around. He was involved in everything. I’ve never seen a head coach work like that guy.

Mike Johnson (former Mississippi State receivers coach): I’m never surprised in this business. I’ve been in it long enough to know anything can happen. I do know that Coach Moorhead was a very good coach. I’m not sure what happened. That was probably my most fun year of coaching football. We had staff camaraderie, we had great togetherness as a group. Even the GAs and young guys, everybody understood their role, everybody did their jobs and it was just fun to be there.

Chapman: I stayed with Lane until right after the convention. You know, it was just a different vibe, different kind of staff. I felt like I had more value on Coach Luke’s staff. I was involved in decision making on who we were gonna take. I was kinda just in the building, sitting at my desk, not doing a whole lot with Lane.

I started getting the impression, the way he leaned on other people that he knew and trusted already, it might be better off if I let him use that money for somebody else. I went and told him I was gonna move on and he said take a week or two to think about it, if I wanna come back then come back. And then it broke online two days later on one of the message boards that I’d resigned. So there was no coming back from that.

Johnson: That’s the grown man part of the business. You’re a part of a team, but at the end of the day you’re an individual contractor also. You’ve got to do what’s best for you and your family sometimes, and you can’t do right for everybody.

 

Florida Atlantic opened up thanks to Ole Miss. Recently fired Florida State coach Willie Taggart landed that job four days later. Washington State opened up when Mike Leach emerged from a list of 16 candidates and several rumored frontrunners — including Billy Napier, Joe Judge and Steve Sarkisian — as the next head coach at Mississippi State on Jan. 9. And then the carousel kept spinning.

The Washington State search moved fast, concluding on Jan. 13 with the hiring of Nick Rolovich. Now Hawaii needed a head coach. That job went to former Arizona State coach Todd Graham, who agreed to a deal on Jan. 21.

From there, it was time to do a lot of hiring. The new head coaches all retained some staffers in their new locales to help smooth over regime transitions. But nearly every hire they made — from the highly paid coordinators and assistants to the behind-the-scenes, rank-and-file staffers — helped create another job opportunity for somebody else. 

This is the ecosystem of the coaching business. One of these newly hired head coaches offers an assistant better pay, a better title, an enticing new opportunity. Their former school poaches or promotes a coach to replace them. Assistants become coordinators, analysts and GAs become assistants, ex-players and student workers become GAs. But the effects of this annual offseason food chain can be far-reaching.

The simple act of Lane Kiffin hiring Joe Jon Finley as his tight ends coach led to Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher replacing Finley with Georgia’s James Coley. Kirby Smart used that on-field coaching vacancy to steal Alabama’s Scott Cochran. Nick Saban replaced his longtime strength coach with Indiana’s David Ballou and Matt Rhea. Indiana’s new strength coach Aaron Wellman came over from the New York Giants. The Giants swiped Tennessee strength coach Craig Fitzgerald. Jeremy Pruitt chose to promote A.J. Artis and added Alabama’s Kindal Moorehead. That’s four SEC schools having to make important changes just because Kiffin decided he wanted Finley.

All of the moves can create some unique connections. The Mississippi State coaching change began a chain of events that led to Hawaii needing a new offensive coordinator. Graham convinced his former Tulsa quarterback G.J. Kinne to leave the Philadelphia Eagles organization and join him in Honolulu. How did the Eagles replace Kinne? By hiring Andrew Breiner, one of Moorhead’s protégés.

G.J. Kinne (Hawaii offensive coordinator/former Philadelphia Eagles offensive special projects): I’d met Andrew at an agency event, and we just hit it off. I heard he was interviewing for my old job, and I tried to help give him some pointers. Leaving the NFL was definitely tough, but getting the chance to be an offensive coordinator was something I’ve always wanted to do.

Graham hiring Victor Santa Cruz, who played linebacker at Hawaii, as his defensive coordinator generated another small ripple. Santa Cruz had been the head coach of Azusa Pacific since 2006. The Division II school in Southern California turned to its offensive coordinator for the past decade.

Rudy Carlton, Azusa Pacific head coach: Well, it’s been a wild year for me. … It was actually at the coaches convention when I heard Rolo had taken the Washington State job. And then, of course, everyone was like, “Is Vic trying to go?” But I think everybody was shocked, myself included.

I was ecstatic when I got hired in February. Then we had our first kid, a daughter named Everly Joy, on March 9. Then they sent us home on quarantine three days later. So there were three major life events packed within 30 days. It was like, what in the world? For us, 2020 was just a whirlwind at the beginning.

Another faraway ripple took place at Southern Arkansas, where offensive coordinator and head coach’s son Landon Keopple resigned in June to accept a quality control position at Hawaii. Mike McCarty got word of the opening from a friend in the business and hustled to land it. McCarty had been out of work — and, coincidentally, living in Oxford, Miss. — since parting ways with CSU-Pueblo last December after two seasons as offensive coordinator.

Mike McCarty (Southern Arkansas head coach): I’ll tell you what, it was absolutely, heart-wrenchingly painful. Sincerely, those stimulus unemployment packages were really exciting. That tells you how bored I was. I’m sitting there going, “Well, can I sell insurance?” I’m legitimately thinking, what can I do? Unemployment is gonna run out. I’ve got no real skills. I’ve never had a real job. What are we gonna do here? I’m mid-50s and you start thinking, who’s gonna hire you?

I interviewed for the head job at Holmes Community College in Mississippi and didn’t get it. I was like, “Really?” It was disappointing.

So then I interviewed on Zoom with Northwest Mississippi Junior College, they had an academic position open. I thought maybe that would help get through the rough patch. Didn’t get that. I was like, “OK, this is not fun.”

But when I heard Landon was leaving Southern Arkansas, I went for it. I had to swallow a pay cut — well, when you’re unemployed, there isn’t such a thing, but a pay cut from what I was accustomed to making. But I figured let’s go ahead and give this a run. Why not? It’s better than unemployment.

Less than three months after McCarty arrived in Magnolia, Ark., Southern Arkansas head coach Bill Keopple announced his retirement. McCarty became the interim coach. Earlier this month, he was officially promoted to the head job.

Mike McCarty: I think about the amount of luck. Now, with most coaches, it’s a very ego-driven profession. But sometimes we take a lot of credit for things that quite frankly we shouldn’t. Was I prepared to be the head coach here? Absolutely. I’m one of those guys who was always preparing to be the head coach. But the reality is it is 100% pure luck and timing. You cannot plan at all.

Jay Sawvel (Wyoming defensive coordinator): This is nuts. I never thought it was all so intertwined. I was out in 2019 and was still under contract from Wake Forest, so I wanted to spend the year making sure I spent great quality time with my kids. I also visited seven or eight schools and watched a lot of practices. It was a great learning year.

I think the minute (Wyoming defensive coordinator Jake) Dickert left for Washington State, Bart Miller, the offensive line coach here who I’d worked with at Minnesota for one year, called me and asked if I’d be interested in this job. So before the news ever got out publicly that Dickert was leaving, I had like a 48-hour jump on the job and I was very interested. This was really good timing.

Ole Miss’ hiring of Bryant defensive line coach Marquise Watson for a defensive GA role touched off a surprising number of moves. Bryant replaced him with Stonehill defensive coordinator Ken Goodwin. Stonehill promoted Kyle Jones to defensive coordinator and hired Richie Curran from Massachusetts Maritime Academy as their new defensive line coach.

How did Mass. Maritime, an NCAA Division III program in Buzzards Bay, replace its line coach during a hiring freeze? Head coach Jeremy Cameron turned to the school’s head softball coach.

Willis Griffiths, Mass. Maritime defensive line/softball coach: For the last six years, I was a volunteer defensive line coach at Bridgewater State. I’d been hoping to move into a paid position, but they didn’t have one for me. I told Jeremy I resigned there and he said, “Oh you did? We’ll talk.” Come to find out he needed somebody.

I work full-time as a police officer for the town of Bridgewater. I work the midnight shift so I can do all the other stuff. This is my stress relief. And it has also helped me establish a lot of good relationships. I want people to see me and, no matter their age or race, say, “Hey, that’s Coach Griff” and not, “Hey, that’s a cop.” I didn’t want to stay volunteering and wanted to be able to say I’m an actual true football coach who’s actually being paid. But I really don’t do it for the money. I love the sport. I love the relationships you build. To me, coaching is a privilege.

 

So many coaches get career-altering promotions each winter thanks to the carousel. But in the process, it can be just as easy to get left behind.

Dennis Slutak (former Washington State director of football operations): (Steve Sarkisian) was involved with the Mississippi State job. He had called me late Tuesday night. He said, “I don’t know how this is gonna play out. I just wanna give you the heads up if you’d be interested should things fall into place.”

Wednesday was completely silent. Then Thursday, I’m in a sub shop and my phone starts blowing up from a myriad of people: Stark Vegas here you come! Go Bulldogs! I didn’t know what was going on. I thought maybe Sark had taken the job. I looked at Twitter to see what was going on. It said Mike Leach has accepted the job at Mississippi State.

You’d like to think you’re going along with the rest of the gang, but you never know. You’re excited on one hand, but there’s a tinge of the unknown on the other hand. I had no indications to think I wouldn’t be asked to go.

Head coaching searches are conducted as quickly as possible, but it can take months for assistants to figure out where they’re going next. Finding the right place at the right time became far more difficult this spring.

The coronavirus pandemic prompted shutdowns across college football in mid-March. Since then, athletic departments have been forced to reduce staff, eliminate unfilled positions and brace for staggering budget shortfalls. Several coaches whose careers were impacted by Egg Bowl coaching changes are still out of work this season and trying to find their way back into the business.

Slutak: I went out to the NFL combine and worked that event just to connect with the GMs. I heard the Rams had a DFO opening. I had scouts and (Pro Football Hall of Fame CEO) David Baker call for me, but they ended up hiring someone from within.

Then I heard Notre Dame had an opening. Their DFO left to run a tequila company, but they promoted their No. 2. Louisiana Monroe had an opening but hired someone already on staff. Minnesota supposedly had something but promoted from within. Cincinnati had a chief of staff job. Leach called Luke Fickell for me, but he hired someone he knew from Ohio State. Nevada had a DFO opening, but they hired someone else. Kansas hired a DFO from Texas, so I tried to go the UT route, but because of COVID and budgetary restrictions I was told they weren’t gonna be able to backfill it.

I left Pullman at the end of March with my wife and 4-year-old son. We went to the Oregon coast and stayed at a friend’s place for a week. From there, we drove down to Vegas and stayed with my in-laws for two months before driving cross-country to stay with my family in West Palm Beach for five months. Then we drove to New Jersey to stay in a friend’s empty beach house for a month before driving back down to Florida.

The silver lining is, financially, we’re fine. I’ve been fiscally responsible over the years and put enough savings in for a rainy day. The good news is we don’t have any rent and I can’t really complain because, knock on wood, health-wise everybody has been pretty good and we’ve gotten quality family time. I’m thankful for family and generous friends. The hard part is there’s just no structure we have for a 4-year-old boy. Hopefully, we’ve hit the home stretch.

Tall: (Mississippi State chief of staff) Dave Emerick brought me in on a Friday and said we’re not gonna keep this position. A little bit after that, I had a big-time opportunity but I never actually got the chance to interview. They met with two guys and hired the first one they interviewed, and that was it. Sometimes no communication is their way of communication.

Rippon: As the process started, so did COVID. So you kinda ran into a wall there. You’re hoping for something to happen and it just never materialized, and then everything shut down. There was discussions and people saying there’s something open here that you’d be perfect for, I’m gonna talk to Coach, and then they kinda go silent and they come back with, “Hey, we’re not doing anything.” And then the immediate panic at that time in early March leading into the middle of March, things just ground to a halt. I think at that time the transition was, “Hey, I’m holding on for my own job, I’d love to help you but …”

Everybody kind of bunkered down and were looking out for themselves. People were taking pay cuts or starting to get furloughed. You shut down the Ivy League, you shut down Division II, you shut down Division III, some of the FCS leagues. And then you had two new pro football leagues that folded, so you’ve got another group of highly qualified people looking for jobs.

Slutak: We’re just trying to be patient. A lot of people have been through this. You know what you sign up for. If I’m part of a staff that doesn’t produce, then it’s fair game. You go down with the ship. It was very disheartening to know that you’re really good at your job but somehow, for no apparent reason, you fall through the cracks.

 

Chapman: The money’s not good in recruiting. Liberty offered me like $27,000. Arkansas State asked me to come and work for free until the new fiscal year. So I could work for free to five months and then they could pay around $40,000. I was like, “Coach, I appreciate it, but I’m not doing that either.” My family is in the car business. My dad was calling me all the time trying to get me to come back. He runs one of the dealerships in Olive Branch, Miss., and I’m working for him. It kinda just felt like the right time. With everything going on the way it is, there’s not much longevity and quick turnover. It’s been good.

You know, car sales is very similar to recruiting. In car sales, I’m asking for their money. In recruiting, they’re asking me for money.

Rippon: I’ve started a business, Coach Rip Consulting. It’s fun because I’m meeting kids from all over the country and their parents, upcoming seniors and juniors looking for help in recruiting. While we were at Ole Miss and we got put on sanctions, I had to evaluate and recruit kickers, punters and long snappers that would be able to develop into being able to play in the SEC West. So what my business pretty much is built upon is helping the kids get to guys like me. I was behind the desk at Ole Miss. Not only do you have to get to me, how do you impress me?

Johnson: I’m actually in a good place with everything that’s going on. I had another year on my contract, so financially I’m OK. I tried to use this time to get better. I put together a head coach’s manual. It was 104 pages, took me six months. … I talked to Mike Riley, Moorhead, all the coaches I worked for and took things from them and got perspective on a lot of things. You know, it was fun. I’ve never had six months to do that. If I ever get an opportunity to be a head coach anywhere, I’ll be prepared.

Tall: I’ve been living in North Carolina and staying sharp, studying the games. I know people say there’s not going to be many coaching changes this year because of COVID. But I know as long as there are winners and losers, there’s gonna be changes. Right, wrong or indifferent, that’s just the way it is.

In total, the coaching transition at Ole Miss impacted the jobs of at least 134 coaches and staffers. The new regime at Mississippi State generated even more ripples, affecting the employment of at least 153 people. And that’s a relatively conservative count, considering how support staffs in college football have grown deeper over the past decade.

This counting does not include positions that remain unfilled. Nor does it account for every assistant strength coach, every equipment manager and video coordinator, every student worker and secretary. All of their fates are truly tied to the head coach. And those who ended up at South Carolina and Utah State at the end of last offseason’s shuffle are already facing the prospect of going through this whole process again, as those programs became the first to fire coaches this fall.

The high-paid staffers command the headlines. Head coaches and assistants have multi-year deals, buyouts and money saved away for tough times. Kiffin inked a $16.2 million deal at Ole Miss that guaranteed a salary pool of $5.3 million for his 10 assistants. Leach now makes $5 million annually. It’s the younger staff members, with less experience and fewer connections, who have to fight the hardest to stay in this business.

The graduate assistants who lost their jobs after the Egg Bowl have mostly succeeded in finding work. This next step in their careers has taken them to some unique places.

Garrett: I had what most people would say is good experience for my age, being a Division I SEC GA. But man, if I didn’t know Rich Rod, you never know if my job at West Virginia State happens. It really is a lot about who you know in this profession.

I’d never thought about most of this stuff until it happened. But you start thinking, like, it’s not like you can go to Indeed.com and find a college coaching job. There are probably jobs out there that I was definitely qualified for, but it’s a matter of finding them and then finding the right fit. I’d be lying if I said I’d known anything about West Virginia State. Until the day I moved here, I’d never been in the state of West Virginia in my life. But it happens, you get hired and they’re like, “Can you be up here in three days?” You just go make it happen.

Polk: I hustled and beat down several doors and got really lucky here that Chad Williams, the defensive coordinator here at Central Arkansas, was close with Tyrone Nix and coincidentally was Derrick Nix’s college roommate at Southern Miss. I got the interview and a full-time gig. Freakin’ stoked about it. I got lucky enough that someone took a chance on me.

Garrett: We’ve got probably five or six group texts with different people. We talk every day. We had a really tight group there at Ole Miss. It’s kind of wild how everybody gets so spread out and your life gets flipped like that.

Jeffers: I was about to accept a D-III job in Franklin, Ind., to be a running backs or receivers coach for like $6,000 a year, but I got the feeling their season was gonna get canceled. I had connected with a guy on Twitter, a Tom House disciple named Trenton Kirklin who was the OC for Trent Dilfer at Lipscomb Academy in Nashville. I had some connections to Trent because his daughter had played volleyball at Notre Dame and Tom Rinaldi had worked for my dad (longtime sportscaster Jeff Jeffers) at WNDU. Plus, he knew (FAU OC Charlie Weis Jr., whose father Jeffers played for at Kansas) and Coach Kiffin.

I drove down there to meet him. He told me they were gonna play for sure. I also heard there was a GA opening at Georgia Tech. Trent actually called Geoff Collins for me, but it turned out they were rearranging their staff to bring in someone they knew from the NFL. Still, I barely knew Trent and he went to bat for me.

Back at Ole Miss, the player who unintentionally set all of this in motion is thriving. Moore is the nation’s leading receiver with 74 catches for 1,054 yards and eight touchdowns in just seven games. Kiffin has made him the go-to guy of the Rebels’ top-10 passing attack. The 2019 Egg Bowl was a painful low, but Moore continues to move past it.

Elijah Moore: I feel like I learned a lot. I’m human. I make mistakes. You’ve just got to learn from them and don’t let it happen again. I let my team down. I just know it won’t happen again.

Peeler: I absolutely love that kid. He’s so hard-working and so genuine.

Rodriguez: I’m so glad Elijah is having a great year, because he is a great kid and a great player and you don’t want one moment to define you.

Chapman: I texted Elijah and our kicker Luke Logan that night separately and said, “Hey, you’re a good kid, you’re gonna have a great career. You’re not gonna be defined by this. It’s just gonna be a small page of a chapter.” I mean, he’s probably gonna win the Biletnikoff. It’s a great comeback story for him.

Rippon: It was a life-changing thing. Did they go into it thinking they were going to change more than 200 people’s lives? Absolutely not.

 

Willie Taggart, FAU head coach: I didn’t even think of all that. It is wild.

Garrett: It’s pretty unbelievable, isn’t it? That’s something I never thought of before. But it really is. I mean, that’s a lot of people. It’s wild. This profession is super, super rewarding but it’s definitely not easy to go through.

And you know what? That’s not gonna be the last time I’m fired, probably. You hope it isn’t. But it’s probably not gonna be the last time. And it’s nothing personal, but you’ve gotta go through it. You really have to love it to be able to do this.

Polk: If you want to ensure that you keep a job or can go get a job, you better work your butt off and have some daggum connections, because you never know when crap’s gonna hit the fan and you’re gonna need to be able to bounce.

 

 

(Here's the list of all the coaching changes)

 

Miss-State-final-chart.pdf

Ole-Miss-final-chart.pdf

 

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Zhorn96

Zhorn96 1835

Posted
Posted
23 hours ago, Skipper said:

Anyone seen anything interesting on Oregon's search?  I haven't seen much.  Last speculation I've seen was maybe the BYU coach

Either of those choices would be baffling... and Cal is my other team besides Texas.  Kelly has been figured out and Wilcox is... really average

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Sbbruin

Sbbruin 22144

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Zhorn96 said:

Either of those choices would be baffling... and Cal is my other team besides Texas.  Kelly has been figured out and Wilcox is... really average

Uncle Phil gets what he wants.  End of story.  Now it comes down to the $9 mil buyout.  Both schools will want to move on.  Who blinks first?  

Martin Jarmond be like...

spacer.png

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Zhorn96

Zhorn96 1835

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Just now, Sbbruin said:

Uncle Phil gets what he wants.  End of story.  Now it comes down to the $9 mil buyout.  Both schools will want to move on.  Who blinks first?  

Martin Jarmond be like...

spacer.png

I thought I read somewhere that Miami is paying Oregon about the same amount for Cristobal's buyout?  If true, its house money and who cares.  If not... Uncle Phil can afford it if he really wants Chip.

Interest in Chip at least makes sense.  The interest in Wilcox is genuinely baffling.  He's not a terrible HC but he's not anything special, either.  Is a "lifer" really worth dragging your program back to "mediocre to good" status?  Wilcox could win 8 a year in Eugene but that is about his ceiling

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Sbbruin

Sbbruin 22144

Posted
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6 minutes ago, Zhorn96 said:

I thought I read somewhere that Miami is paying Oregon about the same amount for Cristobal's buyout?  If true, its house money and who cares.  If not... Uncle Phil can afford it if he really wants Chip.

Interest in Chip at least makes sense.  The interest in Wilcox is genuinely baffling.  He's not a terrible HC but he's not anything special, either.  Is a "lifer" really worth dragging your program back to "mediocre to good" status?  Wilcox could win 8 a year in Eugene but that is about his ceiling

Wilcox can recruit.  Chip can't.  Or doesn't like to.  And recruiting is the lifeblood of Oregon. And any school really.  If Chip goes, we need a relentless recruiter to go toe-to-toe with Lincoln.

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Sbbruin

Sbbruin 22144

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Latest from Canzano:

Spoiler

It may be lip service but insiders tell me University of Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens is being especially inclusive with a larger number of boosters as he’s trying to hire the next Ducks’ football coach.

 

We all know Phil Knight has a voice in the room.

 

Former AD and booster Pat Kilkenny should, too.

 

But as Mullens is looking to replace Mario Cristobal I find it interesting that he appears to be soliciting input from a new corner of the luxury suite -- namely some of the long-time, Oregon-based multi-generation enterprises that have supported UO over the years (See: Papé Machinery, Murphy lumber, etc.).

 

A source with knowledge of the search told me on Thursday, “Oregon has moved from a mom-and-pop athletic department to a corporate athletic department and losing the family feel was the price.”

 
 

Is Mullens trying to recapture it?

 
 

Or is something else going on?

 
 

In 2015 Mullens gave Mark Helfrich a five-year contract extension. The Ducks went 13-12 in the next two seasons prompting the AD to fire the coach and buy out $12 million in salary. Then came the hiring of Willie Taggart, who bolted for Florida State after just one season. Then came Cristobal, who announced on Monday he was leaving Eugene after four seasons for Miami.

 

Said the source: “Could it be that, ‘We’ve tried it your corporate way for a while, Rob -- we need to do it the way we did it before’?”

 
 

Certainly Mullens needs a win with this hire. Maybe the source is right and we’re seeing a correction of philosophy. But I’m also wondering if Mullens is simply being more inclusive with more boosters this time around because he wants to make them feel heard and protect himself should the hire not work out well.

 
 

As Cristobal was announced as the new Oregon coach in 2018 a well-placed donor fired a warning shot at the AD when he told me, “A less than favorable outcome could be problematic for Rob.”

 
 

Cristobal won two conference titles. Mullens exhaled, a little. But here we are again with Oregon facing another moment of truth and a football vacancy. I’m not sure he’s aiming to please the mid-tier boosters as much as he simply wanted to include them. But we’ll soon see, won’t we?

 
 

A few more things I know...

 
 

♦ Oregon interviewed Cal coach Justin Wilcox on Thursday, per a source. The interview went well in the eyes of UO contingent, I’m told. Wilcox was born in Eugene, played his high school ball at Junction City High and then played at Oregon. If the Ducks are dead-set on getting back to their local roots, he’s the hire isn’t he? I think Wilcox is a hell of a coach who has done OK amid unfavorable circumstances in Berkeley. Still, I wonder if Mullens is interviewing Wilcox because he covets him or rather because he wants to please the boosters who support a return to a local candidate.

 
 

♦ The Ducks have also asked permission to talk with UCLA coach Chip Kelly, a UO source tells me. Kelly was beloved during his tenure at Oregon. He went 46-7 and won at least a share of four straight conference titles in each of his four seasons. But he’s lost some shine since and is 18-25 at UCLA. I’m told the Bruins would very much like to retain Kelly, who won eight games this season. Kelly’s buy out is $9 million between now and Jan. 15. On Jan. 16 it drops to zero. There are some key boosters in Westwood who would like to play some defense here and retain Kelly. They believe he’s figured something out, but I’m told Kelly is listening to the Ducks.

 

♦ BYU coach Kalani Sitake interviewed with Oregon on Wednesday, per a source. I didn’t get the impression the Ducks were wild about this one. The whisper is that either Sitake didn’t interview well or expressed some hesitation about leaving BYU. I would be surprised if he’s the pick for this reason but we’ve seen stranger 180-degree twists.

 
 

♦ Phil Knight is 83. Nobody is getting hired without his blessing. He and Penny have invested $1 billion in Oregon athletics over the years. Mullens is the AD. He’s using Parker Executive Search (coincidentally... the same firm that brought Mullens to Oregon), but Knight should get the final say here. If he wants Wilcox or Kelly, I think we’ll see that happen. If not, we won’t. I was told early in this search that Knight, “Could get the pope on the phone.” I’ll bet he takes a big swing before this is over. Maybe one with NFL flavor.

 

♦ I get it. Everyone wants a splashy hire. But can I ask you... was Kelly a splashy hire when the Ducks brought him from New Hampshire and promoted him from offensive coordinator to head coach? Was Helfrich splashy? Those two coaches took Oregon to national title games. Then came Taggart, who hadn’t even had a Power Five head coaching job before Oregon. Then came Cristobal who had a 27-47 record as a head coach when he was promoted in 2018. What I’m saying is, the Ducks haven’t really ever gone splashy with this hire. The ecosystem that is UO football has some inherent advantage. I think a lot of competent coaches would be successful at Oregon. Ask for splash if you’d like, but please know ... that would be new.

 
 

♦ This is a search. It could very well take a big twist today. I’m told that the next 24-48 hours will be critical and that Oregon isn’t done trying to hunt a whale hire. It’s possible the Ducks attempted to interview some big fish and were shut down, then went back to what they know (Wilcox, Kelly). It could be that they just wanted to appease boosters who like those candidates, check them off the list and get about interviewing some others. What I’m saying is: Be patient. It’s a search. If I were Mullens, I’d have wanted to talk with the three candidates I’ve confirmed here. Also, I’d want to visit with some others.

 

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Gene Parmesan

Gene Parmesan 4064

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11 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

Wilcox can recruit.  Chip can't.  Or doesn't like to.  And recruiting is the lifeblood of Oregon. And any school really.  If Chip goes, we need a relentless recruiter to go toe-to-toe with Lincoln.

Am I misremembering Chip's Oregon days where he recruited well, or was that him just paying Lyles to get the recruits for him?

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Cairn Horn88

Cairn Horn88 8502

Posted
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Nick Kelly, The Tuscaloosa News
Fri, December 10, 2021, 9:14 AM
 
 

Alabama football coach Nick Saban’s contract extension through the 2028 season is official after the compensation committee of the University of Alabama system board of trustees approved the deal in a virtual meeting Monday.

The university announced it had agreed on the extension with Saban in early June, a deal that would add three years to his contract, keeping him in Tuscaloosa through at least February 2029.

His base salary will remain $275,000. His talent fee for 2020-21 was $8.425 million and will continue to grow at a rate of $400,000 annually. It will reach $11.225 million in the final year of the extension. With his base salary and talent fee, he is set to make $11.5 million in 2028-29.

Saban is set to become the first college coach to reach $10 million in annual recurring compensation during this contract in 2023-24. He will also receive an $800,000 completion benefit each year through 2025 upon finishing each season.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Nick Saban gets massive contract extension from Alabama

SIAP

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Moby Ric

Moby Ric 2058

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Posted (edited)
34 minutes ago, G650 said:

Compared to?

Pretty much everywhere.  Per this site it was #1 most expensive in Texas in 2020.  Now it is #2.

https://www.homesnacks.com/most-expensive-cities-in-texas/

 

Here are the 10 most expensive places to live in Texas for 2021:

  1. Fair Oaks Ranch
  2. College Station
  3. Prairie View
  4. Fredericksburg
  5. San Marcos
  6. Huntsville
  7. Granbury
  8. Addison
  9. Austin
  10. Webster

Population: 113,686
Rank Last Year: 1 (Down 1)
Home Price To Income Ratio: 5.3x (6th most expensive)
Income To Rent Ratio: 46.6x (29th most expensive)
More on College Station: Real Estate | Data | Photos

The median income in College Station comes in at $45,820 and the median home value is $241,600 for 2021.

Edited by Moby Ric
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