Since the other thread is locked...

[RebelBruiser]

Someone asked who my other coach I wanted was, it was Hudspeth.

Early on I wanted Leach. I also really liked Morris from Clemson and Malzahn. I was mild on Freeze and Hudspeth.

After doing some research and coming up with the qualities I thought we needed for our job, Freeze and Hudspeth were my top two.

The things I thought we needed were 1) creative hurry up spread offense, 2) knowledge and connections for recruiting this area because it's a unique job, and 3) an understanding of the importance of a solid defense.

Leach's problem to me was long term stability. I don't think he will be in Pullman for long, and whoever they hire to replace him will have a hard time picking up where he leaves off.

I was moderate on RichRod all along. I never wanted Dungy, even stated as much on here when the rumor came out. I really didn't want any NFL coach. I definitely didn't want Smart ever and I'm glad we never contacted him. I never wanted Fedora, but I would've lived with him as a last ditch.

Freeze and Hud fit our needs the best ultimately in my opinion. Most of our fans probably didn't agree with me, but that's the way I see it.

I said a few weeks back that I hoped Mullen stayed because honestly I would fear Hud long term a lot more at MSU than Mullen. I was chastised for saying so, but I'm not backing away from that. My hope is he lands a job at a school like UGA before you get a chance to hire him.

Fire away. I don't expect everyone to agree but that's my opinion, and that's what this place is for.

 

[RebelBruiser]

Someone asked who my other coach I wanted was, it was Hudspeth.

Early on I wanted Leach. I also really liked Morris from Clemson and Malzahn. I was mild on Freeze and Hudspeth.

After doing some research and coming up with the qualities I thought we needed for our job, Freeze and Hudspeth were my top two.

The things I thought we needed were 1) creative hurry up spread offense, 2) knowledge and connections for recruiting this area because it's a unique job, and 3) an understanding of the importance of a solid defense.

Leach's problem to me was long term stability. I don't think he will be in Pullman for long, and whoever they hire to replace him will have a hard time picking up where he leaves off.

I was moderate on RichRod all along. I never wanted Dungy, even stated as much on here when the rumor came out. I really didn't want any NFL coach. I definitely didn't want Smart ever and I'm glad we never contacted him. I never wanted Fedora, but I would've lived with him as a last ditch.

Freeze and Hud fit our needs the best ultimately in my opinion. Most of our fans probably didn't agree with me, but that's the way I see it.

I said a few weeks back that I hoped Mullen stayed because honestly I would fear Hud long term a lot more at MSU than Mullen. I was chastised for saying so, but I'm not backing away from that. My hope is he lands a job at a school like UGA before you get a chance to hire him.

Fire away. I don't expect everyone to agree but that's my opinion, and that's what this place is for.

 

[DAWG61]

coach in waiting. Pick another one. You can have Croom. I think he's out of a job with St. Louis firing their coach.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

"I really wanted Leach. I was also very interested in Malzahn and Morris. Freeze and Hud were after that as fallbacks. However, after it became apparent that we were not going to get a big name coach like Dungy or RichRod, or any of the top three guys on my list, I focused in on two guys with similar resumes, and then realized that the other names were pipe dreams all along. Before you know it I had convinced myself that Freeze and Hud were on the top of my list from day 1, and thus, I was happy with the hire."

 

[CadaverDawg]

That was the most ridiculous bunch of mumbo jumbo I've ever read. DawgatAuburn said it perfectly...but how do you guys not see the stupidity in that ****?

 

[FlabLoser]

Still no admission that recruiting hype I past years was woefully misplaced. Still no definition of what "not so distant future" means in your prediction of TSUN succcess.

No indication at all that current optimism is any more relevant than previous misplaced optimism.

 

[Dawgpile]

Dungy? Richrod? Leach?Really?

Freeze is UMiss' version of Dereck Dooley...a big, qualityband-aid.

 

[JohnnyAppleseed]

is exactly how I read his post.

 

[Coach34]

Dungy? Richrod? Leach?Really?

Freeze is UMiss' version of Dereck Dooley...a big, qualityband-aid.

hires that were made because the first 6-7 choices said no. And Dungy wasnt one of the 7- that was just a cruel joke on the Bear faithful

 

[KurtRambis4]

Gruden or Dungy didn't take the job.

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

Dungy? Richrod? Leach?Really?

Freeze is UMiss' version of Dereck Dooley...a big, qualityband-aid.

hires that were made because the first 6-7 choices said no. And Dungy wasnt one of the 7- that was just a cruel joke on the Bear faithful

It is just simply amazing that UM fans are now lock step in agreement that Freeze was the choice all along. They got the beloved archie to form a committee, sought advice or hired search firms, got list of candidates, gave grueling interview after interview, had interest from NFL coordinators and past "big name" coaches, took a few weeks to name a coach.....and the only one that came out on top and wanted all along was Freeze? Really? Seriously? It takes that much wasted time, time that was lost in recruiting, and wasted money to hire a coach that would have bolted Ark St before the phone hit his ear good?<div>
</div><div>I've heard some rationalizations in my day...but the UM fans that believe this take the cake.

</div>

 

[anon1751035439]

Not to defend the original post, but why do you present that as a quote?

 

[DawgatAuburn]

Legal to use quotes there, Sparky. Are you really that concerned about it?

Here's my interpretation of your post.

"He nailed that one. I need to try and deflect the attention from the fact that we hired a girls basketball coach as our head freaking football coach. Wonder if I can run some punctuation smack? Yeah, I'll give that a run."

See how that worked?

 

[umrebel2009]

<span class="post-title">Freeze and Dooley are exactly the same</span>

Except for the fact that Dooley finished 5-7, 8-5, and 4-8 finishing 4th, 2nd, and 5th at La Tech before being hired at Tennessee whereas Freeze went 8-4, 12-1, and 10-2 and finished first all 3 years.

And Dungy wasnt one of the 7- that was just a cruel joke on the Bear faithful

Most of us had enough common sense to know Dungy, Gruden, and the ghost of Vaught were not actual candidates for the job. That's like us claiming that all State fans thought mini Favre was gonna be a badass SEC QB because of a few of your fans were dumb enough to believe it

 

[Rosebowl.sixpack]

I don't see Freeze and Dooley being anywhere near the same. Dooley got a job at a major program because of his name. He was 17'n 17-20 at La Tech. Freeze at least won games at his previous stops and was probably the best coach willing to come to OM (which isn't saying much).

 

[LiterallyPolice]

This quotes thing is good stuff. Please, please keep it going in response to their future BS.

 

[umrebel2009]

Most people wanted Leach, but he wasnt even interviewed from what I can tell. After him some wanted Gus, some wanted Fedora, and some wanted Smart, and some wanted Hudspeth. Out of those i wanted Fedora more. Fedora was offered and turned us down I believe, and something about the Hudspeth interview turned them away from him. So essentially our apparent options for consideration were going to be Smart or Freeze and out of those 2 I would've taken Freeze.

I'm not really disappointed with our choice. I would've rather had Leach or Fedora, but I think Freeze could end up being a good coach. It's a gamble but the guy has done good everywhere he's coached and it's not like we hired Dooley after he went 4-8

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

I'm assuming the SOS had nothing to do with the difference in records. Being that La Tech and Ark State are in different conferences and play different level of teams.<div>
</div><div>How's this for comparisions.... Ark State at 12 and 1 is as good as Alabama at 12 and 1... they both finished with one loss. </div>

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

Regardless if he did or didn't... It's been repeated that Freeze was the only one offered by UM sources. Also, Archie stated that "No stone would be left unturned" in an interview.<div>
</div><div>No matter which one is true...that Freeze was the first choice all along or UM fans had smoke blown up their ***... the same Boone like incompetence was followed to a T in this coaching search. Either Freeze was a fallback.... or incompetence cost UM a lot of valuable time while putting recruits in limbo. Take your pick.</div>

 

[anon1751035439]

carryonsparkyku

 

[Statefan]

on a sports message board of all places

 

[umrebel2009]

Well guys we didn't give Leach a chance, we got turned down by Fedora, so we offered Freeze.

Whats it to you how our coaching search affected recruiting? Seriously, why would you care if he was a fall back plan or how it affected our recruiting?

I can guarantee our current staff will be a big improvement over the last staff. Nutt, Nix, and Markuson had no clue wtf they were doing.

 

[DAWG61]

your life is Wilt Chamberlin like.**

 

[anon1751035439]

God, this place has gone to ****.

 

[DerHntr]

nm

 

[Mutt the Hoople.buhoops]

With the $8 million payout OM was giving Houston Nutt and his assistants, plus the money going to your Crapital Campaign, there was no way you were about to hire a big-time coach.

The Archie Manning Committee was just political cover. As of now, Pete Boone is toxic to the Bear Family, and anyone he hired would immediately be behind the 8-ball. Fact is, if Petey was still officially openly calling the shots, Freeze would've been your first choice anyway.

Have fun with Pete Boone's first choice.</p>

 

[anon1751035439]

This has nothing to do with you. I wasn't deflecting anything. I was simply stating a fact that the 17ing quote was not accurate. And it wasn't. My God, some of you people are incorrigible.

 

[xxxWalkTheDawg]

what restaurant is good along with the latest loafer fashon. <div>
</div><div>Hell it's basketball season..... help clean up the board and start a thread about that.</div>

 

[RebelBruiser]

The committee of 2 didn't go into the process with a priority or a list of top candidates. They went into it with a long list of candidates to vet that they gave to the search firm. They also gave a list of qualities they were looking for in case the selection committee had other candidates for them to consider who fit their requirements. They eliminated some with the vetting process prior to making contact with them. I'm sure some candidates' agents told us they weren't interested, but no priority was ever assigned. No matter how long or short a candidate's resume was, they all went through the same vetting process prior to being contacted for interviews.

After the search was over, I was able to get information from a source that was on top of the whole deal to say the least. I'll leave it at that. A few things I know for sure:

1) We never contacted Leach or Rich Rod. Both didn't clear the vetting process because of concerns about past run-ins with previous administrations. After the Nutt/Boone clash, that was enough of a concern that neither even got a call to request an interview.

2) Smart was never a serious candidate and also never received a call. He wasn't even on our short list.

3) Only a handful of candidates were actually interviewed. Still couldn't get an exact number out of the source.

4) They didn't go into the interview process with a predetermined priority for the candidates interviewed, and they certainly didn't make any offers during the interview process.

5) Freeze was the only one out of the interview candidates offered, and both committee members thought he gave the best interview of the group.

This isn't the old days where ADs make up a predetermined list in order and go down the list asking each coach to the prom until one of them says yes.

Go ahead and argue that the hire was a bad hire or we should've handled it differently, but that's the way it went down. Say we're dumb for not pursuing Leach or Rich Rod, but that's what they chose to do. Argue whether either would've taken an interview if contacted or not, but we'll never know because they weren't contacted. I know that doesn't fit the message board way of wanting to envision the search process, but it's reality.

 

[DawgatAuburn]

The next one will come at a cost. Tread lightly.

 

[dawgstudent]

[No message]

 

[patdog]

Bruiser learned a new word. And damn, does he love to use it. He must have used the word "vetted" 50 times in posts just like this one about the Freeze hire. Of course Freeze was the only one offered the job and higher profile coaches weren't even considered. UM knew what their budget was when they went into this process and they knew what kind of coach they could afford. They knew they'd be wasting their time with a higher profile coach. As for Freeze being the only coach interviewed, that's most likely a play on words. A lot of coaches were contacted and talked to (for example we know for a fact that they talked to Hud), butit only became a formal "job interview" afterthe deal was 90% closed.

 

[RebelBruiser]

Still no admission that recruiting hype I past years was woefully misplaced. Still no definition of what "not so distant future" means in your prediction of TSUN succcess.

No indication at all that current optimism is any more relevant than previous misplaced optimism.

I don't remember anyone hyping our 2007 or 2008 classes.

Our 2007 class was undersigned, in part because the academic committee put the screws to Orgeron late in the process and cut our commit list for us, and partly because we went something like 1 for 10 on closing out in the final 2 weeks, and the 1 we landed was Rod Davis out of Memphis (a long shot to qualify at the time that didn't qualify).

The 2008 class was a transition year with a lot of Plan B type signees. The only excitement generated late with that class came with the signings of Patrick Trahan out of JC and Enrique Davis. Some of us had hopes it would be a decent transition class, but I don't remember people touting that class as great. In fact, most of us talked about the fact that we expected to see some rebuilding because of the back to back 2007 and 2008 classes.

The 2009 class was the best closing job I've ever seen us have. Turns out though we were taking a lot of chances with that class, and most of them backfired.

Your 2007 and 2008 classes weren't hyped, but they were much better than ours. Your 2009 class was very strong. There was a lot of argument about which of our classes was better in 09. Yours turned out way better because of all the head cases we had in ours.

We will see on the 2010 and 2011 classes. Early returns lead me to believe both of our 2010 classes were mediocre. We'll see on the 11 crop.

On the "not so distant future" thing, I think we could be back up on our feet with a decent season as early as 2013 if Freeze manages to cobble together a decent crop in the transition class and puts together a strong 2013 group. By decent, I mean, 6-6 type decent, but 2013 is the earliest at best. If he does well, we could have better than decent seasons by 2014 or 2015. We had a good core group of freshmen this past year that mostly all get along, but it'll take us a couple years weed out the riff raff and let the solid core become the leaders of the team. There are a few freshmen that need to get straight too, but most of the core in that class is solid. We aren't taking over the SEC anytime soon, probably not ever, but I expect Freeze to have us respectable sooner rather than later. 2012 is going to be a clean up year though, and 2013 could still have some clean up left.

 

[RebelBruiser]

And yes you are correct Hud was one of those that was formally interviewed. I don't know the rest of them, but there weren't many more.

And again, Leach and Rich Rod were not eliminated because of budgetary reasons. Disagree with the decision to not contact them if you'd like, but they were both eliminated due to inability to work with previous administrations. Rich Rod had issues at both of his stops, and Leach obviously is going to have issues with that everywhere. They didn't want that.

The two running the show were given full autonomy to do it how they chose, and they didn't go stabbing at names like message board posters, believe it or not.

 

[BiscuitEater]

<span class="post-title">Freeze and Dooley are exactly the same</span>

Except for the fact that Dooley finished 5-7, 8-5, and 4-8 finishing 4th, 2nd, and 5th at La Tech before being hired at Tennessee whereas Freeze went 8-4, 12-1, and 10-2 and finished first all 3 years.

took a lot of 'chances' at Ark St to get to that record ... assistants, players with 'questionable' backgrounds and 15 JC players. It worked with the competition they were playing BUT Freeze has already said that he is going to be looking for players with 'character' to change the direction the bears are heading.


It will be 'fun' to watch.

 

[patdog]

I fully understand why Leach wouldn't have been a candidate no matter what the budget was, and why Rich Rod might not have been. My point is that your top candidates were 21st-year SunBelt coaches and a CUSA coach who told you no twice and who didn't really become a major target for other BCS schools until he beat Houston. Put that plus the underwhelming assistant coach hires together and it's obvious that the budget was very tight. Or maybe it's just a coincidence that you're suddenly going from one of the higher paid coaching staffs in the league to by far the lowest.