It’s a gamble to be sure, but the potential reward is great. We’ve all worked with people who would be good at anything they tried. I hope he’s one of those people.
I’ll sign on to this one. I think it’s a helluva move.
No question about it.
His choice of OC is a bad omen.
I also never trusted Jack to conduct a proper search and find what he characterized as a corporate manager-type coach, to paraphrase. The "choice" of Rees is just a stop-gap measure for more continuity, and I actually believe free of his former HC, he might actually run a more pro-style offense. If not, he'll move on after a season.
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is insane. We now have a chance to win a NC. We had no chance with Kelly. Hope is alive again at ND. I am all in. Excited. Kelly took that from me (and many other critical thinkers) long ago. Let’s Go Irish!!
Purdue is a little bit better than mid major.
It is a high risk, high reward hire.
I like that he is connected to a deep coaching tree...a tree that gave ND three national championships.
It is a low hanging fruit hire, but it seems like players are willing to run through walls for him and then crawl over broken glass.
as either a coach or player than Kelly had 12 years ago (zero).
Saban? Meyer? Stoops? No way on any of them.
Fickle? Campbell? Ruhle?
I'll take Freeman and Rees
Oklahoma did. He thinks Kelly is an elite coach so it is natural to promote from his staff.
Of course Oklahoma and OSU both promoted guys who worked under national championship winning coaches. Kelly isn’t fit to hold their coffee.
I really want Freeman to succeed, but the odds are truly long.
Like I did when Niele Ivey was promoted. A young person I love and desperately want to succeed is very possibly being set up for failure because they are not experienced enough.
Disclaimer: I'm a pessimist.
If he brings in the star recruits he allegedly is capable of, with our shit schedule (the next 4-5 years are littered with patsies not named Ohio State, Clemson, Texas A&M and USC, and these last four are sprinkled throughout the timeframe), how can you bomb this? I mean, Kirby Smart just went undefeated for fuck’s sakes.
under Saban. Freeman has nothing like that on his resume.
Look, we weren’t getting Saban or Dabo, Meyer is a whore, and Stoops went back to OU. Next tier was Fickell on its own, but in my mind, blocked for variety of reasons. Freeman, given the circumstances around Kelly’s departure and our stance today, checks more boxes than anybody else - Campbell, etc.
I think it’ll be fine. Never underestimate a tireless underdog.
Urban Meyer was never a coordinator.
Ed Orgeron was never a coordinator.
He also learned the value of employing excellent assistant coaches. As did Orgeron. Meyer started at smaller schools and quickly moved up. He had more flexibility when it came to assistants, but he's also one of the great head coaches in CFB history. They all had more experience as assistants at big time programs.
One thing they all have in common is recruiting prowess, which is good, but I don't think their experience prior to their first head coaching gigs can be compared.
Meyer was a head coach at smaller programs before he got a big time gig.
I agree his resume is most similar to Dabo. The question is whether you trust Swarbrick to identify that diamond in the rough.
completely turning Ohio State into a year in and out contender ?
It wasn't big time, but any experience as a hc is still relevant. Tressels resume has no relevance to anything here.
How many instances are there when giving someone this inexperienced the keys to the kingdom didn't work out?
I think it’s worth a try. They think they have a star in the building, and it’s been a long time since that’s been the case.
How about we let him coach a game first before freaking out?
Probably almost as many as when good coaches failed at big programs.
Lots of flavor of the month coaches have gone from smaller Division I-A schools to bigger ones and failed. Herman, Mullen, Fuente… both lists are plenty long.