Random coaching carousel guesses
The winds of change are blowing across the Big Ten coaching community. Here's what we know: Barry Alvarez is out and Bret Bielema is in at Wisconsin. Here are some other guesses...
1) Lloyd Carr will announce at the end of this year that he will retire after next year. He's always talked about walking away when it isn't fun anymore. And as much as he's having with these last second victories, you know the losses have been adding up.
2) Joe Paterno retires after this season. The dude is damn near 80 and this is going to be his last chance to go out a winner. Either that or he coaches until he's dead, or hell perhaps even a season or two from beyond the grave. Would anyone in State College even notice the difference?
3) Joe Tiller is G-O-N-E. His act has been wearing thin the last few years in West LaFayette, but taking a team from preseason national title contender to pushing Illinois for 11th place in the conference will end his tenure as a Boilermaker. Resign, fired, whatever. He's done.
4) John L Smith is on the hot seat if MSU's season finishes in the tank. He was supposed to be the guy that got the job done at Louisville and would bring MSU back to challenging Michigan and the Big Ten. Instead, his team looks exactly like something Bobby Williams could have done. And it's pretty hard to look bad when following up Bobby Williams.
1) Lloyd Carr will announce at the end of this year that he will retire after next year. He's always talked about walking away when it isn't fun anymore. And as much as he's having with these last second victories, you know the losses have been adding up.
2) Joe Paterno retires after this season. The dude is damn near 80 and this is going to be his last chance to go out a winner. Either that or he coaches until he's dead, or hell perhaps even a season or two from beyond the grave. Would anyone in State College even notice the difference?
3) Joe Tiller is G-O-N-E. His act has been wearing thin the last few years in West LaFayette, but taking a team from preseason national title contender to pushing Illinois for 11th place in the conference will end his tenure as a Boilermaker. Resign, fired, whatever. He's done.
4) John L Smith is on the hot seat if MSU's season finishes in the tank. He was supposed to be the guy that got the job done at Louisville and would bring MSU back to challenging Michigan and the Big Ten. Instead, his team looks exactly like something Bobby Williams could have done. And it's pretty hard to look bad when following up Bobby Williams.
posted by robert paulson at 10/25/2005 04:26:00 PM
4 Comments:
I don't think Tiller is gone. Remember, Purdue hadn't done squat for YEARS before Tiller got there (Colletto was 21-42-3 in a 6-year stint as Tiller's predecessor), so Tiller is likely to get one year of slack out of gratitude for turning the program around.
If Purdue isn't an 8-win-or-better team next year, then Tiller's in trouble.
Call it a gut feeling. But Tiller's team is on the verge of one of the largest single season collapses in recent Big Ten history. I mean contender to last place? That's a mighty large cliff to fall off of.
And I would think he'd get another year, but I think his act has worn thin at Purdue. I mean what have his teams ever done? Purdue was 9-3 his very first season. It's been all downhill since with records of 9-4, 7-5, 8-4, 6-6, 7-6, 9-4, 7-5, 2-5...
For the math impaired, that's a record of 31-26 since their big Rose Bowl loss to Washington. Not good. Especially when they see the relative success of Wisconsin and Iowa (and heck, Minnesota).
Paterno won't retire after this year. He'll continue to coach until his health allows, and he's doing fine. Why would he retire? The only thing he likes doing is coaching.
And it should be noted that Penn State will actually likely be better next year than this year. They lose a fair number of players on the offensive line and defensive line, but they keep a whole lot of other players, including Tony Hunt, all the WRs, and the two top LBs. If Morelli is as good as scouts thought he'd be, Penn State could be seriously dominant next year.
Penn State is due for a mighty fall from this temporary good season they are having. Morelli better than Robinson is this year? Umm, last I heard the kid practically has a learning disability and doesn't know the offense.
So yeah, they lose a fair number of players on the offensive line and the defensive line. And don't forget they graduate their starting secondary that's been together for years and their do it all QB.
So? Major losses on OL, DL, QB, and secondary and they are going to be better? Did I miss something like logic in that assessment?
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