Grinch new DC at Oklahoma
- Thread starter kougkurt
- Start date
Lol. WSU defense got better when he left. Give more credit to Claeys. Maybe they hired the wrong guy.
Even so, yet another Leach hire goes on to great things.
Sure seems like Cougs dislike Grinch for some reason. I don't get it. He showed up, did a great job, D got way better under his watch. Claeys has been great too. Maybe even better, but that's mutually exclusive to Grinch doing a great job here.
People sometimes get annoyed that people left them. I don’t take too great offense if they go somewhere we don’t play regularly.
I don't know if it's accurate to say that our defense "got better" after Grinch left. Our defense played hard this year, but lets be honest, we didn't face a good offense all season. That fact was reiterated during the bowl season. Grinch came in and transformed the attitude of our defense, and it carried over to this year.
As Yaki said, it's great to see yet another Leach disciple move on to great things.
As Yaki said, it's great to see yet another Leach disciple move on to great things.
I couldn’t agree more. He inherited a total sh!t show and turned it around pretty quickly. Yes, Claeys has been fabulous. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t appreciate what AG did during his tenure.
I'm not sure why people get bent about Grinch. At his age, the DC position was obviously going to be a stepping stone. No surprise there.
Looks Like Grinch Has A Soft-Spot For Ol WSU......
I think Grinch did a great job at WSU and wish him the best. My point was, how many people could even name our current DC
Given what we had on the interior DL, the defense was nothing short of spectacular. The secondary play improved quite a bit, and showed multiple looks instead of just lining up 10 yards off the ball.
I am happy for Grinch, but even more happy that Clayes wasn’t hired away by OU. Given a choice of the two, I’d rather have Clayes.
No disagreement there at all. They played hard and squeezed everything they could out of the pieces they had to work with. My point is that I wouldn't dismiss the job Grinch did and boast about how much better the defense was this year. Look at the offensive teams (and QBs) we faced this season.
Everybody here may dislike him even more, if he starts poaching people off of the WSU staff, like Lincoln Riley did.
Continuity of scheme definitely helped.
So did running a lot more man coverage. Even if we got beat sometimes, the presence of a body was enough to make qbs look off that read sometimes.
We already led the conference in sacks; if Herc stayed it would have been stupid how good the D would have been. As we get incrementally better at DL and DB we'll see the defense become even more impressive. But again, DL in the 34 is what everything else hinges on, so hopefully we'll start seeing the athletes there we need.
Absolutely. Again, I'm not knocking the effort by our defense, but look at the offensive teams we faced. The only decent QBs we faced were Herbert and Tate, and we got them both at home. Who else did we play? Wyoming, SJSU, Eastern WA (good FCS team, and we faced a different QB), Cal, Stanford, USC, Colorado, Oregon State, Utah (we faced their best offense, but they were still marginal), UW, Iowa State.
Literally 11 of the 13 QBs we faced were average or worse, and we faced Tate in 24 degree weather. Iowa States QB will be good, but he's a freshman. Outside of Oregon, who only scored 7 points in their bowl game, it's fair to say that we didn't face a single QB capable of throwing the ball worth a damn.
Gubrud, Herbert, Costello, Tate and Purdy seemed above average to me.
Certainly there was some awful (Wyoming, SJSU, OSU, Cal).
He did a good job with defense and was a huge reason we won 9 last when the offense didn’t show up for a lot of games. Anybody that followed Wazzu knew he was only here for a short time until a bigger school came calling. He probably would have been our HC if Fulmer didn’t torpedo Leach’s Tennessee job. My only knock on him was that Grinch’s recruiting wasn’t much to sniff at. Can’t really recall any significant recruits he got. Sean Harper and Willie Taylor are the only ones that come to mind.
That's probably fair. Purdy will be good, but he's not a thrower yet. Same with Tate.
I am one of those people, although Claeys got me over it. My beef is that CML pulled Grinch out of nowhere and gave him a great promotion and opportunity. As soon as Grinch get established, off he went. No loyalty. But then, there is no loyalty anywhere in College Football, or most sports in general, college or pro. Coaches and more and more players. So that's just how it works, and "loyalists" like me need to accept it. Although in real life, how many of us have done the same thing in our own careers? I have. So pot meet kettle.
Thing is Loyal... Loyalty goes both ways. This was a hard one for me to learn a couple decade ago but lets look at this situation. You say Grinch should have loyalty to CML or WSU. But doesn't that swing both ways? Shouldn't WSU and CML be loyal enough to Grinch to say, "Go do what you need to do, man. We've got your back." If he is looking to build his resume, care for his family, earn as much as he's capable, shouldn't we say "Way to go Grinch!"? Isn't that as much about OUR loyalty to him, as he should be to WSU or the program or CML? Just a thought. It's a 2 way road, I guess.
I'm proud of Grinch. Good on him. Go Cougs!
Yes. No Sam Darnold third pick in draft, even though he was sketchy at USC. Utah's QB sucked when we played them. Rosen no longer in Pac 12 even though we didn't play them.
Loyalty is a two way street. Take Mike Breske, how loyal was WSU. And Leach did the right thing, my point is it is not about Loyalty. It is about winning and losing.
He'll become a good QB, but he wasn't this season. The only thing he did against us was throw the deep ball and hope for the PI calls. It usually worked.
The SC qb rained dimes on us all night.
Didn't do much the rest of the season, but we made him look like an all star.
My knock on Grinch was team building, recruiting, and ability to identify good assistants.
Recruiting wise, he hasn't shown much of an ability to recruit guys high on his list. Harper, Woods, and Silvels (not sure if he was behind Oguayo or if it was Manning) were good talents, but none were major recruiting battles. Contrast this with Big Joe fighting off Bama for Vaeao, Manning flipping Calvin, or Mastro holding off Stanford for Borghi.
Not being an ace recruiter isn't a fatal flaw, but his inability to recruit multiple positions was a problem. He inherited a good defensive line and handed Claeyes a small group with little depth. The guy Grinch gave the NT slot to wasn't able to beat out a 260lb walk on. Corner depth/ability was poor when he arrived and not much better when he left. Claeys needed to sign 3 JC corners to make up for the poor job Grinch did here. Interior DL and CB are the most important positions to recruit. They are difficult.
Lastly, he demonstrated no ability to recruit solid assistants. Small sample size applies, but Sage was so bad Leach reassigned him to outside receivers during his first fall camp. I don't see Grinch putting together a great staff in a place like Pullman.
I don't feel bitter about Grinch leaving. He's a future head coach and I don't think he'd be a good fit here. I do thank him for taking the pieces we had in place and helping us turn the corner. But the folks suggesting maybe Grinch would make a better HC than Leach were way off base. He's good with scheme, develops safeties, and maintains a lot of interchangable parts in the second level. I think he has a lot more to learn before becoming a successful head coach.
From the USC game on, we all saw why they lined up 10 yards off the ball. Not having Hercules inside made that a less viable option though
I sort of cherry picked your post (above). But everything you state indicates that he is NOT Head Coach material. I just don't get the numerous assertions by various posters in various threads that he is HC material, will be a HC, etc. If he is a poor recruiter and poor assistant hirer (I don't know that he ever actually hired any assistants, I think the HC does that but whatever), then he should NEVER be a head coach.
Look at Bill Doba. He was God as our DC. Was he HC material? Was he a good HC? Should he have ever been a HC? Most importantly, did he even WANT to be a HC? The answers are all probably NO. Although if his assistants had done their jobs he could very well have been considered a great HC.
I am happy for him. I think why some are upset with him is that he was a DC and left to become a position coach. If he had left and took DC job at a higher profile school, I do not think that people would have been upset. But, by leaving and taking a lower position, he essentially said that being a defensive backs coach at OSU is better than being a DC at WSU. I know it is more complicated than that, but I believe that is what is behind some of the animosity.
Carpetbagger Powers Activate!!!
Quite honestly, who cares where coaches go after they bail out of Pullman? I didn't get the butthurt when Tony left for UVA, kind of steamed at Uncle Denny when he left for Miami - but i'd question anyone's sanity staying in Pullman vs. taking over a now legendary dynasty. Same with Price. Maybe pissed at "how" they left but totally understand it.
Phelps, Wilson and McBath are the ones to keep an eye on. They seem very loyal to Claeys and Leach , but money can change loyalties.
Grinch to my knowledge never had to build a staff at WSU or Ohio State. Fairly sure Leach hired Phelps when Joe left. Not sure who hired Manning.
It would also be interesting if does reach out to Big Joe and Manning.
His need to build a staff at OU is why I'm not sure everyone should be so happy about him getting this gig from the WSU perspective.
You bring up a good point. Coaches stick with people they know, at least most of the time. So he might want to poach someone from our staff.
That being said, I'm not too concerned if he does. If there was been anything CML has shown, he knows how to upgrade staff. With just about every staff person, he's upgraded. Whomever, if anyone, leaves this offseason, CML will find someone. No doubts.
Actually, he did leave with the expectation of being the DC at tOSU but after Schiano's rejection at Tennessee by faculty and students due to his having been at Penn State at the same time as Sandusky, he returned to tOSU's DC slot and Grinch was, if I recall correctly, downgraded to DB coach and also given the title of co-DC or something like that. His hire as co-DC at a higher profile school was a step up on the career path. I cannot blame him for the move and do not understand why others would. Pissed that he left-O.K.- but it was not a lateral movement.
