Didn't like the Wulff hire and didn't like the Rolo hire. Wanted to be wrong on both...badly. Hopefully the university learns from its mistakes...
If Coach Rolovich is canned my Top 5 replacements!
- Thread starter CougFan1980
- Start date
Well, brand y have said they were wrong, and don't want to repeat the same mistake.
Bullsh**, at the time supporting Wulff until the end was good for their personal brand as "emerging journalists". And not backing an alum coach was an added risk.
So many of our fans have a myopic view of our program relative to the other college football programs out there. For a group who rarely open their wallets, Cougs are among the best at condemning the University for making "bad hires."
Have you looked around the college football landscape? How does USC keep making bad hires? UW's had their share. The Beavs, Stanford, Cal, Colorado, ASU, Arizona, UCLA. Have you looked at their hiring records over the past 20 years? Shift that to the national programs. Why can't Miami, Fla and Florida State figure it out? Tennessee? Michigan? Texas?
Was Rolo a bad hire or did we learn things after the fact that no AD could have possibly considered (COVID)? I mean, he was widely endorsed by the West coast and even National media. The Wulff hire was lazy and small time, but Rolo was going to land a bigger gig than Hawaii. I'm not going to crucify Chun for the circumstances surrounding Rolo's hire. It's been atypical to say the least.
Have you looked around the college football landscape? How does USC keep making bad hires? UW's had their share. The Beavs, Stanford, Cal, Colorado, ASU, Arizona, UCLA. Have you looked at their hiring records over the past 20 years? Shift that to the national programs. Why can't Miami, Fla and Florida State figure it out? Tennessee? Michigan? Texas?
Was Rolo a bad hire or did we learn things after the fact that no AD could have possibly considered (COVID)? I mean, he was widely endorsed by the West coast and even National media. The Wulff hire was lazy and small time, but Rolo was going to land a bigger gig than Hawaii. I'm not going to crucify Chun for the circumstances surrounding Rolo's hire. It's been atypical to say the least.
Good points. I wasn't entirely sold on Rolovich, but he checked a lot of boxes and when looking at Chun's process and who was available, the hire was lauded by just about everyone.
Slightly different point but our fans--understandably since all fan bases do this--have that same general myopia regarding the significance of the program and the likelihood of achieving anything meaningful, especially over an extended period. They will dismiss places like Wake Forest, Rutgers, Kansas, Duke, and Oregon State as terrible P5 jobs that are nearly impossible to win at, but then expect WSU, which is worse-off than many of those programs in nearly all respects (no natural recruiting territory, can't recruit in its own state, not only broke but in debt, etc., with rivals able to poach coaches with money and better situations easily) to somehow pull off being a consistent double-digit winner.
It's much like when fans tick through the schedule at the beginning of the year and count the conference wins, penciling in wins against teams like Oregon State, Arizona, and Colorado. Well, guess what the fans of every other team do when looking at WSU?
None of this is to claim we shouldn't push for the AD doing everything possible to succeed and pushing for it to build a program with an identity of success, even across coaches and eras. It's nearly impossible in college football absent some kind of massive boost to revenues or other basis for changing the school's general position, though, even at schools that are better-situated. Even those several notches above WSU in the pecking order, and even a good amount of blue bloods, get things wrong and go through rough patches. Look at just about any program and you can find massive failures in the past 15-20 years, and in most cases more recently. Even Bama had Shula floundering around and failing while we had Doba coaching.
Bill Moos is available to head up the search committee, just like with the Wulf hire.
Very true, but I look at WSU differently I guess. When the wheels come off our program, we crash to the basement hard and fast. On the other hand, over the past 40 years that I've been following the program, we've put together a lot of incredible seasons.
Walden, Erickson, Price, Doba, and Leach all assembled teams that were in the upper crust of the Pac-10/12; some of them champions. That's too many coaches for it to be a coincidence. Other schools in our league may beat us more often than we beat them, but going down the line, school by school, which ones have reached the heights that we have as often as we have? Oregon State? Cal? UCLA? ASU? Arizona? Colorado? How many top-10 rankings have they had?
I understand fan frustration as it relates to down seasons, but WSU certainly can't be called an underachiever when you look at things objectively. Our lame fan base can't fill up a 35K seat stadium in our best years, but they sure do like to gripe when we lose games or go through a rebuilding period when a legacy coach moves on. All of the "Go Cougs" and "we always find our way back home" fan sentiment makes me nauseous in that regard.
Why is it the job of the fans/alums to bail out the university?
The attitude of the fans/alums reflects the leadership and vision of the school. People point the finger at fans/alums for not giving. Wtf has the school done in the past 100 years that leads you to believe they want to win? WSU screams “just enough” and “its ok to lose” but yet the fans are supposed to dig in and give until it hurts??? Gtfo. The SCHOOL doesnt dig in or spend until it hurts. But yet 100 years of alums are supposed to???
Tell you what…. for every league game WSU wins I will write a check for $250. You want my $? Win.
The attitude of the fans/alums reflects the leadership and vision of the school. People point the finger at fans/alums for not giving. Wtf has the school done in the past 100 years that leads you to believe they want to win? WSU screams “just enough” and “its ok to lose” but yet the fans are supposed to dig in and give until it hurts??? Gtfo. The SCHOOL doesnt dig in or spend until it hurts. But yet 100 years of alums are supposed to???
Tell you what…. for every league game WSU wins I will write a check for $250. You want my $? Win.
Often times in coaching you get what you pay for. As soon as Rolo almost brought his entire staff w him I knew we might be in trouble. The two coaches I would focus on are both offensive focused coaches who call their own plays like Leach and Price.
1) Hugh Freeze- no west coast ties, but he is a brilliant offensive mind. Reminds me of Leach in some ways with baggage, but is a proven winner (and isnt as late to his appointments
Always nice to say I successfully recruited DK Metcalf and AJ Brown.
2) Blake Anderson- he has improved Utah State a ton in just one year. Uptempo exciting offense. Did very well at Arkansas State. As Fedora's OC Southern Miss and UNC did well, then the moment Anderson left UNC went into the toilet.
1) Hugh Freeze- no west coast ties, but he is a brilliant offensive mind. Reminds me of Leach in some ways with baggage, but is a proven winner (and isnt as late to his appointments
Always nice to say I successfully recruited DK Metcalf and AJ Brown. 2) Blake Anderson- he has improved Utah State a ton in just one year. Uptempo exciting offense. Did very well at Arkansas State. As Fedora's OC Southern Miss and UNC did well, then the moment Anderson left UNC went into the toilet.
Over the last 25 years, we've won (2) conference titles and have been ranked in the top-10 multiple times. We've had #1 overall draft picks, Outland Trophy winners, National Coaches of the year, etc, etc, etc. During that timeframe, how many home games as WSU sold out? My guess is less than 20, and if we're talking legit sell outs (standing room only), I'm sure it's less than 10.
The attitude of our fans, relative to how our football team has performed over the past several decades, is a joke, honestly. You say that WSU screams "just enough," but what does it say when we can't fill the stadium for USC? Or we can't sell out games vs. freaking Idaho who are located 8 miles away? Or Labor Day games "just never draw well." Or the weekend before Apple Cup just "don't draw well." Or consecutive home games are "always a problem." The excuses that we make for our fan base not showing up meander longer than the snake river.
If you're asking what's worse, our football program or or our fans, it's not even close. Our fans suck.
"Yes. Mr. Biggs.....
Thank you for your first time contribution.
Make it payable to 'Cougar Athletic Special Honors'
I know that is much too long to write on your check.
So just abbreviate it to C.A.S.H.
Where should you mail this?
Send it to
PO Box 940
Albion, WA 99690
Why Albion?
We're not allowed to accept mail in Pullman due to COVID.
And don't forget 'Go Cougs!'"
Yeah, gotta agree with you there. Was just reading his post today thinking the same thing
JN is a blowhard.
You cant spend 100 years not giving a shit and then all of a sudden have it change. For WSU to fill the stadium consistently they need a consistent winner…. for years. Not a few years. Not 10 years good and 10 years bad. They need a good team, consistently, for years.
You can say the fans suck…. how much better is WSU??? It isnt going to change in a year or two. WSU has spent so many decades not caring, are you surprised fans dont care either??? Im not.
What message does WSU send about how much it wants to win when it won’t fire a coach that is awful right away? What message does WSU send about how committed it is to winning when it won’t fire a coach that gets beat like a drum?
If WSU wants fans and alums that care, it needs to care. Sadly, the university has prob burned up the leads of its older alums. They’ve spent so many years watching bad football they arent investing their $ in something that gives 0 return in excitement, pride and joy.
I think we can definitively that you suck as a fan. You're long on complaints and do nothing to support the Athletic Department.
Actually I do not think it is odd for numerous reasons. Do you still wear bell bottom jeans? Platform shoes? You continue to think the world is static. Nothing changed since 2008-2011, and the "fairness complaint" is no longer in play.
Prior to 2012 we never hired big, nor did we do "things" the way other football programs. Doba for example would never go after another teams commits. He felt that recruit gave his word, that should be it. Price and Wulff used that as a rule...hard and fast? No. But 8/10 times they stopped recruiting a kid.
Football has also changed in that in 1993 Bill Walsh didn't renew a scholie of Vince Otopal, a Seattle kid. He wasn't good enough. WSU for years and years had players on the bench that were misevaluated, never were asked, persuaded, run whatever term you wanted to use. Alvin Arzu sure a great kid, wasn't D1 material.
That changed the moment Leach was hired. He realized he couldn't sit on dead weight. As much as I don't like the misses on the oline, Leach was brilliant at getting those kids who wouldn't contribute out of the program. Do you think Joe Criscone would have been able to stick around under leach?
Also, the old mantra was it takes time to rebuild at WSU, and there was some indication (Cooper, Tuel, Buchanon, Long, Ranking, Pole, Fullington, WIlliams(center), Rodgers) that things were getting better talent wise, and he was able to flush coaches that weren't getting it done.
Take the really good coaches...they aren't loyal. Chip Kelly got rid of Robin Pflugrad, Dennis didn't take half his staff to Miami. Those coaches know it takes something special from those coaches and it meant they were not going to the next level with them. Doba needed to make staff changes, and didn't. Wulff was stuck with his staff for several reasons. One, Sterk and Floyd hired a guy who didn't have an extensive coaching tree or didn't work at other jobs to meet people, so his Eastern staff was what they had.
After evaluation year two they let go Ethridge, and hired Steve Morton.
That is a long history but the greater point is times have changed, expectations have changed. I think after Leach left it was 4-5 year rebuild. Would our fans be happy with that sobering news? Nope. Do our fans want to buck up if they don't win? Nope.
But tiomes have changed. Yes, Wulff would have been blasted if he was the coach in 2021 and not been vaxed. The pandemic is way bigger than he.
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So in order for him to not suck as a fan, he has to donate?
I haven't donated a single dollar to a Schulz and Chun university and AD. I don't like the way they've lead the university. I'm holding them accountable by not donating - if that makes me a "bandwagon" fan, then so be it.
Would you rather me blindly go "Hey Pat Chun, here's XYZ dollars to spend on something I don't trust you'll use them correctly for."?
Yes, if you have the financial means to donate, but you choose not to, you suck as a fan.
Name a business where you can perform poorly and offer a poor product and blame the customer for not buying.
It's ok. I donate now instead. And I felt the same way as you during the Moos years. Glad you helped pay for Ernie's debacle. Wasn't my job to give Bill money just so he could bless my Cougness either.
So far it's still a free country and give what you want to who you want and why you want. Or not.
Actually I do not think it is odd for numerous reasons. Do you still wear bell bottom jeans? Platform shoes? You continue to think the world is static. Nothing changed since 2008-2011, and the "fairness complaint" is no longer in play.
Dennis Erickson took everybody to Miami except Tom Everson and Tim Lappano and Lappano stayed with WSU and Price this go around.
John L. took the Idaho gig before Erickson left and took Craig Bray with him after Erickson left
John L.'s replacement at WSU as DC Sonny Lubbick also followed Erickson to Miami.
Only 3 Miami assistant coaches with the 1989 National championship team with no prior Dennis Erickson connections were Art Kehoe (Miami alum and sole holdover from Jimmy Johnson's staff) and two grad assistants that got promoted to full time assistants Tommy Tuberville and Ed Orgeron
How about once, maybe even twice. Or buy a (that's singular) ticket. Or, maybe don't constantly bitch about WSU not doing enough to get his hard earned money that he has no real intent to ever send WSU's way.
Name a "customer" that gets to come into the business and bitch and moan about the business and never spend a nickel, without getting removed from the premises.
I don’t know. He’s just kind of a meh hire. BYU got better after he left. He started out great at Virginia, but now he’s 32-34.
Wouldn’t be a bad hire, but nothing special either. He’s also not leaving Virginia for Pullman.
Thats funny. Talent is never coming to WSU when an unproven coach is at the helm. Even then it's a hard sell.
He went to 11 bowls in 11 years and won 99 games at BYU. Damn bro. I can be hard on a coach but 99 wins is “meh”…???
I think UVA is as good as it wants to be. Knute Rockne could coach there and still be 500.
Yes. Why would anyone realistically expect anything other than sparsely random success at schools like ours no matter who you hire in any athletic department position. Schools like WSU simple don't have and never will have the things that are required to expect any consistent level of success. Competence is the only reasonable expectation.
$3.5 mil a year won't cut it at a no name school. You'd have to pay a massive premium compared to 'name brand' schools to even get a meeting with a legit proven coach. If Leach isn't sitting on the black ball list, he's not picking up the phone when WSU calls
None of that is gonna change WSUs station though. All that would do is make you feel better about the experience of going to games and watching us lose. They could sell out every game for 50 years and it won't change one dam thing. And all those great seasons you mentioned, nobody outside of our fanbase remembers any of them. If you don't appeal to national college football fans in this age of CFB, you're out. PERIOD
Without massive amounts of $$$$$$$ to fire up the marketing department (a la O Ducks) you will not get your name in that conversation
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