Frank Solich- Loyd Carr -Kirk Ferentz -Mark Dantonio

So Solich just became the all time winningest coach in MAC history. It got me thinking.

Since he was let go at Nebraska, since Carr was gently pushed out at Michigan and Dantonio and Ferentz have been coaching at Iowa and MSU :

List below the amount of times each school had two or less losses (11victories) in a season and also won their conference championship.

Why am I calling attention to that? Change coaches at two traditional football schools at your leisure. Keep two red ass dogs at your risk. But look at results. Ups and downs? Yep. No doubt. But go look at season records.

What, exactly do you want?

All I’m saying is, if you change coaches it better be right. Not kind of right, not 75% right but dead balls right. Because MSU and Iowa don’t have the money or will to spend like Michigan and Nebraska. So, go ahead. Make a change. But man there is zero room for error here. If two power house fanatical football schools haven’t done it in a decade and a half, we all need to pray hard it somehow works with less money and less prestige at our school known as a basketball school.

My thoughts? 5% chance at best. Doesn’t mean I’m against it. Just means I have my eyes open here.

All the money in world didn't help Notre Dame, who whiffed three times in a row after Holtz left (four if you count O'Leary).

Fear of failure guarantees it.

kingstonlake wrote:Fear of failure guarantees it.

Not the point. We needed a Hail Mary against Wisconsin. Not fear of using it. Just shocked it worked. I’m good with trying a change, but how often does it work. Lord knows you can ask Michigan and Nebraska.

People will bitch for years to come if it doesn’t work. All I’m saying is, if you’re a gambler, do you really expect to draw the right card with a slim chance? I don’t. But will go crazy nuts if we do. But I have no fear of trying.

What about some examples where it worked dwags? Switching from tommy Bowden to dabo Sweeney seems to have been a good idea for Clemson. Georgia fired Mark Richt. I’m sure there are plenty of others.

It’s not just a bottomless well of despair when you get rid of a long time coach.

DWags wrote:

kingstonlake wrote:Fear of failure guarantees it.

Not the point. We needed a Hail Mary against Wisconsin. Not fear of using it. Just shocked it worked. I’m good with trying a change, but how often does it work. Lord knows you can ask Michigan and Nebraska.

People will bitch for years to come if it doesn’t work. All I’m saying is, if you’re a gambler, do you really expect to draw the right card with a slim chance? I don’t. But will go crazy nuts if we do. But I have no fear of trying.

I’m not on board with the idea that our window for hiring success is narrow because it didn’t work for Nebraska or SCum.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:What about some examples where it worked dwags? Switching from tommy Bowden to dabo Sweeney seems to have been a good idea for Clemson. Georgia fired Mark Richt. I’m sure there are plenty of others.

It’s not just a bottomless well of despair when you get rid of a long time coach.

OSU seems to have upgraded with their new coach. Never would have guessed they'd look this good year one after Urban.

Over all though I agree with your point Dwags.

steveschneider wrote:

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:What about some examples where it worked dwags? Switching from tommy Bowden to dabo Sweeney seems to have been a good idea for Clemson. Georgia fired Mark Richt. I’m sure there are plenty of others.

It’s not just a bottomless well of despair when you get rid of a long time coach.

OSU seems to have upgraded with their new coach. Never would have guessed they'd look this good year one after Urban.

Over all though I agree with your point Dwags.

Too soon to tell but OSU is an excellent example steve thank you. They fired cooper and hired tressel.

NigelUno wrote:

steveschneider wrote:

OSU seems to have upgraded with their new coach. Never would have guessed they'd look this good year one after Urban.

Over all though I agree with your point Dwags.

Not really an upgrade unless OSU wins multiple National Championships.

Fair point.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:What about some examples where it worked dwags? Switching from tommy Bowden to dabo Sweeney seems to have been a good idea for Clemson. Georgia fired Mark Richt. I’m sure there are plenty of others.

It’s not just a bottomless well of despair when you get rid of a long time coach.

There are more examples than those two. I'm not sure it's as easy for us to recruit to schools like Georgia or Clemson, and clemson didn't go from Big time victories (Danny Ford) to Tommy Bowden. They also had Tommy West and Ken Hatfield in there for a total of 18 years between what they would consider "successful" coaches. As far as Georgia, I mean Mark Richt won 10 or more games 10 of the 14 years he was there, so I don't know that Georgia is the powerhouse tradition in football as MSU is, but I think it might be a tougher sell for assistants at MSU than it is at Georgia. Especially if we're not paying the money they are. That you compare our football program to Clemson and Georgia is pretty cool though. And if it's been done there, we certainly can do it here. It might be a tougher recruit, but it can be done.

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just not saying don't be surprised if, like Nebraska and Michigan we have a tougher time getting to the level of Clemson or Georgia. Frankly, gun to my head Travis, I don't see it happening in my lifetime. I'll be pulling for it to happen. I just don't see it.

Look at USC post pete Carroll. I thought with their tradition, resources and ability to sell the sunshine and Hollywood to top recruits would keep them in dynasty mode.

Clemson wasn’t Clemson back then though. They were just... well. Clemson.

Anyway man I don’t know. I just think we should present that it does in fact work out just fine sometimes.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:Clemson wasn’t Clemson back then though. They were just... well. Clemson.

Anyway man I don’t know. I just think we should present that it does in fact work out just fine sometimes.

Without doubt we need to sell all the positives to any new guy. Big time. Throw the championships won at him, the amount of season tickets sold, all of that. It certianly an be done. Hopefully it is.

Yeah high chances we will be very average or worse post Dantonio (already there) and izzo.

Other Teams Pursuing That wrote:Yeah high chances we will be very average or worse post Dantonio (already there) and izzo.

With basketball, we might be o.k. quicker, but yeah, with both of the next guys, we'll take our lumps. I wonder what Duke will be like after K. Saw this thing "the class that saved K at duke" last night. pretty interesting. The 82 recruiting class. Lucked out there

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:What about some examples where it worked dwags? Switching from tommy Bowden to dabo Sweeney seems to have been a good idea for Clemson. Georgia fired Mark Richt. I’m sure there are plenty of others.

It’s not just a bottomless well of despair when you get rid of a long time coach.

It cracks me up when people bring up Dabo, as if Clemson made some astute hire. Imagine the reaction if we were to fire Dantonio and replace him with Mark Staten.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:What about some examples where it worked dwags? Switching from tommy Bowden to dabo Sweeney seems to have been a good idea for Clemson. Georgia fired Mark Richt. I’m sure there are plenty of others.

It’s not just a bottomless well of despair when you get rid of a long time coach.

It cracks me up when people bring up Dabo, as if Clemson made some astute hire. Imagine the reaction if we were to fire Dantonio and replace him with Mark Staten.

Well if he then went on to win multiple national championships I suppose people would look back, realize their foolishness at the time, and say it was very astute.

What do you define as a successful hire?
I'm guessing if you define that first then there is a much greater change of failure than there is of success in hiring a replacement for Coach D.
That is based on defining success as going to the B1G championship 3 out of 10 years, winning at least 1 of those. And winning 9+ games 8 out of 10 years.

That said I'd say it is less than a 15% chance that Coach D will hit that success rate, for the years 2020 until his retirement.

I'm not trying to settle for less, but 3/10 playing in Indy and 9+ wins 80% of the time is keeping the program at it's all time high mark.

It is easy to see the big name programs who have not succeeded - Michigan, Nebraska, Texas, Florida, Florida St, USC, Georgia, Notre Dame (but harder to quantify since they are an independent), few successful teams have hired replacements without a decline in the program - hell Bama had struggles between Bear and Nick.
And sure there are some places that have made good hires - but don't act like someone can tell the difference between hiring Dabo and the Beilema to Arkansas, Lane Kiffen everywhere he goes, most MAC hires up to Power 5 conferences. This hire is about finding the right fit and some luck.

Again, I agree with DWags - I'm not against change, but I'm worried about who will make the hiring decision. Will it be Beekman (and administrator moved in to fill the slot), a committee, a search firm?

Wally Fairway wrote:What do you define as a successful hire?
I'm guessing if you define that first then there is a much greater change of failure than there is of success in hiring a replacement for Coach D.
That is based on defining success as going to the B1G championship 3 out of 10 years, winning at least 1 of those. And winning 9+ games 8 out of 10 years.

That said I'd say it is less than a 15% chance that Coach D will hit that success rate, for the years 2020 until his retirement.

I'm not trying to settle for less, but 3/10 playing in Indy and 9+ wins 80% of the time is keeping the program at it's all time high mark.

It is easy to see the big name programs who have not succeeded - Michigan, Nebraska, Texas, Florida, Florida St, USC, Georgia, Notre Dame (but harder to quantify since they are an independent), few successful teams have hired replacements without a decline in the program - hell Bama had struggles between Bear and Nick.
And sure there are some places that have made good hires - but don't act like someone can tell the difference between hiring Dabo and the Beilema to Arkansas, Lane Kiffen everywhere he goes, most MAC hires up to Power 5 conferences. This hire is about finding the right fit and some luck.

Again, I agree with DWags - I'm not against change, but I'm worried about who will make the hiring decision. Will it be Beekman (and administrator moved in to fill the slot), a committee, a search firm?

I trust Izzo on the committee. Haller maybe. Who else.

I do not think that Mark Staten is the next Dabo. To be clear.

I’m just saying that sometimes getting a new coach to replace an existing long time coach does in fact work out. Since dwags had a lengthy post detailing cases where it didn’t work out, I thought it was only fair to point out that sometimes it does and that made up numbers like “5% chance” are probably pretty inflated and based on cherry picked samples.

I also don’t even know that I think we should make a change.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:
It cracks me up when people bring up Dabo, as if Clemson made some astute hire. Imagine the reaction if we were to fire Dantonio and replace him with Mark Staten.

Well if he then went on to win multiple national championships I suppose people would look back, realize their foolishness at the time, and say it was very astute.

If I spend my entire life savings on PowerBall tickets, and it hits, yes, we could look back and say what a shrewed and astute move that I made.

Unfortunately, we have to live in reality, without the benefit of hindsight from 10 years in the future, so Clemson is completely irrelevant to MSU unless you are seriously advocating for Staten.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:
It cracks me up when people bring up Dabo, as if Clemson made some astute hire. Imagine the reaction if we were to fire Dantonio and replace him with Mark Staten.

Well if he then went on to win multiple national championships I suppose people would look back, realize their foolishness at the time, and say it was very astute.

If he went on to win championships nobody would ever admit they didn’t want him.

Clemson is as irrelevant to MSU as Michigan post Lloyd Carr is irrelevant to MSU and Nebraska post Frank Solich is to MSU as well then.

Fine. I’m willing to agree that none of them are similar and the whole premise of the thread is ridiculous. But you can’t just point out the times when it didn’t work out while ignoring the times it did. Is that fair then?

NigelUno wrote:

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:

Well if he then went on to win multiple national championships I suppose people would look back, realize their foolishness at the time, and say it was very astute.

Well...if Saban tried to hire Staten, and he was a great recruiter...then it might compare.  But, it doesn't.

They hit the lottery with Dabo.

Clemson has inherent advantages over us.    

Wait, so someone that Saban tries to hire, a good recruiter, a position coach/associate head coach (never a coordinator), then that would be a good comparison to Dabo?

Damn, if only we could ever find someone like that....

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:Clemson is as irrelevant to MSU as Michigan post Lloyd Carr is irrelevant to MSU and Nebraska post Frank Solich is to MSU as well then.

Fine. I’m willing to agree that none of them are similar and the whole premise of the thread is ridiculous. But you can’t just point out the times when it didn’t work out while ignoring the times it did. Is that fair then?

Bro, I just made a comment about the Dabo comparison, because a few people have mentioned it, and most do so while acting like they would be ok with a similar move (no one would, especially in light of our own history). So don't tell me what I can or can't point out.

Wally Fairway wrote:
Again, I agree with DWags - I'm not against change, but I'm worried about who will make the hiring decision. Will it be Beekman (and administrator moved in to fill the slot), a committee, a search firm?

This is the biggest question...Do they even involve Izzo? You know it will be a committee loaded with people not wanting to create controversy. The last couple of years certainly still have the admin side reeling.
I wish I felt better about Dantonio staying....

NigelUno wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:
Wait, so someone that Saban tries to hire, a good recruiter, a position coach/associate head coach (never a coordinator), then that would be a good comparison to Dabo?

Damn, if only we could ever find someone like that....

Similar. But a little different.

Dabo coached at Bama under Stallings and Dubose. Dubose was fired. Dabo was out of coaching for 3 years. Then went to Clemson as WR Coach. Saban tried to bring him back to Bama. Clemson made him Assistant Head Coach. The following year he became interim Head Coach.

So, if we have someone like that.

But, the point is Clemson hit the lottery in their somewhat similar situation. We did not.

NigelUno wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:
Wait, so someone that Saban tries to hire, a good recruiter, a position coach/associate head coach (never a coordinator), then that would be a good comparison to Dabo?

Damn, if only we could ever find someone like that....

Similar. But a little different.

Dabo coached at Bama under Stallings and Dubose. Dubose was fired. Dabo was out of coaching for 3 years. Then went to Clemson as WR Coach. Saban tried to bring him back to Bama. Clemson made him Assistant Head Coach. The following year he became interim Head Coach.

So, if we have someone like that.

But, the point is Clemson hit the lottery in their somewhat similar situation. We did not.

So, the differences are that Dabo was out of coaching for 3 years, and that Saban was unsuccessful in hiring him?

Sorry, I don't mean to go all Nigel on you.

Of course, yeah, they won the lottery big time with Dabo.

I.B. Fine wrote:

Wally Fairway wrote:
Again, I agree with DWags - I'm not against change, but I'm worried about who will make the hiring decision. Will it be Beekman (and administrator moved in to fill the slot), a committee, a search firm?

This is the biggest question...Do they even involve Izzo? You know it will be a committee loaded with people not wanting to create controversy. The last couple of years certainly still have the admin side reeling.
I wish I felt better about Dantonio staying....

Comp made a really good point, that he would have Dantonio on the committee. If he retires (as opposed to being fired), I would definitely agree. That's not the same as him naming his successor, but it gives him input and perhaps more importantly, the use of his contacts and the massive respect that football people have for him.

MiamiSpartan wrote:

I.B. Fine wrote:
This is the biggest question...Do they even involve Izzo? You know it will be a committee loaded with people not wanting to create controversy. The last couple of years certainly still have the admin side reeling.
I wish I felt better about Dantonio staying....

Comp made a really good point, that he would have Dantonio on the committee. If he retires (as opposed to being fired), I would definitely agree. That's not the same as him naming his successor, but it gives him input and perhaps more importantly, the use of his contacts and the massive respect that football people have for him.

I can see that and I expect Dantonio to retire not be fired, the tragic thing is that no one currently on the staff looks like a candidate, let alone a shoe in for that position

NigelUno wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:
Comp made a really good point, that he would have Dantonio on the committee. If he retires (as opposed to being fired), I would definitely agree. That's not the same as him naming his successor, but it gives him input and perhaps more importantly, the use of his contacts and the massive respect that football people have for him.

You might as well make him AD then.

How does being on the committee = naming him AD?

NigelUno wrote:

MiamiSpartan wrote:
So, the differences are that Dabo was out of coaching for 3 years, and that Saban was unsuccessful in hiring him?  

Sorry, I don't mean to go all Nigel on you.

Of course, yeah, they won the lottery big time with Dabo.  

The difference is Dabo was at one school, and Saban tried to hire him at another school.

The similarity is both became interim head coaches (and then full time).  Unless, I'm remembering that wrong and Bobby immediately became Head Coach.  

Not sure why it is any kind of a significant difference that Dabo was at a different school.  Bobby was twice at an NFL team and Saban tried to hire him away to college.