SleepingGiantsFan

Nail and head. One of the advantages of using a search service like Neinas or Parker is that many candidates are leery of applying directly to an athletics department because there tends to be loose lips within them and they don't want their current employer to find out they might be looking around. As examples, I heard of at least half a dozen applicants for the SDSU job the very day after Chuck Long was fired since they applied directly to SDSU and I know a couple folks with contacts there. Although Neinas wasn't involved in that particular process, in contrast, although Neinas recommended Jimbo Fisher, not only did I not hear Fisher's name before the recommendation came to the athletics department, apparently nobody else did because it didn't come up once before then on our board nor from any of my sources. Oh, and neither did Brady Hoke's name arise until late in the process. That was because Hoke applied to Parker in Florida and he apparently told them he first wanted to interview at LSU. Can't blame him for that and if you guys can play your cards right, you may also manage to lure somebody who interviews for a more desirable gig but doesn't get it. The probability is they won't stay around too long but as one of your posters was astute enough to realize, if they leave, it will be because they have turned your program around.

After studying up on him, that was my conclusion about him coming to SDSU - although I sure wanted him more than DeWayne Walker after all the negative stuff I heard about that guy. My guess would be that just like Walker at SDSU, you guys probably have a candidate or two who looks good on the fact of it but who, once you start digging around, could be a huge problem if you hire him even assuming he manages to win some games.

Thanks for understanding. I'm honestly not trying to be an interloper, just trying to help for a somewhat self-serving reason I expressed on another thread. Canales may be a great choice, I don't know that since I know nothing about the guy. However, since I'm a college football junky yet know nothing about him, that in itself gives me concern. And I think there's no doubt that hiring him sure isn't going to motivate any casual fans to start coming to your games. In that regard, hiring a name coach may cost a bit more, but if your season ticket sales immediately increase by 3-5K, that amounts to a considerable amount of immediate additional revenue to pay for him and his staff.

# of new season tickets which would be sold with the announcement of the hiring of Canales: ~ two dozen. (All relatives of Canales.) # of former season ticket holders who would view the hire as evidence UNT's administration is a lot more interested in saving money than having a winning football team and would therefore fail to re-up: ?

I don't think you're going to need to worry about it since I was told by a friend of his two years ago that he has family reasons for not wanting to leave the Deep South and it's that, and not lack of interest from potential suitors, which is the reason he hasn't been hired elsewhere.

Don't misunderstand. I don't disagree with that. All I'm saying is that unless you're Alabama or U$C or another one of the big boys, every candidate is going to have both positive and negative attributes. I could have lived with Franchione at SDSU. I just thought at the time and am now convinced that Brady Hoke was a better choice. Maybe Franchione will be the best choice for you guys, but maybe not. Personally, I think that if you could get him, Terry Bowden would seem to be much, much better. But then you may be privy to info I'm unaware of. (And BTW, I'm not pimping for Bowden.)

I should come clean that part of my interest in your hire is I want to see your football program take off. And I want that for self-serving reasons based on the composition of the MWC. Has to do with concern about contraction and expansion of the conference, as in TCU perhaps leaving for the Big East and what I consider to be horse crap schools like Utah State being debated as possible replacements. Schools in Texas would bring SDSU additional recruiting grounds. Utah State would be nothing more than replace Utah and BYU with another school from a state which produces very little in the way of football talent which will therefore just keep taking California kids away. Ah, now I feel better. Anyway, retirement on the job is what Ted Tollner did at SDSU. He used his predecessor's recruits to fashion two 8-win seasons, then had a down year but followed that up with a bowl season. That was pre-Rivals and pre-Scout and I naively thought things were really going well. However, a couple other fans with contacts within the coaching staff told me Ted had gotten lazy and simply wouldn't go out on the recruiting trail to act as a closer as he previously had. It's a grind for sure but you simply can't win without it. Well, I thought they were crazy but they proved to be correct as two years later Ted put together back-to-back 3-8 seasons and he was fired. Pre-SDSU, Ted had been the head coach at U$C for four years and offensive coordinator for the Browns so he was already wealthy and therefore no longer motivated by fear of losing the SDSU salary if he got canned. I really worried that if SDSU hired Franchione, he might have been Ted redux.

You may be on to something. I think if you guys hired Franchione and he brought at least one young, hard-charging coordinator who could take over for him after four years or so that might be a great move. Assuming, of course, that they actually did a good job in the interim.

The above is generally correct but not completely. It's apparent to me that Walker was a finalist for the SDSU job in name only. Think BCA pressure and the desire to have an African American finalist after the two black coaches SDSU was really interested in, Dennis Green and Turner Gill, declined to interview. Also, Chuck Long was earning $725K and Brady Hoke is being paid $685K so the half a mil this article says the SDSU job was paying is inaccurate. As to UNLV, it's a basketball school whose alumni have very little interest in football and it is therefore the lowest paid position in the MWC by a considerable amount. Would Coach Fran come to North Texas? As a poster said above, he's unemployed. Further, I've been told and logic suggests that each year of unemployment makes a coach more concerned about never being able to get another head coach position. Since Franchione was indeed a finalist for the SDSU job, I did a lot of research and spoke with another Aztec whose cousin has coached in the college and NFL ranks for 30 years and here's my opinion. The guy's an excellent recruiter. He brought LaDainian Tomlinson to TCU when the Horned Frogs program was way down, for example. And assuming he is given sufficient money to do so, he would put together a solid staff as he did at UNM when the Lobos program was a disaster. However, there are downsides. One is that he has reportedly tended to be inept in dealing with big bucks alumni who expect to be catered to and will be reluctant to open their wallets if they aren't. Another is his option offense. Frankly, for most of us it's just boring to watch. Efficient perhaps in burning the clock and allowing his defense to rest, but boring. And casual fans don't just want to see victories, they want to see exciting ones. Finally, considering how much money he's already earned, I would be concerned he would be your version of Dennis Erickson at ASU. Meaning he would be highly motivated his first couple years and then just get tired of working hard and start coasting, knowing that if he's fired, he can just retire. My guess is you could get him. However, if you do, you know he's going to be short term. Because if he gets bored, he will retire on the job. If he doesn't, he will leave ASAP for greener pastures. (Check how long he stayed at Alabama after aTm offered a better package.)

This. Deciding to take your time can also prevent the guy you choose prematurely from leading you down the primrose path and using you to court more desirable potential suitors as Jeff Tedford did to SDSU in order to up the ante to Cal.

I don't think you're going to need to worry about competition from UNM. As abysmal as Mike Locksley has been, they still owe him a reported $2M if he's shown the door and unlike at SDSU two years ago, I see nothing on their board to indicate there is a movement afoot from alumni to try to find the money to help the school buy him out and some of their fans actually seem to think things are improving because they managed to cover the point spread against NMSU and SDSU the last two weeks. Then there are the Lobos fans who are convinced that with an upgrade of The Pit and a couple stud transfers coming in that they're going to challenge for the NCAA BB championship this year. Bottom line is the administration isn't going to replace Locksley this year unless the alumni demand it and that isn't happening. (In the meantime Locksley still has just two commitments for his 2011 recruiting class.)

The Parker firm would be fine too. That's who SDSU used to replace Chuck Long. My point merely is that in this day and age of multi-millions of dollars involved in DIA college football, it's penny wise and pound foolish to not use somebody like Neinas or Parker to vet candidates because you're trying to save yourself $35K-$50K. Spending that amount might be ridiculous if you're hiring a coach for women's rowing (a great sport to help with Title IX) but it's absolute peanuts when it comes to football.

If I might jump in here, I would absolutely say the same about Vic Koenning. SDSU plays at Wyoming on Saturday so the stats are fresh in mind. SDSU's record in Laramie against Cowboys teams not coached by Vic Koenning: 2-11. SDSU's record in Laramie against Cowboys teams coached by Vic Koenning: 2-0. Vic Koenning's overall record at Wyoming: 5-29. Number of Wyoming head coaches fired after only three years: 1. (Guess who.) Some guys are very good coordinators but when promoted to head coach the Peter Principle kicks in like the blitzkrieg over Poland. That's Vic Koenning.

I'm not trying to be a smart ass in saying this but I don't have any idea what you're talking about.

I graduated from SDSU in 1981 so I'm only young in comparison really old guys. The two games you reference preceded me so I wasn't even aware of them. I do know who our coach was, however. Claude Gilbert had been Don Coryell's DC and was promoted to head coach when Coryell was hired by the then St. Louis football Cardinals. Claude was on a roll until SDSU was admitted to the WAC in 1978 when Arizona and ASU left for the Pac. Claude's downfall began with a 63-14 beatdown by BYU in San Diego on national TV in a game that was considered a toss up going in. BTW, the general misery of SDSU football since the time you reference is exemplified by the fact Claude was the first of eight consecutive coaches to leave SDSU not because they were hired away by somebody else but because they were fired. Just one of a myriad of embarrassing factoids about SDSU football.

From one Alfred E. Neumann fan to another, you're quite welcome.

The process which resulted in the hiring of Brady Hoke was far less insular than for Chuck. President Weber himself was seen by a friend of mine getting on a plane to a couple pretty podunk places at the relevant time for what can only be presumed were interviews with candidates. Further, there was a search committee composed of several former players including Marshall Faulk, former Packers All-Pro safety and fellow Aztec Willie Buchanan and others. Plus, I know from hearing it from the horse's mouth that another former All-Pro whose name you would recognize was asked to interview the finalists. Neinas wasn't involved that time around because, I think, folks like you guys thought Chuck Long was his responsibility. To repeat, that simply was not the case. The one thing I don't think anybody should do is leave a hire as important as head football coach up to just the athletic director.

San Diego State fan here. Undoubtedly the first to post here since we've never played you guys. (But there's a first time for everything.) This might be a bit long, for which I apologize, but I think it might be of interest to you. Five years ago Tom Craft was completing his final season as SDSU's football coach. I heard enough rumors to think he might get canned mid season like NTU just did with your guy and then I thought Tom actually might survive but he lost the finale to a bad Hawaii team and sealed his fate. (I later heard from well-placed sources he was gone regardless.) Anyway, Craft had more than just high school head coaching experience but it was just at the JC level and I was aghast at hearing he had been hired when we almost got Jeff Tedford, then Oregon's OC, then almost got Mike Riley, then the Chargers' head guy, then almost got Rich Brooks, who was unemployed. When Craft was shown the door I was therefore adamant that SDSU not repeat the thoroughly botched hiring process that resulted in his hiring. (Among other things our idiot AD reportedly appointed the fired Ted Tollner to sit on the interview committee to replace himself. Yes, that's apparently true, as amazing as it sounds.) I therefore created channels from which to obtain information from insiders about the process to replace Craft. I won't bother with specifics and rumors but one thing that's a matter of public record is that SDSU hired Chuck Neinas to vet the candidates. After the attendance swoon created by the lousy teams at the end of Tollner's tenure and four years of Craft, SDSU's athletics budget was in bad shape. The general consensus was, therefore, that the university was unnecessarily spending a reported $35K on Neinas that it could have better used in some other manner. Plus reports suggested some nepotism in the retaining of Neinas. Was the $35K money well spent? No. However, that wasn't Neinas' fault in the slightest. As I'm sure you guys do when your football coach job is open, I heard many rumors of applicants and I won't bother to detail those, either. However, I will say that none of the names mentioned was Chuck Long, who ultimately got the job. Chuck was therefore called the stealth candidate and although I wasn't sure what I thought of him when I heard he had been hired, I attended his introductory press conference and hung around after the media was done with the guy and found him to be highly personable and thought he would do well. Of course as you may know, Chuck had the worst 3-year run of any SDSU head coach in half a century and SDSU ended up buying out the last two years of his contract in order to save its football program. Did Chuck Neinas recommend his namesake, you might ask? No, I might answer. Rather, Neinas recommended Jimbo Fisher. SDSU football is now finally back to respectability under Brady Hoke and his excellent staff. However, because SDSU's AD didn't listen to Neinas, the school's football program undoubtedly lost millions in ticket sales and alumni contributions, to say nothing of the $1.5M to pay Chuck to sit in the athletics office for two years and twiddle his thumb allegedly writing reports which nobody ever saw. (He's now the OC at Kansas. 'Nuff said.) Listen, $35K in this day and age is peanuts when it comes to FBS football. Probably pays for nothing more than some paint for your new stadium. And maybe Neinas has an incestuous relationship with a bunch of people within NCAA institutions. But so what? There's no doubt the guy has more contacts than anybody else out there from which to gather dirt on applicants. And since he didn't recommend Chuck Long to SDSU, I'm sure Neinas found some stuff of concern on Chuck since Fourth-and-Long was at that time the highly-regarded OC for Oklahoma. Sadly, however, it's obvious our then-AD (since fired himself) knew Chuck back in the day at Kansas State and thought he was God's gift to football coaching. In conclusion, I don't mean to stick my nose in your business and I definitely don't make it a habit to post to other schools' message boards. I just thought you guys might like to hear my perspective on the report of the hiring of Neinas.