re: OFFICIAL 2020 Head Coach Search thread

quote:

---

Not really. I’ve liked the Iowa state guy. And yes I’m aware coaches lose btw.

---

What makes you like Matt Campbell more than Cristobal? Iowa State got blown out at home by Billy Napier's Louisiana team this season.

quote:

---

Better than cristobal losing to Arizona state with a much larger talent gap and a top nfl quarterback as a senior

---

Oregon’s NFL QB was a 3-star with an .8584 rating from 247sports.com. He was the #659 ranked player in the country coming out of HS. Other than Oregon (his hometown school), his only other offers were from Montana State, Portland State, and Northern Arizona.

In contrast, ASU’s QB in that game was a 4-star with a .9833 rating and was the #35 ranked highschool prospect in 2019. He had 25 offers, including Alabama, Florida, UGa, LSU and Ohio State.

In recent years, ASU and Oregon both recruited at the same level (high teens to mid 20s nationally) up until 2018, when Cristobal elevated the Ducks into the top 10. So the “much larger talent gap” was pretty much nonexistent last year.

ETA: out of curiosity, I looked up the recruiting rankings for the last few classes at Iowa State and ULa. The Cyclones ranged between 46th and 55th nationally, where the Ragin’ Cajuns were between 76th and 121st. So the talent gap between those two schools was an order of magnitude greater than between Oregon and ASU, at least on paper.

Don’t see how it’s remotely possible to spin ISU’s 17-point home loss to ULa this year as “better” than Oregon’s 3-point upset on the road vs ASU in 2019.

But I’m sure you’ll try.

quote:

---

If you like cristobal it’s okay dude

---

Its not so much that I like him, its that you (and a few others here) dislike him, and work your asses off trying to justify it.

Just kind of weird to me. But you do you.

quote:

---

Its not so much that I like him, its that you (and a few others here) dislike him, and work your asses off trying to justify it.

---

similar to what you are doing to Campbell...I am not so sold on Cristobal as I remember him from FIU days (Look at his conference record with his recruits while there). He has most of his recruits there now at OU. So we will see how he does next year. Campbell in his stint at Toledo did a great job there. I think he has a worse job than OU because of the donor situation. Let's face it, much easier to recruit at OU than ISU. So Campbell is at a disadvantage there. I just think Campbell has the harder job and has done well where he is at and probably has the better team chemistry to do what they have done in their conference, where OU (IMO) has the better facilities, money, etc and can attract better players. I just believe that campbell has done more with his recruits in comparison. That is how I look at both coaches. Cristobal has had experience in the south where Campbell is at a disadvantage there. Cristobol has also worked under Saban so he should know how to work angles (wink, wink) where Campbell turned down working for Meyer at OSU which may actually say something about him as a person seeing how things in Meyers org has been covered up from UF to OSU.

Headed to OK to talk with Stoops

quote:

---

think Cristobal did a great job at FIU considering his age

---

Campbell at Toledo
Year Team Overall Conference Standing Bowl/playoffs Coaches# AP°
Toledo Rockets (Mid-American Conference) (2011–2015)
2011 Toledo 1–0 0–0 W Military
2012 Toledo 9–4 6–2 T–2nd (West) L Famous Idaho Potato
2013 Toledo 7–5 5–3 T–3rd (West)
2014 Toledo 9–4 7–1 T–1st (West) W GoDaddy
2015 Toledo 9–2 6–2 T–1st (West) Boca Raton*
Toledo: 35–15 24–8 * Departed Toledo for Iowa State before bowl game

Cristobol at FIU
Year Team Overall Conference Standing Bowl/playoffs Coaches# AP°
FIU Golden Panthers / Panthers (Sun Belt Conference) (2007–2012)
2007 FIU 1–11 1–6 7th
2008 FIU 5–7 3–4 T–5th
2009 FIU 3–9 3–5 6th
2010 FIU 7–6 6–2 T–1st W Little Caesars Pizza
2011 FIU 8–5 5–3 4th L Beef 'O' Brady's
2012 FIU 3–9 2–6 T–8th
FIU: 27–47 20–26

Being me...I think what Campbell did was a better job. He had more than one bad year. Even if we say the Sunbelt and the MAC are on par with each other. Looking at their conference records. 24-8 vice 20-26. So Mario had more games played in his tenure. (6 yrs vice 4) I tried to look at common opponents in their overlapping season which was 2012 but their wasn't one...however, Toledo barely lost to AZ in that year. So it looks like you prefer Cristobol while others may not. You may not like Campbell because of the loss this year early to the Cajuns but to me OSU loss is worse given how bad that team is regularly and the Cajuns do well in their conference with regularity and Napier is a good coach in his first stint as a head coach which is another name to really consider...

You need to add a little bit of context to your analysis, which you'll find is actually pretty important.

FIU literally started playing football in 2002 - that was their first season EVER. Mario Cristobal inherited a team that went 0-12 the year prior to his arrival. Dan Strock, the coach that Cristobal replaced, never won more than 5 games in a single season and compiled an overall record of 15-41 (5-41 after the school vacated 10 wins due to NCAA sanctions under his tenure). To state that Cristobal walked into a complete basement dweller would be an understatement. In his 6 seasons at FIU, he achieved the first winning season in program history, as well as the school's first conference title. His 36% overall winning percentage at FIU looks really bad - but its actually considerably better than both the coach that he replaced (Dan Strock - 26%), as well as the coach that followed him (Ron Turner - 25%). His record is also significantly weighed down by that first 1-11 season, which again, came after inheriting a team on sanctions that had went 0-12 the year prior. Butch Davis would go on to post the first overall winning record at FIU in program history after he replaced Turner, but lets note that they're 0-5 this season and were only 6-7 last year. Even Butch Davis will likely finish his tenure with a losing record. The school is NOT easy to be competitive at in the least - as I'm sure you can understand for a program whose inaugural season came in 2002.

Now, what did Matt Campbell walk into at Toledo? The team was 8-5 and 9-4 (with a conference title berth) in the two seasons prior to Campbell getting the job under Tim Beckman, who wasn't fired - he left because he got hired UPWARDS at Illinois (ie: he was doing WELL at Toledo). So Campbell already inherited a winning program, and in actuality, Toledo has an entire history of being a pretty damn good program. Go look at Toledo's coaches - everyone thats coached there going all the way back to 1991 (I don't feel like looking any further) has posted an overall winning record. Gary Pinkel was there from 1991-2000 and his overall record was 73-37-3. Tom Amstutz followed that up with a 58-41 record, and Tim Beckman went 22-16.

Now, I actually like Matt Campbell as well and would have absolutely no problem with him as our coach as he looks to be very competent - but you can't just pull coaching records from two entirely different schools and pretend like there's no context that needs to also be looked at. Gus Malzahn's record would look completely different if hypothetically he took over Alabama next season, than it would if he took over Vanderbilt. There is no comparison to be made record-wise in comparing a coach who walked into an already winning team at, at a program with a long history of winning, to a coach that walked into an 0-12 situation at a program that started playing football 18 years ago. Cristobal's achievement at FIU is actually impressive - an 8-5 season might look like nothing special, but it is when the prior coach never even put up one winning season and left the team on sanctions.

Morning bump to keep thread at the top

Why did Napier have his team take an intentional safety from the 35 while leading by 5 with a minute and a half of time left? Why not just punt?