Good hire - Bad hire - Wait & See

[Dr Z]

I never heard of Rob before yesterday, but like I predicted back in September if you followed Tom's past you would find our next head coach in there somewhere. I was really hoping for a defensive minded coach, but we will see who Rob brings in as defensive coordinator. Rob is supposed to be a great recruiter. While he had the luxury of using the ND money and name to recruit against the big schools, now he just has to recruit against MAC schools? Hopefully his success will transfer. While I see the title is the same as JD had when he was hired, I think the similarities end there. I'm pretty sure that I was not going to attend as many games next year as I did this year if JD was still running the same mess I watched this year. I am now excited about the first game next year. I'm anxious to see who Rob is able to recruit here, and I can't wait to see his coordinators and what kind of offense he runs and what kind of defense he runs. Welcome aboard Rob, and good luck....your gunna need it. You can follow Rob on Twitter....Urban, Lane, Charlie, Pete and Tim do. He already knows Stams.ND fans not happy losing RobWill he bring any ND coaches with him to Akron?2010 ND Commit List (for reference)

[GP1]

I'm a patient man, so I'll wait and see while eating the same pile of crap I have been for the past 20+ years. I have a feeling I know how this story is going to end.

[cornbread]

They miss him already at Notre Dame.There are other forums (like www.irishenvy.com) that I cant read from work. I can see the forum topics but nothing else. They are talking about it.Any MAC school, or Big East, ACC, or lower Big Ten school would be proud of this hire. He is one of the "it" assistants right now. Conventional wisdom has shown that good assistants eventual become good head coaches. I remember hating Tressel when he was hired. It seemed like tOSU hired someone through back room dealings and that we deserved someone better. I think John Gruden was a candidate at one point? I forget. Winning has a way of helping the forgetting process.

[Captain Kangaroo]

One thing that is painfully obvious from reading many of the responses to the Ianello hiring is...there are a lot of very simple-minded Zips fans with Internet access and too much spare time.The easiest thing in the world to do it look at the surface, and stop right there."He's just like Brookhart. A BCS position (WR) coach. Same old same old." Baloney. Ianello is 44 years old, but has coached in some capacity, at BCS schools like Alabama, Wisconsin, Arizona and Notre Dame, for 23 years. Brookhart spent many of those same years selling AutoCAD software or fetching drinks for Mike Shannahan's staff. Ianello knows how to recruit top-tier talent (not like the talent that JD/Pitt recruited when Walt Harris was coach).While Notre Dame's record was mediocre during Ianello's time on the ND staff, the level of play he lived in on a weekly basis was light-years ahead of that which JD experienced on Walt Harris' Pitt teams.Ianello is a Top 10 recruiter in the NATION. His ties to Notre Dame allowed him access to the best high schools in the NATION. I think his expectations for a recruit are going to be a LOT higher that those of, say, a guy from a D-II program. But Brian Kelly won at CMU...so any D-II head coach MUST be a slam dunk, right? Yeah...it is that simple. "Look at Haywood at Miami...ex ND assistant, right? How's Haywood doing?" - Give me a break. You would be the same guy begging UA to have hired an ND assistant 10 years ago because former ND assistant Urban Meyer was so successful at Bowling Green. Do you have a free-thinking bone in your head?Haywood took over a train wreck at Miami. Shane Montgomery ran that program into the ground in 5 short seasons. But they started playing better at the end of 2010. Dysert will be a good MAC QB. The book on Haywood is far from it's conclusion. I checked out some of the Notre Dame message boards, and ND fans seem to be very disappointed that Ianello's gone. NO ONE is happy to lose him. These same ND fans are tired of losing...losing for 2 consecutive decades. Yet they wanted to keep a "loser" from the Weis staff? Obviously Ianello did an outstanding job at ND to still be wanted by the fans, and by the University who entrusted him with the reins to the program after Weis' dismissal last month. Ianello may be good, he may suck. Like JD, a lot will depend on his schemes and who he surrounds himself with as assistants. And, if he has early success, how he handles it. We now have one of the top young assistants in the nation as our head coach. A guy that has recruited Top-10 classes back-to-back-to-back. To hate on the guy straight out of the gate is just plain ignorant.

[Zip Watcher]

One thing that is painfully obvious from reading many of the responses to the Ianello hiring is...there are a lot of very simple-minded Zips fans with Internet access and too much spare time.

Haven't read the rest of your post yet, but +100 on that little nugget.

[Zipgrad01]

One thing that is painfully obvious from reading many of the responses to the Ianello hiring is...there are a lot of very simple-minded Zips fans with Internet access and too much spare time.The easiest thing in the world to do it look at the surface, and stop right there."He's just like Brookhart. A BCS position (WR) coach. Same old same old." Baloney. Ianello is 44 years old, but has coached in some capacity, at BCS schools like Alabama, Wisconsin, Arizona and Notre Dame, for 23 years. Brookhart spent many of those same years selling AutoCAD software or fetching drinks for Mike Shannahan's staff. Ianello knows how to recruit top-tier talent (not like the talent that JD/Pitt recruited when Walt Harris was coach).While Notre Dame's record was mediocre during Ianello's time on the ND staff, the level of play he lived in on a weekly basis was light-years ahead of that which JD experienced on Walt Harris' Pitt teams.Ianello is a Top 10 recruiter in the NATION. His ties to Notre Dame allowed him access to the best high schools in the NATION. I think his expectations for a recruit are going to be a LOT higher that those of, say, a guy from a D-II program. But Brian Kelly won at CMU...so any D-II head coach MUST be a slam dunk, right? Yeah...it is that simple. "Look at Haywood at Miami...ex ND assistant, right? How's Haywood doing?" - Give me a break. You would be the same guy begging UA to have hired an ND assistant 10 years ago because former ND assistant Urban Meyer was so successful at Bowling Green. Do you have a free-thinking bone in your head?Haywood took over a train wreck at Miami. Shane Montgomery ran that program into the ground in 5 short seasons. But they started playing better at the end of 2010. Dysert will be a good MAC QB. The book on Haywood is far from it's conclusion. I checked out some of the Notre Dame message boards, and ND fans seem to be very disappointed that Ianello's gone. NO ONE is happy to lose him. These same ND fans are tired of losing...losing for 2 consecutive decades. Yet they wanted to keep a "loser" from the Weis staff? Obviously Ianello did an outstanding job at ND to still be wanted by the fans, and by the University who entrusted him with the reins to the program after Weis' dismissal last month. Ianello may be good, he may suck. Like JD, a lot will depend on his schemes and who he surrounds himself with as assistants. And, if he has early success, how he handles it. We now have one of the top young assistants in the nation as our head coach. A guy that has recruited Top-10 classes back-to-back-to-back. To hate on the guy straight out of the gate is just plain ignorant.

I could not agree more.

[Lee Adams]

it appears one of the things wistrcill wants to try to do with this hire is upgrade the level of talent consistently attracted to akron...if the new coach is the recruiting whizz it appears he is,hopefully he will be able to pick off a few recruits who would have gone to the big ten,big east etc...who knows,with whats going on at ol'nd he might be able to persuade 1 or 2 of those guys to come this way this year...as long as the new coach recognizes his own strengths and weaknesses and builds his staff accordingly he'll have a chance...the change that many wanted before has been made...the new guy gets his chance...

[zip37]

My wife called me tmorn and said 'I think Akron U [a throwback] made a mistake'. I tend to agree since we haven't gotton the process right since they stiffed Jimmy D.Despite that I voted wait and see and will hope for the best and buy season tix for SOCCER. P.S. This year in the College Cup will be first of many-- folks we are a primier soccer program.

[ZachTheZip]

Do the top coaches do their own recruiting? Or do they hire a great recruiting coordinator to attract the talent while they focus on winning games?

[chm97]

Coaches are like recruits you can ALWAYS criticize them or fall in love with them, that being said, AKRON MADE A GREAT HIRE.Im a NIU fan. I have met him briefly. YOU hired a LEADER. RECRUITER. SALESMAN. The Akron community and especially the $$$ crowd will love this guy. Akron has GREAT facilities. GREAT. This guy will close the deal on quality kids with those facilities. There will not be "problem" children running in and out. He is a no BS guy. The EAST is getting to be a very PHYSICAL division. Temple and Ohio are physical not pretty. Miami and Akron are headed in that direction. Good luck - Great hire.

[Blue & Gold]

After suffering through JDB-ball for the past 4 seasons, I really had my heart set on a successful lower division head coach. But I voted "wait and see." How can we do anything but? I've got to put my trust in TW & LP. TW knows alot more about the inner workings of a successful football program than I do, that's for sure. I'm optimistic about the hire and more excited about Zips football than I have been since September. I like the fact he has recruited successfully at the highest possible level. Though I think we might want to be prepared for an underwhelming recruiting class this first season - late start and all - I am anxious to see what kind of athlete he can eventually bring to Akron.

[Dave in Green]

Lots of wisdom from the moderators in this thread. The amount of whining and pouting coming out of ZN recently has been totally depressing. We all knew the football situation wasn't good. But some fans were so obsessed with making sure that everyone else knew how fed up they were that they appeared to be on non-stop tantrums. Visiting ZN was becoming more depressing than watching the games.I would typically be cautiously optimistic about a hire like this, and vote to wait and see. But I just voted good hire because all the good data I've seen tells me it is about the best hire UA could have realistically hoped for. That doesn't mean that someone with similar or even lesser experience and qualifications that UA might have selected won't end up as a better head coach at other schools over the long haul. It's always going to be a roll of the dice to pick the best available coach, especially when competing against so many schools with better reputations and bigger budgets. But I do believe that Ianello is a smart gamble for UA.It will be interesting to see how the national sports pundits rate this hire. I think it's going to be pretty unanimous that UA done waaaaaay better than some of its fans seem to think.

[Z.I.P.]

I go back and repeat my oft-repeated comment: It's a crap shoot. Cordelli or Meyer? You DO have to wait and see (though I voted Good Hire). But one way of looking at this is how the process does change each time we make ANOTHER FB coaching change. Hiring Lee Owens I think took a couple months of BS to get a HS coach. It was over a month to get Brookhart, during which time the media broke stories about which BCS coordinator Akron had been turned down by today (remember Browning at Minnesota). This hire was done very quickly and cleanly. That in itself Tommy Dub deserves credit for.I'll be on the horn today with the Manti Te'o and Roby Toma families at Punahou to urge their kids transfer to follow the guy who recruited them! And finally, while we're on the subject of Notre Dame... There's another school in that state that is on the verge of becoming the "Notre Dame of collegiate soccer", if they don't make the correct hire in the next week or two. And everyone should know that there is only ONE answer to who that hire is... Let's turn our attention to keeping the best college coach in America on our campus!

[ctmjbowes@sbcglobal.net]

There is no way to know how he'll do, but I'm optimistic. I was one of those fans bitching my head off as the year progressed. I was happy as hell to see JD and his entire crew be shown the door. Now I'm excited to see how Rob does and it feels GREAT to be excited about UA football again.

[scottditzen]

Thanks chm97, a lot of good things being said about this guy!!!

Coaches are like recruits you can ALWAYS criticize them or fall in love with them, that being said, AKRON MADE A GREAT HIRE.Im a NIU fan. I have met him briefly. YOU hired a LEADER. RECRUITER. SALESMAN. The Akron community and especially the $$$ crowd will love this guy. Akron has GREAT facilities. GREAT. This guy will close the deal on quality kids with those facilities. There will not be "problem" children running in and out. He is a no BS guy. The EAST is getting to be a very PHYSICAL division. Temple and Ohio are physical not pretty. Miami and Akron are headed in that direction. Good luck - Great hire.

[ZippyforPresident]

At first take I was underwhelmed with this hire. After what transpired under Coach Brookhart's tenure here I was very skeptical about the hire of another coach with no experience at the helm. But after taking some time to learn a little bit about Coach Ianello and hearing his press conference I voted good hire (fingers crossed). From what I've read it seems like he's gonna put a little bit of grit and toughness into Akron football, and by that I mean playing a brand of physical, smack em' in the mouth, pone em' football, which always seemed to be lacking with all of Coach Brookhart's schemes (he always seemed like the mad scientist who never quite got the formula quite right to me, like maybe sometimes he just outsmarted himself, or maybe some of his team. sorry guys). i.e. 3-3-5 defense, spread offense/no huddle kind of deal. Whatever happened to the power I and the 34 dive and moving the ball between the tackles? I like that Ianello was talking about running a 4-3 defense. And I agree that in order for us to keep up with the horses that Temple has these days we are gong to have to play a more physical brand of football. Personally, I like the concept of MAC East football turning into a bunch of bruisers. And if Coach Ianello is half the recruiter that I've read about him being I think we may be able to get some bruisers in here. Watching the Browns game last night there was mention of S.A.T. players on NFL Network as far as the only type of players Mangini will play, which if I remember correctly stood for smart, athletic, and tough (Suck it Squealers). Which essentially reads "Notre Dame Football." It seems like Coach Ianello has that sort of mindset and there is no way that he's going to put up with a "Jaquemain" type player on his squad. No rockstars, no quitters, no gimmes, no BS. I like it Coach. Run the 4-3 D, go with the power I, let the damn quarterback line up under center, put some muscle and discipline into this program. Players (all 18-20-something year olds for that matter) crave guidance and leadership, you're the guy. Go get us a MAC championship and help some kids become scholars and mentally tough young men.

[GoZips]

Heard ESPN commentator, Robert Smith, formerly of thee Ohio State Suckeyes, repeatedly knocking,downplaying, trashing, dissing, etc. Ron Ianello's work as a recruiter. Smith, or is that snooty nosed,Smythe, insinuated repeatedly that the first thing new ND head coach, Brian "I dumped UC after I gavemy kids my word that I was staying" Kelly, has to do is improve ND's poor recruiting. Any comments?

[ZippyforPresident]

Heard ESPN commentator, Robert Smith, formerly of thee Ohio State Suckeyes, repeatedly knocking,downplaying, trashing, dissing, etc. Ron Ianello's work as a recruiter. Smith, or is that snooty nosed,Smythe, insinuated repeatedly that the first thing new ND head coach, Brian "I dumped UC after I gavemy kids my word that I was staying" Kelly, has to do is improve ND's poor recruiting. Any comments?

I think most would agree Golden Tate is a pretty spectacular receiver? (Ianello recruit)Robert Smith? Lead singer of the Cure? What does he know about american football? Brian Kelly wants his guys, not Rob's guys... Let Rob's guys continue with the blue and gold tradition, only with newer digs. That would probably be okay. As long as they've got true Rubber City grit.

[Zipgrad01]

Heard ESPN commentator, Robert Smith, formerly of thee Ohio State Suckeyes, repeatedly knocking,downplaying, trashing, dissing, etc. Ron Ianello's work as a recruiter. Smith, or is that snooty nosed,Smythe, insinuated repeatedly that the first thing new ND head coach, Brian "I dumped UC after I gavemy kids my word that I was staying" Kelly, has to do is improve ND's poor recruiting. Any comments?

I think most would agree Golden Tate is a pretty spectacular receiver? (Ianello recruit)Robert Smith? Lead singer of the Cure? What does he know about american football? Brian Kelly wants his guys, not Rob's guys... Let Rob's guys continue with the blue and gold tradition, only with newer digs. That would probably be okay. As long as they've got true Rubber City grit.

I think Robert Smith is talking more about the university overall than Ianello. Notre Dame gets whacked because of their high academic standards. It doesnt allow them to bring in some of the guys that the SEC schools allow into their universities. Robert Smith is telling the university if they really want to compete for national titles, loosen your admissions for these players or expect to keep getting what you are getting. I dont think it has anything to do with being snooty nosed.

[RACER]

it was a bad hire given that other people were out there.did u of a even try to get any of the top 1-aa coaches.the guy has no hd experience.we tired this with owens,and jd the plan falied.he has neven coached one game in college.i had moretrust in our a.d.now i am not sure what akron is doing.

[johnnyzip84]

I voted bad hire (about 3 or 4 days ago) because I has my heart set on a D-2/FCS head coach. While Chuck Martin really intrigued me, there are a number of others who I thought would have been acceptable. BTW, the running back for Paul Winters' Wayne St squad won the Harlan Hill trophy (link). I really don't understand much of the disdain I read about Paul on here, but that's another topic. LinkOK, so I wasn't thrilled about the hire at first. Do you know how long it took me to get over it? About 24 hours. As a fan goes, I'm a team player. And I DO like the comments made by the NIU fan and others about Rob being a no BS kind of guy. This, in itself, will be a nice improvement. Go Zips!!!

[RACER]

i guess akron fans would like to have a guy with no head coaching resume,off a 6-6 nd team.over somebody who actually went/played at akron.has been a good o/c,and done a decent job as a head coach.you can say he coached at a lower divison,but the guy akron hired has not been a head coach period.i guess it's better to have no hc experience than some hc exp accroding to our a.d.i don't really care if it was winters ,but find me somebody that has been a head coach.we went down this road two other times and it blew up in our face.i seriously doubt other mac teams are worried about our hire. guess we will know in a few years who was right.

[bobbyake]

I wonder how people would vote now. I wanted Akron to fire him the second I heard he was hired. 1-12 later here we are.

[Dave in Green]

I stand by my original opinion in this thread that the Ianello hire was a smart gamble for UA. Doesn't mean he will work out in the long run. He obviously has not worked out in the short run in terms of team record. But any coach UA would have hired would have been a gamble. There are no sure things given UA's position near the bottom of the college football universe and the inability to offer the big bucks that would attract a sure winner head coach.

[johnnyzip84]

I stand by my original opinion in this thread that the Ianello hire was a smart gamble for UA. Doesn't mean he will work out in the long run. He obviously has not worked out in the short run in terms of team record. But any coach UA would have hired would have been a gamble. There are no sure things given UA's position near the bottom of the college football universe and the inability to offer the big bucks that would attract a sure winner head coach.

Of course there are no sure things, but the main dividing point at the time of the hire was whether you were in the "FBS assistant camp" or the "FCS/D2 head coach camp". I still think hiring an FCS/D2 head coach would have been less of a risk.