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Michael Haywood meeting with Pitt....


Dr Z

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The search for Pitt's next head football coach has heated up over the past 24 hours and it appears, according to sources, that Miami of Ohio coach Michael Haywood is closing in on landing the job.

Haywood was one of the first known candidates to be contacted and interviewed by Pitt last week and he is now the first one who has been brought to campus for a second interview as well as to meet with Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and other key people involved with the hiring process.

A spokesman for Pitt would not confirm or deny the that Haywood is on campus interviewing and stressed that "the job has not yet been offered to anyone." But sources around both the Miami and Pitt programs believe he will have the job offered to him today and will quickly accept.

If all goes well today, Haywood could be introduced as the next coach as early as tomorrow and then would immediately get started on assembling a staff and trying to retain most of Pitt's nationally ranked recruiting class.

If hired, Haywood would become Pitt's first African-American head football coach. He has been the coach of the Redhawks for the past two seasons and has led them to a record of 10-15.

However, that record doesn't tell his entire story, as he took over an awful program and, after going 1-11 in his first season, led the Redhawks to a record of 9-4 this season. They won the Mid-American Conference championship game over Northern Illinois.

Prior to arriving at Miami, Haywood was the offensive coordinator under Charlie Weis at Notre Dame from 2005 to 2008 and had stops at Texas and LSU as well.

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I'm curious about what percentage of people thought that Michael Haywood was capable of such a turnaround immediately following the conclusion of his 1-11 season. It would be hard to pin that down now, because most of the folks who were calling for the loser's head on a platter back then are probably now preoccupied with complaining about the traitor leaving because he thinks he's too good for them.

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Raise your hand if you seriously believe Ianello is capable of pulling off that sort of one-year turnaround.

And if your hand is in the air, I'd be curious as to exactly what you saw this season that gives you an inkling of hope for such a quick reversal of fortune.

I'm more curious to what kind of drugs anyone with their hand in the air is on. :lol:

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Miami is a play away from losing to an 0-10 Akron team and finishing 7-5. He might prove to be the guy but a lot of faith to put in him at Pitt with 1 good year. Just having a winning record in the MAC for a year or two seems to be enough to get a big jump up, Turner Gill, the NIU guy, Haywood. Heck Golden had double the budget and couldn't beat Solich the last 2 years and he gets the Miami job.

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The question needs to be rephrased. Of course it's possible. If something can happen once in a trillion times, by definition it's possible. Based on what I saw this year, I'd say it's highly unlikely for the Zips to have that big a turnaround in a single season. And in the unlikely event that it should happen, then Ianello will likely become as attractive to other schools as Haywood, leave UA for a better opportunity, and be cursed on ZN.O as a traitor by some of the same people who currently curse him as an incompetent loser.

Sports forums are so predictable. :zzz:

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Let me be a politically incorrect realist for a second. Haywood got that job because of his skin tone. Had he been white, he'd still be at Miami. If Rob Ianello pulls the miraculous and has an 8-4 season next year and we go on to win the MAC, he, like JD, will still be sitting in the Stile Field House come January 2012.

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Raise your hand if you seriously believe Ianello is capable of pulling off that sort of one-year turnaround.

And if your hand is in the air, I'd be curious as to exactly what you saw this season that gives you an inkling of hope for such a quick reversal of fortune.

I was just about ready to raise my hand until I saw the words "Ianello is capable". :puke: Go Zips Soccer! :NCAAC:

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Raise your hand if you seriously believe Ianello is capable of pulling off that sort of one-year turnaround.

And if your hand is in the air, I'd be curious as to exactly what you saw this season that gives you an inkling of hope for such a quick reversal of fortune.

My hand isn't in the air, but a lot of Miami fans had the same opinion of Haywood last year at this time.

Quick turnarounds happen all the time in the MAC with coaches nobody has heard of. Why not us?

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Let me be a politically incorrect realist for a second. Haywood got that job because of his skin tone.

I think there was more to his getting hired at Pitt than his race.

Pitt has had off the field problems and the school wants them fixed. He had problems like that at Miami and fixed them.

Secondly, I don't think there were many people interested in the job at Pitt. It is a third place school in a BCS conference in name only. The program is not impressive and has rarely lived up to expectations regardless of the coach. Haywood won't live up to expectations and will be out sooner than later.

Thirdly, Haywood won when it mattered...in the league championship game. Pitt has shown an ability in recent years to poop their pants late in the season with the conference championship on the line.

In the glory days of Pitt football (Majors and Sherrill) Pitt had, let's just say, laxed standards for a player ever seeing the inside of a classroom. Pitt won't put up with that any longer. Haywood won at a school with good standards and that is probably attractive to Pitt.

Sure, Haywood backed into the championship game by Can't beating OU, but he got there and won. JD did the same thing (OK, neither backed into anything). The big difference between the two is JD only won six regular season games. Haywood won eight regular season games, which is a good bit for a MAC school.

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Personally I think this move will end up being a disaster for Pitt. Haywood is a flush in the pan kind of coach whose on the field track record is shaky at best. These kinds of situations very rarely work out well. Best of luck to them, but I can't see this one going to well.

As far as Ianello goes, let's just say I don't expect BCS programs to be knocking on his door to take over their head coaching position at this time next year.

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Haywood is a flush in the pan kind of coach whose on the field track record is shaky at best. These kinds of situations very rarely work out well.

You just described the majority of coaching hires. He knows the same as everyone else. If he can get good players, he will win.....if not, then we all know what happens.

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Let me be a politically incorrect realist for a second. Haywood got that job because of his skin tone. Had he been white, he'd still be at Miami. .....

Thanks for sharing your inner self. It makes it easier to understand some of your other posts.

Save it, you can keep your warm and fuzzy "I'm this really tolerant, white-guilt ridden white guy who wants everyone to know it even though I've never talked to a black person in my life" act for someone who cares. I grew up in a majority black school, my teammates were majority black throughout my entire athletic career, and those teammates are some of my closest friends in life who are like brothers to me, 3 of which were in my wedding. You're not gonna sit here and imply that I'm a racist just so you can feel all nice and politically correct, when all I did was state an obvious truth. It's because of j@ck@#$es like you that people are afraid to have honest conversations in society.

Pitt has never had a black head football coach and I'm sure the fact that Haywood was black factored heavily into their decision to reach for him. I'm sure if there was a white coach in the same position, Pitt would've probably looked elsewhere or been more hesitant. Skin color is a fact of life in football coaching nowadays, with teams at all levels under pressure to hire black candidates, especially teams that have never had a black coach. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, as it's given guys like Mike Tomlin an opportunity to succeed where in the past he'd probably still be a secondary coach somewhere. This thread implied a possible analogy to RI. I was simply saying that RI is not as likely to get a big job offer after one good season like this guy did.

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Let me be a politically incorrect realist for a second. Haywood got that job because of his skin tone. Had he been white, he'd still be at Miami. .....

Thanks for sharing your inner self. It makes it easier to understand some of your other posts.

Save it, you can keep your warm and fuzzy "I'm this really tolerant, white-guilt ridden white guy who wants everyone to know it even though I've never talked to a black person in my life" act for someone who cares. I grew up in a majority black school, my teammates were majority black throughout my entire athletic career, and those teammates are some of my closest friends in life who are like brothers to me, 3 of which were in my wedding. You're not gonna sit here and imply that I'm a racist just so you can feel all nice and politically correct, when all I did was state an obvious truth. It's because of j@ck@#$es like you that people are afraid to have honest conversations in society.

Pitt has never had a black head football coach and I'm sure the fact that Haywood was black factored heavily into their decision to reach for him. I'm sure if there was a white coach in the same position, Pitt would've probably looked elsewhere or been more hesitant. Skin color is a fact of life in football coaching nowadays, with teams at all levels under pressure to hire black candidates, especially teams that have never had a black coach. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, as it's given guys like Mike Tomlin an opportunity to succeed where in the past he'd probably still be a secondary coach somewhere. This thread implied a possible analogy to RI. I was simply saying that RI is not as likely to get a big job offer after one good season like this guy did.

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Let me be a politically incorrect realist for a second. Haywood got that job because of his skin tone. Had he been white, he'd still be at Miami. .....

Thanks for sharing your inner self. It makes it easier to understand some of your other posts.

Save it, you can keep your warm and fuzzy "I'm this really tolerant, white-guilt ridden white guy who wants everyone to know it even though I've never talked to a black person in my life" act for someone who cares. I grew up in a majority black school, my teammates were majority black throughout my entire athletic career, and those teammates are some of my closest friends in life who are like brothers to me, 3 of which were in my wedding. You're not gonna sit here and imply that I'm a racist just so you can feel all nice and politically correct, when all I did was state an obvious truth. It's because of j@ck@#$es like you that people are afraid to have honest conversations in society.

Pitt has never had a black head football coach and I'm sure the fact that Haywood was black factored heavily into their decision to reach for him. I'm sure if there was a white coach in the same position, Pitt would've probably looked elsewhere or been more hesitant. Skin color is a fact of life in football coaching nowadays, with teams at all levels under pressure to hire black candidates, especially teams that have never had a black coach. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, as it's given guys like Mike Tomlin an opportunity to succeed where in the past he'd probably still be a secondary coach somewhere. This thread implied a possible analogy to RI. I was simply saying that RI is not as likely to get a big job offer after one good season like this guy did.

Orrrrr it could be that he turned a 1-11 team into a 9-4 team and conference champion in two years. You can believe whichever one you want, but that sure was a $hi++y comment.

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Let me be a politically incorrect realist for a second. Haywood got that job because of his skin tone. Had he been white, he'd still be at Miami. .....

Thanks for sharing your inner self. It makes it easier to understand some of your other posts.

Save it, you can keep your warm and fuzzy "I'm this really tolerant, white-guilt ridden white guy who wants everyone to know it even though I've never talked to a black person in my life" act for someone who cares. I grew up in a majority black school, my teammates were majority black throughout my entire athletic career, and those teammates are some of my closest friends in life who are like brothers to me, 3 of which were in my wedding. You're not gonna sit here and imply that I'm a racist just so you can feel all nice and politically correct, when all I did was state an obvious truth. It's because of j@ck@#$es like you that people are afraid to have honest conversations in society.

Pitt has never had a black head football coach and I'm sure the fact that Haywood was black factored heavily into their decision to reach for him. I'm sure if there was a white coach in the same position, Pitt would've probably looked elsewhere or been more hesitant. Skin color is a fact of life in football coaching nowadays, with teams at all levels under pressure to hire black candidates, especially teams that have never had a black coach. I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing, as it's given guys like Mike Tomlin an opportunity to succeed where in the past he'd probably still be a secondary coach somewhere. This thread implied a possible analogy to RI. I was simply saying that RI is not as likely to get a big job offer after one good season like this guy did.

Thats a really ignorant statement there ITZ. You don't know a darn thing about Dave and if you did you would never post that kind of nonsense. As to your first paragraph, whats even more offensive are people who declare themselves not racist because "they have Black friends".

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I have to say, ITZ's first comment was in no way racist. Politically incorrect yes, but racist no (either way it'd be culturist if anything).

The fact is, in today's world, teams/organizations are forced to interview minority HC candidates just to cover their a$$es. It's wrong but it's definitely happening and you're lying to yourself if you believe otherwise.

I dont know if that is what Pitt is doing, but i wouldn't be surprised if it was.

*edit* looking back, for some reason I thought ITZ said that Haywood "got the interview" because of his skin tone, not "got hired because of it". I still dont think ITZ was being any bit racist but I will be first (or 7th) to say he's wrong.

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I have to say, ITZ's first comment was in no way racist. Politically incorrect yes, but racist no (either way it'd be culturist if anything).

The fact is, in today's world, teams/organizations are forced to interview minority HC candidates just to cover their a$$es. It's wrong but it's definitely happening and you're lying to yourself if you believe otherwise.

I dont know if that is what Pitt is doing, but i wouldn't be surprised if it was.

*edit* looking back, for some reason I thought ITZ said that Haywood "got the interview" because of his skin tone, not "got hired because of it". I still dont think ITZ was being any bit racist but I will be first (or 7th) to say he's wrong.

How did I know RootforRoo would come to his defense?

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