Football coaching ineptitude?

[1981 grad]

I have followed Akron sports for 40 years including their football, basketball and soccer programs.   This year it has been a challenge to watch this team and each week they seem to get worse.  But the question I had after turning the game off in the third quarter is whether Akron has truly had a successful football coach that was so good that other schools wanted to hire them.  In basketball, we had coach Huggins who was so successful he was hired by another program.  Kd was so successful he was hired by another program.  (Still think our AD screwed the pooch on that one).  In soccer, Coach Lolli and coach Porter were hired away to other programs.  Has every Akron football coach been fired never again to coach in a division one program.    Have we ever had a coach move on to a bigger or better program?    Coach I, Coach Faust, Coach Brookhart, Coach Bowden were all fired and have never been hired again as a head football coach.  Are we the graveyard for division one head coaches?

[72 Roo]

It would appear that we are the graveyard of football coaches. That points more to the culture than any one AD or president. Culture change is the unquestioned hardest thing to affect in any organization. But, O God, do we need it. Finally, it's kinda ironic that another MAC program has dubbed itself the cradle of coaches. Looks like the MAC has coaching careers covered from the beginning to the end.

[AkronAlumnus]

interesting take 

[UAZipster0305]

To me, the problem in the past 15 years with football has been overly-ambitious AD's prematurely firing coaches to advance their own career by trying to hire the next MAC Urban Meyer or Brian Kelly but not having the experience to recognize good candidates. Of the last 4 coaches (Brookhart, iCoach, Bowden, and Arth), two were terrible candidates (iCoach and Arth) and were arguably not at all qualified to coach at this level. I felt that Brookhart was ready after serving as offensive coordinator at Pitt, and Bowden won everywhere he coached including a P5 school and a smaller D-1AA program he turned around.

 

I recall when iCoach was fired, it was late in the process and there weren't many (if any) qualified candidates. Then Bowden threw his hat in. We got lucky. Firing a guy like Bowden who literally saved this program got us another weak pool of candidates and there wasn't another Bowden waiting to save us. Hence Arth: a terrible hire. This rolling the dice for the next great coach has to stop. Bring competitive football back to UA!

Edited November 5, 2019 by UAZipster0305

[ewbrooman1]

Ianello was fired on Nov 26, the day after the season ended and the Zips lost to WMU 68-19. Bowden wasn't hired until Dec 22, though. Rumors were former Zip and Wayne State coach Paul Winters turned down the job.

[kreed5120]

Akron certainly has had issues finding and hiring quality coaches. I don't feel the issue is they have been moving onto new coaches too soon. If anything they have a track record of holding onto sub-par coaches too long. Below is a list of coaches they have had since 1987.

 

Gerry Faust - 8 seasons (1987-1994) (36-49)

Lee Owens - 9 seasons (1995-2003) (40-61)

JD Brookhart - 6 seasons (2004-2009) (30-42)

Rob Ianello - 2 seasons (2010-2011) (2-22)

Terry Bowden - 7 seasons (2012-2018) (35-52)

Tom Arth (2019-???)

 

Everyone of these guys got 6+ years to prove themselves (besides Ianello). I know there is a contingent here that is still pro Bowden and I'm tired of beating that dead horse so I'll exclude him from this discussion. Do any of you think we needed a 9th season of Faust, a 10th season of Owens, or a 7th season of Brookhart? 

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by kreed5120

[akronzips71]

At the risk of being beat on, I don't think we need a second season of Arth.

It is not like we are not good. We are HORRIBLE.

Every game is a blowout.

There is no excuse for this.

[Zipmeister]

22 hours ago, 72 Roo said:

It would appear that we are the graveyard of football coaches. That points more to the culture than any one AD or president. Culture change is the unquestioned hardest thing to affect in any organization. But, O God, do we need it. Finally, it's kinda ironic that another MAC program has dubbed itself the cradle of coaches. Looks like the MAC has coaching careers covered from the beginning to the end.

 

Graveyard sounds too seasonal (great around Halloween), but lacks the flair one would expect of a trending university.

I suggest "The Black Hole of coaches."

[Zip-Grad '13]

On 11/3/2019 at 11:35 AM, 1981 grad said:

I have followed Akron sports for 40 years including their football, basketball and soccer programs.   This year it has been a challenge to watch this team and each week they seem to get worse.  But the question I had after turning the game off in the third quarter is whether Akron has truly had a successful football coach that was so good that other schools wanted to hire them.  In basketball, we had coach Huggins who was so successful he was hired by another program.  Kd was so successful he was hired by another program.  (Still think our AD screwed the pooch on that one).  In soccer, Coach Lolli and coach Porter were hired away to other programs.  Has every Akron football coach been fired never again to coach in a division one program.    Have we ever had a coach move on to a bigger or better program?    Coach I, Coach Faust, Coach Brookhart, Coach Bowden were all fired and have never been hired again as a head football coach.  Are we the graveyard for division one head coaches?

 

Ohio's Frank Solich hasn't attracted too many people looking to hire him, yet he's still had a level of success at Ohio that we would probably kill for here at Akron.  I'm not sure I put much stock into someone wanting to hire our coach as a marker of success.  Look at how many MAC coaches have success in this conference, then go to a higher conference and have almost none.  To have sustained success in Football in the MAC it's almost like you have to be in it for awhile.  Regrettably, we're back at square one at working towards that goal.

[kreed5120]

Frank Solich was hired at OU when he was 60 and didn't really turn them into a consistent winning program until he was about 65. If he was 25 years younger, he'd have most likely left Ohio years ago.

[Zip-Grad '13]

1 hour ago, kreed5120 said:

Frank Solich was hired at OU when he was 60 and didn't really turn them into a consistent winning program until he was about 65. If he was 25 years younger, he'd have most likely left Ohio years ago.

 

Yet they're a winning program, which was my point.  I was challenging the contention that success is measured by another program wanting to swipe the person or not.  I don't think that's a good measure of success; but that's just me.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Zip-Grad '13

[UAZipster0305]

I'd love to have a guy like Frank Solich here...and we did.

 

In the MAC, most teams are competitive for the division title until the last game or two of the season. It takes a special kind of poor staff to have us out of the race by the mid-point of the MAC schedule.

Edited November 4, 2019 by UAZipster0305

[UAZipster0305]

2 hours ago, kreed5120 said:

Frank Solich was hired at OU when he was 60 and didn't really turn them into a consistent winning program until he was about 65. If he was 25 years younger, he'd have most likely left Ohio years ago.

 

And if he had been at Akron, we would have fired him by year five.

Edited November 4, 2019 by UAZipster0305

[jupitertoo]

He went 9-5 and earned a GMAC Bowl slot in his second season, so it's not like there was a five year wait for results.

 

 

[Lee Adams]

3 hours ago, Zip-Grad '13 said:

 

Yet they're a winning program, which was my point.  I was challenging the contention that success is measured by another program wanting to swipe the person or not.  I don't think that's a good measure of success; but that's just me.

Lots of people on this board do not like Frank. Yet ,he and his program at OU are only what we could dream about being. Consistent winning. Guy knows what he is doing!

[UAZipster0305]

2 hours ago, jupitertoo said:

He went 9-5 and earned a GMAC Bowl slot in his second season, so it's not like there was a five year wait for results.

 

 

 

Gee, that sounds familiar! You mean he didn't win a bowl game?

[Zip-Grad '13]

2 hours ago, Lee Adams said:

Lots of people on this board do not like Frank. Yet ,he and his program at OU are only what we could dream about being. Consistent winning. Guy knows what he is doing!

 

Indeed!  I hate Frank!  But I hate Frank because I'm jealous of his success.  I was really hoping Terry would become that for us; but Alas...onward with where and what we have.

[Zip-Grad '13]

1 hour ago, UAZipster0305 said:

 

Gee, that sounds familiar! You mean he didn't win a bowl game?

 

4 hours ago, jupitertoo said:

He went 9-5 and earned a GMAC Bowl slot in his second season, so it's not like there was a five year wait for results.

 

 

 

He also didn't inherit a program in the dredges of utter despair.  I figure it's been covered here at length so I won't go into it further.  But I doubt going forward ANY Zips fans can hope for us to realistically have any "success" let alone a bowl game in the next 2-3 years...which will be 4-5 years total since we last had success.  No matter what it is for the Zips we're going to have to be PATIENT.  Unlike the Browns, who have incredible talent/potential but shitty coaching...the Zips have neither.

[Zipmeister]

7 hours ago, kreed5120 said:

Frank Solich was hired at OU when he was 60 and didn't really turn them into a consistent winning program until he was about 65. If he was 25 years younger, he'd have most likely left Ohio years ago.

 

Frank has been a very successful head coach at Nebraska and OU, but it is unlikely he would have left OU for a P5 program because he has some baggage which got him canned at Nebraska and most P5s want to avoid.

[jupitertoo]

What baggage at Nebraska?

[John Ward]

Frank Solich wins because he surrounds himself with great assistants. Look at the staff he has had. Many great HCs do very little coaching. Like it or not thats reality.

[Zipmeister]

4 hours ago, jupitertoo said:

What baggage at Nebraska?

 

Well it wasn't that the AD was tired of 9 win seasons even though that was the official excuse for his termination.

Apparently Frank was scoring as much off the field as the team was on it which some of the higher ups found off-putting.

Franks age may have greatly reduced that problem, but if not OU is one of the best places he could be.

[kreed5120]

Bo Pelini won 9+ games in each of his 7 seasons at Nebraska and was still fired. I guess he must have been too busy scoring off the field too. Nebraska's problem is they try to hold their coaches to the standards that they're coaching at Alabama or OSU even though the program hasn't been at that level since the 1990s.

[clarkwgriswold]

2 hours ago, Zipmeister said:

 

Well it wasn't that the AD was tired of 9 win seasons even though that was the official excuse for his termination.

Apparently Frank was scoring as much off the field as the team was on it which some of the higher ups found off-putting.

Franks age may have greatly reduced that problem, but if not OU is one of the best places he could be.

 

So, just to clarify, old Terry fell short of Solich in two areas.

[zipsoutsider]

On 11/3/2019 at 7:36 PM, UAZipster0305 said:

To me, the problem in the past 15 years with football has been overly-ambitious AD's prematurely firing coaches to advance their own career by trying to hire the next MAC Urban Meyer or Brian Kelly but not having the experience to recognize good candidates. Of the last 4 coaches (Brookhart, iCoach, Bowden, and Arth), two were terrible candidates (iCoach and Arth) and were arguably not at all qualified to coach at this level. I felt Brookhart after serving as offensive coordinator at Pitt and Bowden won everywhere he coached including a P5 school and a smaller D-1AA program he turned around.

 

I recall when iCoach was fired, it was late in the process and there weren't many (if any) qualified candidates. Then Bowden through his hat in. We got lucky. Firing a guy like Bowden who literally saved this program got us another weak pool of candidates and there wasn't another Bowden waiting to save us. Hence Arth: a terrible hire. This rolling the dice for the next great coach has to stop. Bring competitive football back to UA!

This is it, right here.