2022-23 College Football Off-Season Tracker

[GP1]

5 hours ago, zippy5 said:

They basically had one good 8 year stretch 30+ years ago in their entire history

A 12 team college football playoffs will solve this problem. 

[kreed5120]

P5 OC to MAC HC back to P5 OC. I have to imagine his plan when he took the Kent job was to use it to catapult himself to a P5 by year 4 or 5. Since that's not happening it appears he decided to jump ship.

[LoyalZIP]

2 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

P5 OC to MAC HC back to P5 OC. I have to imagine his plan when he took the Kent job was to use it to catapult himself to a P5 by year 4 or 5. Since that's not happening it appears he decided to jump ship.

 

Yup. This is without a doubt a good move, and I would imagine he'll do well there. It sounds like the staff pool at UC has exploded, he'll be getting a hefty bump with a much better chance of landing a really good P5 HC job barring disaster.

 

He has shown he wanted out of Kent badly, which is not surprising at all when you consider all the factors. Horrible scheduling, dump of a stadium, terrible facilities, bottom of the FBS salary, midweek home games in empty dump of stadium, small staff pool, fan interest that makes Akron's fan base look enormous. It's just a bad place to coach, especially if you're there for more than a couple years. It was only a matter of time. 

 

MAC coaches have done this move plenty of times before. Pete Lembo, Dan Enos come to mind. Jason Candle was rumored to be a candidate as OC at Miami last year too.

[Let'sGoZips94]

1 hour ago, LoyalZIP said:

Thamel is reporting Sean Lewis is the leading candidate for Prime’s OC position

 

"I was hoping for a P5 HC job, but that 💩 hole called Kent was just too much. Had to get the hell out of there. So I jumped ship to a coordinator job at a school that went 1-11 last year and will barely need a coordinator cause their HC can out-recruit most schools." - Sean Lewis telling his buddies the news (probably)

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Let'sGoZips94

[GP1]

It's not just a G5 to P5 move. It's Kent State to P5. Campbell from Toledo to ISU type jump is possible because of the quality of the Toledo program. Same for the guy at Minnesota from WMU. Kent State?  No way. 

[Let'sGoZips94]

1 hour ago, GP1 said:

It's not just a G5 to P5 move. It's Kent State to P5. Campbell from Toledo to ISU type jump is possible because of the quality of the Toledo program. Same for the guy at Minnesota from WMU. Kent State?  No way. 

 

Darrell Hazell went from Can't to Purdue. 

[zippy5]

how'd that go? 😂

[LoyalZIP]

The Hazell move came after a 11-1, 8-0 season for Kent. Jon Heacock was their DC (been one of the best in FBS since 2017), Marcus Freeman was on staff, they had an old and smart QB and a lightning fast RB. They didn't recruit a lot of the guys on that team, but they hit the lottery and had an insane year. Even so, Purdue was the best job he could get.

 

All this to say, if 2020 isn't a COVID year, if they don't get blown out by NIU in Detroit, if they don't go 5-7 this year in a bad MAC, Lewis would have had his pick of the litter. Unfortunately for Kent, it's such a football black hole that he had no interest in sticking around to try to get that bigger job, so now is the right time to jump ship. And he landed in about as good a spot as he possibly could have.

[Zipmeister]

3 hours ago, GP1 said:

It's not just a G5 to P5 move. It's Kent State to P5. Campbell from Toledo to ISU type jump is possible because of the quality of the Toledo program. Same for the guy at Minnesota from WMU. Kent State?  No way. 

 

Another exception to the rule, although this one happened when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth; Don James from KSU to Washington.

[Let'sGoZips94]

19 minutes ago, LoyalZIP said:

The Hazell move came after a 11-1, 8-0 season for Kent. Jon Heacock was their DC (been one of the best in FBS since 2017), Marcus Freeman was on staff, they had an old and smart QB and a lightning fast RB. They didn't recruit a lot of the guys on that team, but they hit the lottery and had an insane year. Even so, Purdue was the best job he could get.

 

All this to say, if 2020 isn't a COVID year, if they don't get blown out by NIU in Detroit, if they don't go 5-7 this year in a bad MAC, Lewis would have had his pick of the litter. Unfortunately for Kent, it's such a football black hole that he had no interest in sticking around to try to get that bigger job, so now is the right time to jump ship. And he landed in about as good a spot as he possibly could have.

 

Tons of pressure on him, though. If he doesn't live up to the hype, he won't have the "lack of talent" crutch to lean on. Handling Deion's son at QB won't be easy, either, I'd imagine. It's a dream situation from a talent & notoriety standpoint, but it could turn into a nightmare quickly. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Let'sGoZips94

[kreed5120]

24 minutes ago, LoyalZIP said:

The Hazell move came after a 11-1, 8-0 season for Kent. Jon Heacock was their DC (been one of the best in FBS since 2017), Marcus Freeman was on staff, they had an old and smart QB and a lightning fast RB. They didn't recruit a lot of the guys on that team, but they hit the lottery and had an insane year. Even so, Purdue was the best job he could get.

 

All this to say, if 2020 isn't a COVID year, if they don't get blown out by NIU in Detroit, if they don't go 5-7 this year in a bad MAC, Lewis would have had his pick of the litter. Unfortunately for Kent, it's such a football black hole that he had no interest in sticking around to try to get that bigger job, so now is the right time to jump ship. And he landed in about as good a spot as he possibly could have.

Kent is just a tough place to win. They schedule 3 games a year against the likes of Alabama, OSU, Clemson, Oklahoma, etc. That means they have to go go 6-3 in all other games just to make a bowl. Their facilities are absolutely terrible. As I understand it what they budget for assistants is near the bottom half of the MAC. Their AD publicly has come out and said the athletic programs focus is basketball.

 

Lewis likely just felt he achieved all he could at Kent and it wasn't even enough to get him into the discussion for what I'm guessing is his dream job at his alma mater (Wisconsin). He probably feels going back to being a P5 OC increases his opportunity to get where he wants to be.

[LoyalZIP]

1 minute ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

Tons of pressure on him, though. If he doesn't live up to the hype, he won't have the "lack of talent" crutch to lean on. Handling Deion's son at QB won't be easy, either, I'd imagine. 

 

1. Less pressure than being the head coach at Colorado, or any P5 job for that matter

2. If it goes poorly, he will get canned and still be able to pick up a fair share of G5 HC and P5 OC jobs

3. Going 8-4 at Kent State is insanely more difficult than being a decent P5 OC, especially when you will have almost no spotlight on you due to your boss being Deion

 

He's far more likely to get stuck in the mud and fired into irrelevancy at Kent State than he is to get a great P5 HC job by staying at Kent State more than the 5 years he has. Colorado won't put the pressure on Deion and his staff that most P5 jobs would. That's why plenty of good, young coaches wouldn't touch Nebraska or Auburn with a 15' pole.

 

Doug Martin was at Kent for 7 years and had one .500 season, the rest pretty meh. They just let his contract fizzle out and replaced him. Bowden was at Akron for 7 years, had one season with more wins than losses, won a bowl game, and won the division once, and ran his course. Lewis brought back a very, very talented roster and scratched and clawed to 5-7, a year after dominating the east and going to Detroit. After 5 years, there's definitely more in the tank than the other two guys mentioned, but at one of the worst jobs in the country, like Kent, you have to get out when the time is right. I would imagine playing in an empty high school game and getting run off the field by Ball State and EMU will do that to you. 

 

I'll be the first to criticize any move a Kent coach makes. It was pretty obvious that Hazell was going to be pretty bad at Purdue. I knew after 2 years that Haynes would be straight up awful. This is a great move for Lewis, I see it as a perfect fit.

[Let'sGoZips94]

15 minutes ago, LoyalZIP said:

 

1. Less pressure than being the head coach at Colorado, or any P5 job for that matter

 

Not sure this is true. There is a national microscope on this Colorado program with Deion there. There are extremely high expectations. Many want him to fail, and will be looking for the most microscopic reasons to pick apart that program. 

Edited December 6, 2022 by Let'sGoZips94

[LoyalZIP]

7 minutes ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

Not sure this is true. There is a national microscope on this Colorado program with Deion there. There are extremely high expectations. Many want him to fail, and will be looking for the most microscopic reasons to pick apart that program. 

But that doesn’t matter, the scope isn’t a national scope when it comes to that stuff. The scope is Colorado, their AD, their boosters. Not Jeff in Pensacola, FL. 
 

Barring Arthian numbers as the OC at Colorado, he will have many options by the time he’s done there. And I’d be surprised to see him around for more than a year or two. He wants a big job, and this is the easiest path to that at this moment. He’s not in it for the long haul, if this Prime thing isn’t working out 5 years from now, I would be shocked if he’s even still in the picture. This is a gap resume builder because you can only go so far at Kent State. Lewis sees himself as the offensive coordinator of Deion Sanders’ P5 program. He isn’t there to be the OC of the Colorado Buffaloes. 

[Let'sGoZips94]

11 minutes ago, LoyalZIP said:

But that doesn’t matter, the scope isn’t a national scope when it comes to that stuff. The scope is Colorado, their AD, their boosters. Not Jeff in Pensacola, FL. 
 

Barring Arthian numbers as the OC at Colorado, he will have many options by the time he’s done there. And I’d be surprised to see him around for more than a year or two. He wants a big job, and this is the easiest path to that at this moment. He’s not in it for the long haul, if this Prime thing isn’t working out 5 years from now, I would be shocked if he’s even still in the picture. This is a gap resume builder because you can only go so far at Kent State. Lewis sees himself as the offensive coordinator of Deion Sanders’ P5 program. He isn’t there to be the OC of the Colorado Buffaloes. 

 

A program that admitted they don't even have the money up front to pay Deion's contract is going to be worried about the national spotlight and national opinion. 

 

I fully agree this is a great spot for Sean, but he has to succeed. Otherwise, he'll be at a Sun Belt school in 3 years trying to rebuild his reputation. 

[Blue & Gold]

Lewis running his hurry up offense in the thin air of Boulder could be a very real home field advantage for the Buffs.

 

I wish he was still at Kent. He was cocky and I was looking forward to watching JoeMo & Co. pass them by.

[kreed5120]

24 minutes ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

 

I fully agree this is a great spot for Sean, but he has to succeed. Otherwise, he'll be at a Sun Belt school in 3 years trying to rebuild his reputation. 

The Sun Belt is an upgrade over the MAC

[Let'sGoZips94]

 

[catdaddyp]

Barry Odom to UNLV.

[tpsjugglerdude]

In the new age of NIL, who better to learn under than Prime? It's a good move for Lewis. It will definitely help him get his next HC job. 

[Let'sGoZips94]

Purdue's Jeff Brohm heading home to take over the Louisville program. 

[ZippyRulz]

12 hours ago, Let'sGoZips94 said:

Purdue's Jeff Brohm heading home to take over the Louisville program. 

 

Mike Bobinski now on the clock...

 

[catdaddyp]

Western Michigan hired former Louisville OC Lance Taylor as their new HC.

[Let'sGoZips94]

1 hour ago, catdaddyp said:

Western Michigan hired former Louisville OC Lance Taylor as their new HC.

 

Coaching Career
2007: Alabama – Graduate Assistant (Offense)
2008: Alabama – Graduate Assistant (Offense)
2009: Appalachian State – Wide Receivers
2010: New York Jets – Coaching Intern
2011: New York Jets – Offensive Quality Control
2012: New York Jets – Assistant Tight Ends/Quality Control
2013: Carolina Panthers – Assistant Wide Receivers
2014: Stanford – Running Backs
2015: Stanford – Running Backs
2016: Stanford – Running Backs
2017: Carolina Panthers – Wide Receivers
2018: Carolina Panthers – Wide Receivers
2019: Notre Dame – Running Backs and Run Game Coordinator
2020: Notre Dame – Running Backs and Run Game Coordinator
2021: Notre Dame – Running Backs and Run Game Coordinator
2022: University of Louisville – Offensive Coordinator

 

 

Ianello PTSD...

 

[catdaddyp]

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/35216756/atlantic-sun-wac-teams-pairing-move-fbs-sources-say
 

Some FCS teams want to join the party.