CalBear95

And programs with roughly identical situations. Maybe some pre-game commiseration to help engender mutual good will and empathy for the teams would be in order.

Watching RedZone and the scrawl noted Joe Brady apparently just hit the market...just sayin' people!!! LSU. Burrow. Yes? Yes?!!! Come at me on this one. 🙂

I'm a Bear and am always glad to see the Furry Woodland Creatures humble USC, so I say this with nothing but love and understanding: You really don't want that.

What [redacted] happened to the [Oregon] I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh? "Ooh, we're afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble." Well just [redacted] from now on! Not me! I'm not gonna take this. I get talent attracts attention and I have no issue with that same said talent doing what it can to maximize their compensation and situation. But why is the university expected to act as the passive partner in these situations? Usually a coach with a wandering eye looks like one of the two scenarios: "Hot coach looking to upgrade their situation and pay" and 'this is my dream job...gosh I'm so torn.' I think the university has two distinct options in each. Let's start with the last scenario first as that is where OBD find themselves today: I think Mullens (or any university facing the situation) should have put forward an exploding offer AHEAD that expired Sunday post Civil War? They should leak that news in parallel. At that point, you are letting Miami know they don't have to bid against someone else and you have, in essence, put the question to MC (and effectively received the answer) well before you get stuck in this game of 'are we hosed or not?' You might say that forces MC out but it really doesn't. If he is 'I want to wait and see what Miami comes with' then you know he is gone so why play that game? You aren't forcing him out. You are forcing him to stop toying with you. That approach also has the benefit of cutting the negotiating leverage out from under MC as a wonderful parting gift. Now, in the 'am I staying or going' scenario, a program like Oregon starts looking for other coaches. Maybe Mullens has been doing this but I too would 'accidentally' leak this. If this hurts the coach's ego then they need to grow up. "Mr Coach, you can't publicly commit to us by signing our very generous extension - or being super coy - so why are your feelings in any way hurt when I am doing the same to you? According to you, Mr Coach, it's all a business and if you want to operate by that framing, then this is exactly how the world of business works.' Again, in this situation and exploding offer might work well. Extend them a very attractive but fair extension and offer a window of negotiation but make it clear there will be no further offers if someone else tries to poach them. Doing this has the downside of (1) pushing them closer to leaving when perhaps they would not have been and (2) if they stay, bad blood could result poisoning the proverbial well and making the departure a self-fulfilling prophecy except you end up in Clay Helton world. Not awesome. IDK, maybe you have a clause (I'm dreaming here because the university doesn't have this type of leverage) that says if you are found to be in discussions with another university I can terminate your agreement and you forfeit all buyout money on my side. OK, reflecting on it, maybe my aggressive take on scenario two is utterly unworkable but I would like to see the university let it be publicly known they aren't playing the game and getting out of this 'will they or won't they' dilemma given the early signing period makes it incredibly devastating when their decision doesn't go your way.

He did. When I wrote the comment that news had yet to break. Oregon is going to be the last school looking for a coach and only the dregs are left (I say that with the assumption Aranda won't leave Baylor). This is what happens when another program is fixated on landing your coach, is willing to ride or die with that regardless of how long it takes and you make the title game. In many ways, Oregon could have really benefitted to having Wazzu taking the title and letting this drama play out last week when they would have had an opportunity to at least be in the mix for other top candidates. Now that I am on my soapbox, how about one of these days a program like Oregon starts looking for other coaches in parallel with another coach 'listening' to other offers?' Why should the program be expected to just sit back and await the coach to decide if he is going to put them at a serious disadvantage? In fact, I would be totally cool with the university 'accidentally' letting that kind of news leak. "Mr Coach, you can't publicly commit to us by signing our very generous extension - or being super coy - so why are your feelings in any way hurt when I am doing the same to you? According to you Mr Coach, it's all a business and if you want to operate by that framing, then this is exactly how the world of business works.' In a situation like this where 'my heart is in Miami,' how about an exploding offer AHEAD of the championship game or even the last week of the season? Leak that too. At that point, you are letting Miami know they don't have to bid against someone else and you have, in essence, put the question to MC (and effectively received the answer) well before you get stuck in this game of 'are we hosed or not?' You might say that forces MC out but it really doesn't. If he is 'I want to wait and see what Miami comes with' then you know he is gone so why play that game? You aren't forcing him out. You are forcing him to stop toying with you. That approach also has the benefit of cutting the negotiating leverage out from under MC as a wonderful parting gift. I'm kinda fired up 🙂

Well, my assertion about Georgia looking like an unstoppable juggernaut took all of 20 minutes to not age well. <Sigh>

Watching Georgia vs Alabama and the Bulldogs look very much like a team that isn't taking an "L" any time soon (ETA: Alabama just scored a TD but still...). Kirby Smart made a difference almost immediately after his hiring. The fact he has his team back in the NC mix after a bit of a lull confirms he is the real deal (and very willing to make changes rather than follow some dogmatic scheme) Tucker looks pretty good but his sample size is a bit small to tag him as reasonably having major upside ($9MM/yr is clearly a 2-3 forward looking valuation? Less clear). Kiffin resurrected his career and is doing well. Always an innovator (even Saban credits him for helping him adjust his own approach at Alabama). Between all of the above and MC...?

Yikes...I wrote the above and even I can't be sure what it means. Also, horrified of repeating 'down the road' twice. I am mailing my degree back to Cal 🙂

Agree. MC is gone. I think Mullens has played this well. My guess is he has an eye to future negotiations for a future hire and doesn't want to put a contract offer into the ecosystem that starts as that next target's agent. It also allows him to say, quite rightly, he did all he reasonably could to keep MC. I am OK with this outcome probably because it was a bomb that was going to explode somewhere down the road be that now or 3-4 years down the road.

@Charles Fischer Thanks for the notice. I will avoid that subject going forward.

All of the coaches have massive egos but I will grant you Lane's is likely on the higher side. For those who advocate Fickell as a target, have you learned nothing from the past two hires? Same goes for Campbell. They are midwest guys and will always have a strong desire to take good jobs 'where their heart is.' Stop the insanity! 🙂

My wife and I were talking about something akin to the decision Mullens faces but in the context of whether we travel to see our parents with the news of the omicron variant being in the US and - it appears - 2x as effective as Delta all but ensuring it will outcompete today's predominant strain of the virus. Holiday travel is ~3 weeks away. In that time I expect we will know transmissibility (see 2x) and the rate of vaccine breakthrough. What I really doubt we will know is virulence given that is usually a 2+ week lagging indicator and the known sample size likely isn't representative or large enough for reliable directional guidance. So if omicron is both highly transmissible and largely evades vaccines, should we go see our 70+ y/o parents? I have no idea of the risk I am putting them in because virulence is likely a total unknown. The risk of being wrong is rather high. Granted the above scenario is about the risk of putting the health of your parents at risk versus football which is quite trivial by comparison. But the framework is applicable to Mullen's current spot w/MC. The reason is the beta on MC is really high. A relatively impartial read on the past several years support both the views that he's a great recruiter but not a great coach and that he is a great coach but has just had some challenging circumstances in the past 2 years that have skewed the results. If you lose him because you undervalue his potential then you have lost a true opportunity to take the program to new heights. Conversely if you pay him like a James Franklin and it turns out the bearish read on his future value you have hung an albatross around the program's neck. Mullens has limited data and has to make a really hard decision as it relates to predicting future. As I said, massive beta. I think the reported $7MM says Mullens is placing a soft Put on MC's stock. If Miami wants to get into Tucker and Franklin type compensation, they are, in Mullen's view, overvaluing the 'asset.' I think that price is fair market value.

I think the most troubling response from MC was the comment all but confirming he is just waiting for Miami to get the offer he wants. The 'nobody has spoken to me' is the non-denial denial that coaches make when they are in discussions with another program to leave. He very likely is not lying. But he is being deceptive. Miami is talking to his agent who in turn is talking to his client, MC. There was a comment made earlier about not hiring coaches from FL which, while somewhat tongue in cheek, might be a good principle at a macro level. When coaches are open about their 'dream jobs' and those jobs are the other side of the country, they are, in essence, putting out to that school that they are super ready to go if and when a call is made. They have success at Oregon and lo and behold, that school magically targets our coach. I want a coach who wants to build a powerhouse and sees Oregon as the place to do it. West coast ties really help because they aren't 'homesick' for another part of americana. They have no sentimental pull from a part of the world that is very different than the west coast let alone the PNW. Kiffin fits that profile, as one example.

Without a doubt, I would hire Lane Kiffin. He's clearly grown as a coach since his disastrous stint at USC. I think his time with Saban was a real growth period and what he has done with Mississippi is testament to that. While his personality many not be for everyone, I get the sense the players love him. Also, he knows how to develop a QB which, to date, has been a material question around MC. There are undoubtedly mitigating reasons for this, but it is a huge unknown and a material liability if, in fact, proves to be an accurate assessment.