Ay-Ziggy-Zoomba.com

Possible recruiting implications here....

http://www.si.com/college-football/2015 ... l-michigan" target="_blank

Also, can anyone name the last time a current FBS head coach left to take a assistant job? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Seems odd on the surface. Gotta feel for his staff at CMU just left out in the lurch like that. The height of hiring season is over and now they are just hanging out there waiting to see if CMU promotes from within to save some of their jobs or if it is an outside hire they are all likely out of a job. I wonder what the contract situation was? Usually the HC is on a multi year deal while the assistants are on year to year contracts. I hope they all signed and were re-upped for '15!

Falcon137 wrote:Possible recruiting implications here....

http://www.si.com/college-football/2015 ... l-michigan" target="_blank

Also, can anyone name the last time a current FBS head coach left to take a assistant job? I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Can't recall this per se, BUT it's no doubtedly a MONEY move as well. Plus he was getting some heat earlier in the season, so might have felt it was a good time to go. One thing I always remembered about CMU; they recruit their home state heavily... This yr. looks to be the same as only 2 of their verbals were out of staters at last look. Many yrs ago, I recall they had no one on entire roster from outside Meech.

This is just another one of the signs that we are not in the same league as the big boys. Not even close.

Not really.........this article makes much more sense of it.

http://footballscoop.com/news/dan-enos- ... chigan-go/" target="_blank

I wouldn't be surprised to see Zack Azzani as the next HC at CMU.

Frankly I'm shocked Enos hasn't been fired yet. He followed Kelly and Jones who built that program up and won 3 of 4 conference titles from 2006-09. Enos at worst tanked the program, at best killed all the momentum his predecessors built. He did a fine job at recruiting but an awful job at winning.

I have to think this is the time Azanni gets a head coaching job. He has gotten the most out of his receivers everywhere he has been, and he has been an assistant at a variety of programs under some great coaches. I think he's ready and I can't help but think Azanni will be hired very soon.

Class of 61 wrote:Can't recall this per se, BUT it's no doubtedly a MONEY move as well.

Well, yeah, some top assistants make more than our head coaches, but being a head coach is a bit like holding a lottery ticket. It's worth earning a little less if you still have that ticket in your pocket, right? This is pretty unusual. Most coaches want to hang in there. Perhaps this was turning into a burning building for him?

Plus he was getting some heat earlier in the season, so might have felt it was a good time to go.

You may be right. Interesting read in the Lansing State Journal about how tough coaching can be in the MAC, both for the coaches and for their ADs:

http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/stor ... /22162763/" target="_blank

He's doubling his pay to leave a program that loses a ton of people. If he does well at Arkansas, he can still land a HC gig at a higher or equal profile conference in a year two. Flattening out or regressing at a MAC school would be a kind of a career killer if he was interested in moving up the ladder.

From the Lansing Journal:

"The MAC is mostly a league of ambitious administrators, unrealistic expectations, and humbling financial limitations.

If you win big enough or quick enough, you pack your bags without apologies. Jones, Jerry Kill (Northern Illinois), Dave Doeren (NIU), Tim Beckman (Toledo), Turner Gill (Buffalo), Brady Hoke (Ball State), Darrell Hazell (Kent State), Mike Haywood (Miami-Ohio), Dave Clawson (Bowling Green) and Al Golden (Temple) have all left for major conference head coaching jobs since 2008.

Kelly (CMU, 2004-06), Urban Meyer (Bowling Green, 2001-02) and Nick Saban (Toledo, 1990) all cut their teeth as Division I head coaches in this league — and then ran like hell when the phone rang from elsewhere."

How many MAC games has that Michigan State writer actually seen? He reaches back 13 years for an Urban Meyer reference and 25 years for a Nick Saban one? We get it, national media. Some coaches leave (with some later regretting the move), but some coaches stay, too. Rod Carey is still at NIU after coaching them in the Orange Bowl. PJ Fleck over at Western Michigan chose to stay put as did a couple others this year when the Pitt job opened up. The conference is strong enough to attract the likes of Frank Solich and Terry Bowden to schools that have meager winning traditions.

The administrators in the MAC are ambitious as opposed to those in the Big 10 content to see Ohio State lap them every year as long as they can count their TV money.

Michigan and Nebraska didn't seem particularly content this year.....but I agree that the rest of the conference is particularly aggressive.

The MAC is every bit the springboard the lansing writer described....The Pitt job sucks..so I'm not shoicked that Fleck didn't try for it. If WMU has the kind of year I think they will next year (MAC title game at the least) I think he's gone no matter how much $$ they throw at him.

If he (Lansing writer) is like most, he doesn't want to watch a MAC game. In Lansing, I think it is safe to assume most could care less about Western, Eastern and Central.
You are so right about Fleck, an up and coming star, he will soon shine elsewhere. Most of these above mentioned coaches say all the right things at all the right times and then vanish much to the chagrin of their naive fans. Fleck is no different.
When one bangs the hammer, it becomes apparent the league has become hollow. I find it harder and harder to defend.

I'm not sure I understand the degree of bitterness, angst, and loathing in this thread. Programs all over college football face a coaching treadmill. Unless you are an Alabama or an Ohio State, there is a program out there who can dump a pile of cash on the table and take your favorite head coach away. We did it to Eastern illinois, and, yes, there are plenty of programs that can do it to us. But this happens all over college football. Wisconsin got big-timed by Arkansas, which is just crazy. This is a NCAA-wide problem. This is much bigger than the MAC.

Terry and Frank were S -canned at their prior jobs. Goes to show the MAC serves not only as a springboard, but can catch them on the rebound.
One solution, and I have brought it up before, is to put a cap on what they can make at the D I level. I would think that would stop a lot of the maddening migration of college coaches and their families they drag with them. Some of them live in SEVERAL places before they are 45yo. Couldn't the presidents of these universities do so? Or has it gotten so out of control such an idea is ludicrous?

Flipper wrote:Michigan and Nebraska didn't seem particularly content this year.....but I agree that the rest of the conference is particularly aggressive.

The MAC is every bit the springboard the lansing writer described....The Pitt job sucks..so I'm not shoicked that Fleck didn't try for it. If WMU has the kind of year I think they will next year (MAC title game at the least) I think he's gone no matter how much $$ they throw at him.

The Big 10 is happy being Ohio State's whipping boy as long as their TV money keeps rolling in. Michigan and Nebraska are perfect examples.

It took months of politicking, Regents arm-twisting, secret meetings, protests, negative media coverage and honest to goodness street protests before Michigan could pry their old coach and AD out. Even then, landing Harbaugh was as much a product of luck and timing as it was a genuine desire on the part of their administration to compete.

Nebraska ran off Pelini for a coach in his 60's coming off a 5-7 record that lost to his in-state rival 7 straight times. The rationale was not that he was even a better football coach, just a "good person" who won't cuss out the players and publicly defy the administration. Does anyone really think he has what it takes to challenge Meyer's supremacy in the Big 10?

In the last 3 years both Wisconsin and Illinois hired Meyer's former assistants, not anyone that would be considered his peer or equal, and the Badgers most recently hired the boring, bland, .500 coach from Pitt just because their AD knew him after Meyer's buddy left for Oregon State of all places. It's almost like they know they can't compete and aren't even trying.

I agree that the MAC largely functions as a springboard, but so does every other college conference and college job for that matter. Alabama has to sweat out whether Saban will leave for the NFL every year. My issue is the label being unfairly applied to the MAC alone by arrogant Big 10 twits when, like Shad said, it's an NCAA issue.