Brian Polian: candidate profile

[mbenecke]

I don’t feel like he’s a perennial 2-10 guy. He feels like 5-7 to 7-5 every year.

I feel like he’s the safe hire. It would take a home run to get this team from the bottom to the top in a year or two.

He feels like the guy who would make the program stable again and get us back to about 7-5 or 8-4, which I would greatly prefer over the results we've had the past few years.

[jpfalcon09]

I don’t feel like he’s a perennial 2-10 guy. He feels like 5-7 to 7-5 every year.

I feel like he’s the safe hire. It would take a home run to get this team from the bottom to the top in a year or two.

He feels like the guy who would make the program stable again and get us back to about 7-5 or 8-4, which I would greatly prefer over the results we've had the past few years.

Accepting mediocrity over failure is a tiny step in the right direction. This program does need a home run, it's why you fired a coach midway through the season. If Polian is the best Moose can do, either there wasn't much interest in the job (which I don't believe) or you pigeon-holed yourself in what you were looking for from the start. Polian would have been there had Jinks been fired yesterday. If he's the guy, it makes zero sense long-term.

[MarkL]

Moose was at SDSU while Nevada, under Polian, switched from WAC to MWC. So Moose has probably met the guy and at minimum is well versed in his work. It is possible Polian was high on the short list in October when the change was made.

[kdog27]

I don’t feel like he’s a perennial 2-10 guy. He feels like 5-7 to 7-5 every year.

I feel like he’s the safe hire. It would take a home run to get this team from the bottom to the top in a year or two.

He feels like the guy who would make the program stable again and get us back to about 7-5 or 8-4, which I would greatly prefer over the results we've had the past few years.

Accepting mediocrity over failure is a tiny step in the right direction. This program does need a home run, it's why you fired a coach midway through the season. If Polian is the best Moose can do, either there wasn't much interest in the job (which I don't believe) or you pigeon-holed yourself in what you were looking for from the start. Polian would have been there had Jinks been fired yesterday. If he's the guy, it makes zero sense long-term.

Agreed. We're average to poor across the board in just about all of athletics. If that's what we want for the football program than we might as well be FCS and upgrade the other sports. This is a better hire than Mike Jinks but well so would anyone. This is a weak hire IMO.

[Flipper]

We might be hiring a guy with 20+ years in D1 football ...he's got HC experience in a more challenging environment than BGSU...he's the recruiting Coordinator for the unbeaten Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

I'm baffled as to why people think this would be a "weak hire"

[Globetrotter]

We might be hiring a guy with 20+ years in D1 football ...he's got HC experience in a more challenging environment than BGSU...he's the recruiting Coordinator for the unbeaten Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

I'm baffled as to why people think this would be a "weak hire"

It doesn't excite me. But wins would. And he doesn't seem like a guy who can't get wins.

[jpfalcon09]

We might be hiring a guy with 20+ years in D1 football ...he's got HC experience in a more challenging environment than BGSU...he's the recruiting Coordinator for the unbeaten Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

I'm baffled as to why people think this would be a "weak hire"

No one is disputing his FBS experience. The red flag is his prior head coaching tenure at a parallel university. Both a losing overall and conference record. Why did he fail there? What would make BG any different? Hiring retreads is risky business, I'd be curious at the success rate of it in college football, can't imagine it's great.

[Flipper]

Based on what? Four years at Nevada when they made the jump from the lowly WAC to the more competitive MWC? He made two bowl trips there while playing the usual (for us) two money games a year.

In my view...this program desperately needs someone who can rebuild the brand. Return a measure of competence to the program, build a qulity staff and recruit well. Polian checks off those boxes.

[hammb]

We might be hiring a guy with 20+ years in D1 football ...he's got HC experience in a more challenging environment than BGSU...he's the recruiting Coordinator for the unbeaten Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

I'm baffled as to why people think this would be a "weak hire"

Had a mediocre run as a HC and the bulk of his experience is with old guard NFL type football. His father, Saban, Harbaugh, and Weiss are/were all old school NFL type guys. This is a brand of football that is slowly dying off (thank god).

Not to mention that the old guard NFL is steeped in nepotism. When I look at Brian Polian's resume, note that he has a famous NFL last name, and see that the bulk of his coaching experience is with other NFL guys I start to question how much of his career is due to nepotism and how much is due to his coaching ability.

Dude could come here and light the world on fire. Who knows. God knows he couldn't possibly do as poor a job as Mike Jinks did. But if we're talking candidates I find it real hard to look at his resume and get all giddy about bringing him in. And since college football is 90% about the offense I'd be real curious who he plans to bring with him as OC. He has no experience coaching offense above the level of RBs coach and his previous OC is already a HC elsewhere.

Ultimately if he ends up here he'll be judged by what he does here, not by the resume he brings with him. But right now all we can do is look at the resume, and there is nothing exciting at all about his resume.

[Flipper]

He was a one legged man in an ass kicking contest at Nevada....underfunded, moving up in class and forced to play two P5 games a year. I think getting to two bowl games in four years in that scenario is pretty good...not great, but better than we've seen lately..he even managed to win one.

I get that you hate his dad and the "old NFL". He spent the last two years under Brian Kelly and ran the pistol at Nevada. I think you're hunting for reasons to dislike him because you don't like his dad

[hammb]

He'll be a one legged man in an ass kicking contest here. Underfunded and forced to play 2 P5 games a year. Going under .500 in conference will not be enough to make us happy.

I do hate his dad. I do hate old school football. I also hate the football played by almost all of the people he's coached under. Prior to this discussion I didn't know Brian Polian existed; I'm not looking for reasons to hate him at all. What I'm looking for is how he fits into what I want in a coaching candidate.

It's hard enough to get excited about a candidate who's work is mostly special teams, even harder when the bulk of his coaching contacts come from the aforementioned coaching trees. He does have a ton of experience as a recruiting coordinator, and should have plenty of contacts in this area from ND. But for me, he's not an exciting candidate. That doesn't mean he'll be garbage. Jinks was an exciting candidate who made it obvious in a couple games he was completely clueless as a head coach. If Polian gets the job I'll hope like hell he's got coaching contacts that we haven't seen and can find a good offensive mind to handle that side of the ball. But until we find that out, there is nothing on HIS resume to get me excited.

[Globetrotter]

I don't watch college football. How is ND's special teams?

[Schadenfreude]

It's probably easier to win in Bowling Green than in Reno.

Ohio has a whole lot more football talent, and I don't think it is a stretch to say that Bowling Green has a stronger winning tradition than Nevada.

[hammb]

I don't watch college football. How is ND's special teams?

Football Outsiders has them ranked in the 40s this year. They were 10th in the nation last year.

[Flipper]

Give me the guy with four year's of experience in a tough environment over a guy with zero.

Dave Clawson ran a pretty standard run of the mill offense here and he did well because he was an extremely organized , disciplined HC who recruited well. Polian seems to offer the same skill set.