Huger Fired

[mbenecke]

Per Dave Briggs of the Blade, Michael Huger was fired this morning.

The search for a new head coach is on.

[Flipper]

It is time...probably past time...to move on. I hope things work out for him in the future....Hopefully, he's remembered more for his career as a player than a coach

[nickm0110]

Nice guy but this was much needed! Excited to hear speculation on prospect new head coaches!! What do you all think?

[Flipper]

More importantly...what search firm is going to be hired to vet candidates and will they be listened to?

[guest44]

Well first things first you have to analyze who at BGSU might be using the hire to help potential job opportunities for themselves. They should now be clear on that front, so they might be able to conduct a functional hire.

[hammb]

Throughout this process of speculation and even now after the fact everybody prefaces Huger's firing with "he's a nice guy". I agree. He is a very nice guy. He did a great job with all the kids at the basketball summer camp last year that my son attended (and the kid was even able to refrain from telling him he sucked, surprisingly).

But does anybody wonder if perhaps he's TOO nice of a guy? I'm absolutely not old school pissy yell at everybody coach guy (f**k you Dakich), but at some point I just don't think his teams had any respect for him. I also question his work ethic and the staff's. It felt like in the post-COVID years they basically stopped recruiting HS kids period. The recruiting budgets didn't shrink, the equipment budgets didn't shrink, but we sure as hell never saw any returns on those investments in the past 5 yrs.

The Huger era was rough. I hate hiring alumni for exactly this reason. I think he did recruit better players than Dakich 2.0 or Orr, but I also think he was a worse coach than either of them...and that's saying something.

Good Luck, Mr. Van der Merwe. This is your first signature move at BGSU, and given the finances and facilities of the program will likely be your biggest.

[factman]

……….so who is on the “ list”?

[Flipper]

Saddi Washington?

[kdog27]

They can’t afford to get this wrong again.

[maskedopining]

If they go a similar route Toledo went to right the ship, here are some. Obviously, some of these are not realistic, but some on this list may be for the right amount of money:

https://www.si.com/.amp/college/2022/10 ... ches-hires

[hammb]

Jerrod Calhoun from Youngstown St. was the name I had heard on Twitter awhile back. Had a helluva run at D2 Fairmont. Took awhile, but appears to have turned around YSU and just won Horizon CoY. Seems like a reasonable candidate, but I had never heard of him prior to reading his name.

I have little interest in Washington. The only reason I have even that interest is that he had some assistant experience at Oakland before going to Michigan. College basketball at Michigan and other big money programs is a completely different game than it is at BG. I have no desire to bring in assistants from that level. With our ability to pay at the top of the MAC our coaching candidates should (IMO) either be guys with HC experience and success at the lower D1 level (i.e. the Horizon) or guys that were top tier assistants for highly successful MAC-level programs (i.e. Jans coming from Wichita State).

Huger, Dakich, and Orr all came to BG from big time conferences (Big East, ACC, Big10). Dakich was the only one that showed any ability to understand what it took to win here. Give me somebody used to doing more with less, and we can put him in position to have the best resources in our conference. BGSU will ALWAYS need that HC to be somebody willing to be the face of the program in/around the campus and community. That's something Orr & Huger greatly lacked (Dakich got that part).

[maskedopining]

Steve Merfeld is associate Head Coach at Creighton I believe. Was a relatively successful head coach at Hampton, less so at Evansville. Was an assistant at BG for a long time. Way not be the right way to go, but I think he would get the face of the program thing that you mention Hammb.

[Falconwriter]

As already noted, they have to get this hire right.

If that can be accomplished, then there's hope for football and hockey -- because any BG fan knows those two coaching slots are probably next on the AD's list. And if they aren't, they should be.

Hockey may happen sooner than we think, given how poorly the team finished this year and the fact that it's been 45 years since BG hockey won a league title (regular season or tournament).

That's pretty disgraceful. Not as bad as a 55 year drought from going to the NCAA tourney (basketball) but close.

Think about it, we've had 100 years of futility between these two sports. If you'd asked me about the future of both sports right after I graduated in 1976, I would not have envisioned these outcomes.

EDITED to add: My math was off. It's "only" been 90. Last hockey title was 1988. This is why I went into journalism and didn't pursue accounting!

[hammb]

Steve Merfeld is associate Head Coach at Creighton I believe. Was a relatively successful head coach at Hampton, less so at Evansville. Was an assistant at BG for a long time. Way not be the right way to go, but I think he would get the face of the program thing that you mention Hammb.

He might get that part, but I'd have a hard time getting excited for a guy that has been back in the assistant ranks for 15+ yrs and was pretty dismal in his last HC gig. He had a nice run at Hampton, but I think his days as a HC candidate are long gone.

[TommyG]

Hopefully one of the reporters asks the AD where the buyout money is coming from. When you cry about budget as much as BG Athletics does then there needs to be some transparency on paying someone close to a million dollars to sit at home for 2 years. I’m fine if they used the Frack money, but I’d like to hear them say that is what they did.
There should be a lot of really good candidates…BG is one of the better jobs in the conference, just going to take someone willing put in the work.