BrowardBuck;1943315; said:
You and I agree on some of your points. I agree that they can't allow some things to sidetrack them from doing what is right long term. But I go back to my original point. Sometimes, short term actions ARE what is best to help long term (or can be a disaster for long term health). In this case, I think that leaving the interim tag on Fickell is a mistake and will have a long term impact. I hope I am proven wrong, but to me, it may be worth a couple of million to hedge that bet if we end up having to buy out a contract.
As for the fallout...it couldn't be any worse than the fallout we would have from a recruiting perspective if we kept a coach that wasn't the right fit and wasn't getting the W's. I'd rather take the hit of firing Fickell after a year if it meant we would get a high end coach that would pay immediate dividends. Lets be clear though, I truly want Fickell to succeed and be the permanent head coach.
At the end of the day, if the BoT and Gee aren't convinced that Fickell IS the guy, then they should have immediately went after someone else and been willing to pay what it took to get them here. In my profession, if I am not convinced that the man/woman sitting in front of me for an interview is the right person for the job, I don't hire them or promote them. I keep looking for the person I do feel is the right person for that job.
As much as I love Tressel and as much as I still believe he wasn't the only person in the know about tatgate, he should have been asked to resign back in January when it was first discovered and reported to the NCAA. Had they done so, they would have had months to find their guy. Instead, they allowed this to play out to the point that the media had a field day with every tidbit and morsel that they could find, no matter how unfounded it was. Then, they allow Tressel to resign. By that time, it was too late to find a coach. To me, there has been a whole series of mistakes that has led us to this point. Leaving the interim tag on Fickell is just one more mistake, in my opinion, to add to the pile of mistakes already made.
At the very least, there should be a VERY public gesture of support for Fickell from the university leadership that makes it clear that Fickell is the #1 guy for the position unless they fail to perform during the season. At least that would give the impression that they are supportive of their "interim" guy. Right now, there is the appearance that Luke is one and done and the BoT/Gee are not laying any kind of groundwork of support for the guy. Instead, he's left floundering.
BB
The problem here is, I think that they are leaving the interim tag on him for many of the reasons you think they shouldn't.
(I also wouldn't think of your comment "Unless they've already come to an agreement with Urban" -- I certainly don't know what the status of that is, but, Someone has passed him a note under a table with that says, "You want to be our new head coach? Circle Yes or No.... eighth grade style)
The thing we need to keep in mind here is, we're already screwed for this year. Interim tag or not... the current coaching staff has no idea if they are staying or going, the recruits have no idea, and we have no idea if they WANT to stay or go. None of those guys, who do most of the recruiting, can go in and say "I'm going to be here"
The whole point of this is to MAINTAIN continuity.
At least after this season, the uncertainty of what the NCAA punishment is going to be will be resolved. (And to that point even if they had let Tress go back in January, you have to consider that a HC search would go better with that behind you. I'm not agreeing with the idiots who say we couldn't get a top notch guy, but it might have narrowed the field some)
Furthermore, if we're going to lose some schollies, and that seems likely, we might as well take as much of the hit as possible up front when we have a pile of guys already in the program... the idea of comitting to Fickell for "3 to 5" years is problematic because if you're on the 3 year end of that you're going to get hit with a wholesale staff turnover twice. What if you DO keep him for one more and fire him?
Whatever, the point is, you need to be sure... you need to go through this transistion ONCE if at all possible.
The problem is that EVERYTHING is interim right now. The Coach, the Staff, some players probably, # of scholarships, bowl eligibility, other NCAA sanctions... and none of that takes into consideration the situation with Gene Smith and whether he's going to be around by the time winter rolls around. If he's going to step down in the wake of the NCAA hearing, the last thing you want is, "Hey, your new Coach is Luke, and I gave him a Charlie Wiess contract after game 4, see ya later suckers."
Making the right choice in a coaching search is hard enough in the right conditions. They need to give themselves the best opprotunity to make the right decision, in the right timeframe and that decision needs to be made by people that will take ownership of it and have skin in the game. The less uncertainty around the football program, athletics department, and University there is at that time, the better.
