You think Tyrone Willingham is the only coach unjustly fired this week? Think again:
Dateline: Oxford, MS: The University of Mississippi fired coach David Cutcliffe after posting five winning seasons and one losing season.
Archie Manning, sire of Eli and Peyton and Ole Miss' most revered alum, spoke for a lot of Grove faithful when he said, "How you can post five straight winning seasons at Ole Miss and then get fired in your sixth is beyond me. He did not deserve to be treated like this."
So why exactly did he get fired? "[We] will not accept [...] mediocrity," said Chancellor Robert Khayat, "It's essential that the football program be competitive. It's not now-and-then competitive. It's every-year competitive."
In other words, Robert Khayat is delusional. I can't even list all the reasons why it's tremendously unlikely that Ole Miss will ever be "every-year competitive" in the mighty SEC. The program's mediocre history is working against them, and the powers that be at Ole Miss must realize that a) not every school can become a dynasty, and b) if you are going to go from non-dynasty to dynasty, the climb is slow.
Five winning seasons in six would constitute a fast, tremendous start to doormat-to-dynasty building. I sincerely hope Manning withholds support and appearances from his alma mater as a result. Maybe that'll learn 'em.
Dateline: Bloomington, IN: Gerry DiNardo was fired at Indiana after going 3-8. 3-8 is pretty much par for the course at Indiana, but there were key bright spots this year: two of those wins came against ranked (at the time they played them) teams, including at Oregon.
Athletic Director Rick Greenspan's comments were simply hilarious. First, "We're going to have some urgency." I wonder if Greenspan thinks that whomever is the Cincinnati Bengals running backs coach has what it takes to lead the Hoosiers to the Big 10 title in 2005, since they will be declined by the first 15 or so names on their short list.
Later, Greenspan remarkably said, "I don't believe in quick fixes." So which is it? Was DiNardo fired because he was making progress too quickly, or not urgently? The more I read Greenspan's comments, the more obvious it becomes that Greenspan, like Khayat, is planning on Jesus Christ becoming their new head coach, or at least strength and conditioning coordinator. It's not going to happen.
But the boosters see what Urban Meyer has done at Utah, and say, "Wull, why can't we do that? We must do that right now! ME WANT BOX SEATS IN TEMPE NEXT YEAR! BUT ME NOT HAVE THEM!" Each year, Donald Trump, Mark Cuban, and major college boosters prove that you don't have to be terribly bright to get rich.
At any rate, DiNardo was just finishing his third season. That means that some of the players he recruited were juniors, but most were sophomores and freshmen. Three years is not enough time to do jack in college football, and only the schools that realize that (and realize that Urban Meyer's work at Utah is the extraordinary exception, not the rule), will avoid the turmoil that's in store for these impetuous schools.
Dateline: Stanford, CA: Buddy Teevens' Stanford team was finally making strides after an abysmal 2003. This year they had the best 4-7 season a team could have. They destroyed a BYU team fresh of their upset over Notre Dame. They played mighty USC closer than anyone else has this year. The knocked off Washington State on the road, and lost a heartbreaker in the desert at 21st-ranked Arizona State. Not good enough.
And then of course, Notre Dame. The only pundit I have heard supporting the Ty Willingham's dismissal was SC's own Mark Chalifoux, a self-described Notre Dame fan. Chalifoux opines that Notre Dame has not progressed at all in Willingham's tenure, and weighs very heavily (methinks far too heavily) on the Irish's three straight losses to USC by 31 as evidence of the plateau.
I will tread lightly here, since I am positive Notre Dame football is a subject Chalifoux can school me on. That said, doesn't the USC results only prove program complacency if USC hasn't made strides in the last three years, either? Instead, we all know the USC has gone from pretty good to the most dominant school in college football in the last three years. So in a sense, Notre Dame has demonstrated progress by keeping the scoring margin the same.
The problem isn't that Notre Dame hasn't made progress in three years, of course they have (besides the above equation, did Bob Davie or Gerry Faust ever beat the Big 10 Champs and and SEC sub-conference champs in the same year? And they got five years). It's that the progress hasn't come in leaps and bounds.
I mentioned earlier that three years is not enough time to prove anything in college football. Why isn't it enough time? Because the most important players on any squad are the seniors. They are the most influential players on the team. They are the most experienced players, and usually the best players. They are the leaders. In Willingham's and DiNardo's case, the seniors they had this year did not ask for them, nor were they asked for. They were sold on the program by the previous coach, and now they are leftover, compelled to buy in to the new coach they don't know or transfer. That's why it ought to be a given that a coach shouldn't be dismissed until we have seen what he can do with players that are exclusively his.
The schools that keep telling themselves they must win now are the teams that will win never. At least until they learn. I'm not taking bets that they will.
Slant Pattern Picks of the Week and Top 25 will return next edition.
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