Jason Staples is the former FSU player at TOS. On one of their podcasts well before Mack was hired, the focus was his case against hiring Mack. Central to his position that Mack hired likely would mean nothing better than water treading mediocrity and perhaps could become a disaster, was the case of Bobby Bowden. Staples played as FSU was coming apart under Bowden. He saw a coach who has started over the hill and refused to consider that as a possibility. He was there as FSU boosters and administrators kept telling themselves that Bowden acting as CEO would get things back to normal. He was there as Bowden made questionable staff hire after questionable staff hire, each of which contributed to the confusion at the heart of the program. Players were not being developed with any consistency,. In fact, many players who were 4 and even 5* recruits found that after their 4 or 5 years at FSU the NFL had 0 interest in drafting them.
FSU kept landing excellent or very good recruiting classes every year. And FSU remained mediocre.
The change happened rather abruptly, though a weak ACC allowed FSU people to ignore it for a few years. It was revealed in 2001, when FSU was very fortunate to finish 8-4 and was destroyed by UNC. The drop from which Bowden never recovered was not due exclusively to his age. First, in 2000 Chuck Amato left to be MooU (his alma mater) HC. Amato had been FSU Associate HC since the mid-1980s. He had been central to the rise and then solidification of FSU as an annual national power. He had been the wild man whose personality and force of will tamed the FSU players on D, allowing DC Mickey Andrews to spend all his time and energy working on what to do game plans and play calling, and Spring as time to oversee development of individual players.
Mark Richt arrived at FSU in 1990 as QB coach. In 1994, he was made OC (and that was after at least a couple of years during which Richt was at least the co-OC in terms of game planning and play calling). Richt was the really smart guy on the staff, the kind who could have done very well in Law School or Grad School if he had not chosen coaching. His loss was at last as big as the loss of Amato, and combined they were the blow from which the aged Bowden could never overcome.
Losing 2 of your 3 virtually indispensable assistants within 2 years is something that can ruin any career, at least at that one school. Trying to replace 2 such important assistants in back to back years when you are 70 is a killer. But Bowden was very lucky in that the FSU run of 14 consecutive years finishing in the Top 5 meant FSU would continue to sign Top 10 classes virtually every year for a decade before the bottom would fall out.
Luckily for FSU football fans, boosters arranged a forced transition to Jimbo.
Staples said that the Mack Brown problems at Texas reminded him of the last years of Bowden at FSU, and so Staples was against Mack being hired. History says that almost rehires at a school need quite badly
I agreed with Staples and still do. As I noted in a thread after Mack was hired, if Mack were to land a DC like Chizik and an OC like Kingsbury, and be the CEO who turns them loose, he could succeed. Implicit in that is its antithesis: if Mack fails to hire truly top notch coordinators, fails to be the CEO who allows them to do their jobs, who tries to be hands on with everything, including forcing his OC and DC to take the assistants Mack chooses, then Mack 2.0 could be no better than Bunting 2.0.
Mack did hire Greg Robinson as co-DC, as senior DC. The media got it right, and then has done a quick attempt at covering for Mack when the mess blew up in his face. I think the primary reason Mack picked Robinson is because Mack was convinced that hiring GR as replacement DC in 2013 meant Texas would, and should, retain him for 2014. So Mack now will prove to Texas that he and GR as his DC could have done the job.
The secondary reason Mack picked GR is that Mac intended, come Hell or high water, to name Thigpen as co-DC and Bly as a DB coach, and no truly top notch DC would swallow such orders, risking his next job on the whims of a 67 year old forced out of his last job who intends to give things to former players that they have not earned.
Mack's Jeff Bowden is not Watson Brown but Thigpen and Bly, and Robinson, and perhaps more former players and less than stellar former assistants. Like Bowden, Mack seems fully infected with the sentimentalism of old men.
In addition to Thigpen and Bly, our other co-DC must risk his career on DL coach Tim Cross. Cross is now at Air Force, when it is much less top level Air Force, and no one speaks of him the way man y people spoke of Charlton Warren at AF: as a great position coach. Cross has been with the lackluster Minnesota program, and Syracuse in its post-Pasquiloni and pre-Babers suck period. And Cross worked for Mack at Texas - more Mack sentimentality.
Scott Satterfield will be a better HC in his 1st P5 job than Mack is in his 2nd time at UNC. In fact, as Mack won only 2 Big 12 championships (compare that to Bob Stoops with 10 Big 12 championships), it is possible that Satterfield will win more P5 championships than Mack.
FSU kept landing excellent or very good recruiting classes every year. And FSU remained mediocre.
The change happened rather abruptly, though a weak ACC allowed FSU people to ignore it for a few years. It was revealed in 2001, when FSU was very fortunate to finish 8-4 and was destroyed by UNC. The drop from which Bowden never recovered was not due exclusively to his age. First, in 2000 Chuck Amato left to be MooU (his alma mater) HC. Amato had been FSU Associate HC since the mid-1980s. He had been central to the rise and then solidification of FSU as an annual national power. He had been the wild man whose personality and force of will tamed the FSU players on D, allowing DC Mickey Andrews to spend all his time and energy working on what to do game plans and play calling, and Spring as time to oversee development of individual players.
Mark Richt arrived at FSU in 1990 as QB coach. In 1994, he was made OC (and that was after at least a couple of years during which Richt was at least the co-OC in terms of game planning and play calling). Richt was the really smart guy on the staff, the kind who could have done very well in Law School or Grad School if he had not chosen coaching. His loss was at last as big as the loss of Amato, and combined they were the blow from which the aged Bowden could never overcome.
Losing 2 of your 3 virtually indispensable assistants within 2 years is something that can ruin any career, at least at that one school. Trying to replace 2 such important assistants in back to back years when you are 70 is a killer. But Bowden was very lucky in that the FSU run of 14 consecutive years finishing in the Top 5 meant FSU would continue to sign Top 10 classes virtually every year for a decade before the bottom would fall out.
Luckily for FSU football fans, boosters arranged a forced transition to Jimbo.
Staples said that the Mack Brown problems at Texas reminded him of the last years of Bowden at FSU, and so Staples was against Mack being hired. History says that almost rehires at a school need quite badly
I agreed with Staples and still do. As I noted in a thread after Mack was hired, if Mack were to land a DC like Chizik and an OC like Kingsbury, and be the CEO who turns them loose, he could succeed. Implicit in that is its antithesis: if Mack fails to hire truly top notch coordinators, fails to be the CEO who allows them to do their jobs, who tries to be hands on with everything, including forcing his OC and DC to take the assistants Mack chooses, then Mack 2.0 could be no better than Bunting 2.0.
Mack did hire Greg Robinson as co-DC, as senior DC. The media got it right, and then has done a quick attempt at covering for Mack when the mess blew up in his face. I think the primary reason Mack picked Robinson is because Mack was convinced that hiring GR as replacement DC in 2013 meant Texas would, and should, retain him for 2014. So Mack now will prove to Texas that he and GR as his DC could have done the job.
The secondary reason Mack picked GR is that Mac intended, come Hell or high water, to name Thigpen as co-DC and Bly as a DB coach, and no truly top notch DC would swallow such orders, risking his next job on the whims of a 67 year old forced out of his last job who intends to give things to former players that they have not earned.
Mack's Jeff Bowden is not Watson Brown but Thigpen and Bly, and Robinson, and perhaps more former players and less than stellar former assistants. Like Bowden, Mack seems fully infected with the sentimentalism of old men.
In addition to Thigpen and Bly, our other co-DC must risk his career on DL coach Tim Cross. Cross is now at Air Force, when it is much less top level Air Force, and no one speaks of him the way man y people spoke of Charlton Warren at AF: as a great position coach. Cross has been with the lackluster Minnesota program, and Syracuse in its post-Pasquiloni and pre-Babers suck period. And Cross worked for Mack at Texas - more Mack sentimentality.
Scott Satterfield will be a better HC in his 1st P5 job than Mack is in his 2nd time at UNC. In fact, as Mack won only 2 Big 12 championships (compare that to Bob Stoops with 10 Big 12 championships), it is possible that Satterfield will win more P5 championships than Mack.
