[NU Sports] Questions

Mon Oct 16 14:47:33 CDT 2006

FWIW - 

1. Wilson left because he was supposed to get a HC job after putting in the
spread and instead the Cats tanked. He took Oklahoma [originally as the running
coordinator and O-Line coach with the idea he'd move up eventually which he did.

2. Patton left because Wilson called him and asked him to go to OK to take over
the O-Line. Coaching the O-Line at NU vs OU? No contest, the quality of the
linemen OU recruits easily is very hard to attain at NU.

3. Nobody is 100% sure publically why Dunbar left except he's from the West
Coast and possibly wanted to get closer to the rest of his family. His departure
took RW off guard, however. I honestly don't think he had HC aspirations at NU
altho he certainly could talk like one. 

Maybe he expected to get an offer while he was in Evanston, maybe he did, too,
but wanted to stick with Baz. I know he was instrumental in getting C.J. to come
to NU.

Every time Walker negotiated a renewal, he asked for and got decent raises for
his assistants. I suspect NU's are among the better paid in Div I, if not the
Big 10 given most of their short experience.

One of Fitz' limitations as a young head coach is a short list of guys he's
worked with who might come to Evanston to help. Our new LB coach came here
because he was a pal of Colby and saw an opportunity to rebuild the defenses he
had at Kent with a better class of kid. IN any case, I can see where the defense
is trying to go, and a fair amount of success as the younger players gain
experience.

While Coach Walker may have told Fitz he would be the "next" HC, I don't think
he told any of the other assistants. Doing that would invite disaster as the
others would start to bail out early for other jobs.

I've written at length about the offense and the issue of getting kids to run
what you call elsewhere. Suffice to say that from what I've seen, as much of the
blame for the offenses lack of production and predictability lies on the field
as on the sidelines.

rsl

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate
Computer Applications & Support Associates
and Publisher of Purple Reign, 
The Scout.com Northwestern University Site
(http://www.purplewildcats.com)
AIM Handle: CoachRoy74
======== Go Cats -  Beat 'em All ===========
"You have a Republic Madam --
     If you can keep it" - Benjamin Franklin
============================================

> -----Original Message-----
> From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com 
> [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On Behalf Of Jeff Beamsley
> Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 10:52 AM
> To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
> Subject: RE: [NU Sports] Questions
> 
> 
> Chuck,
> 
> All reasonable questions that have somewhat reasonable answers.
> 
> 1. QB's - This is the good news and bad news of college FB.  
> If you have a stud QB, your opportunity to recruit a stud 
> replacement doesn't start until the third eligibility year of 
> your current stud.  If you look at recent Michigan history, 
> Gonzales was the back-up to Navarre for two years, but 
> Michigan was able to recruit Henne because he knew he was 
> going to get a chance to play. If Navarre had two years of 
> eligibility left, Henne probably would have gone to Penn 
> State. Because of a pre-season injury to Gonzales and Henne's 
> quick success, Gonzales, even after he was healthy again, 
> never factored in the QB mix.  But you ended up with an 
> interesting contrast on Saturday night where Henne was the 
> third year starter for UoM and Morelli (who graduated the 
> same year as Henne) was a first year starter for PSU and 
> looked the part.  There is just no substitute for on-field experience.
> 
> The situation at NU is a little more challenging because our 
> offense is so QB dependent.  It may turn out that none of our 
> current three will be "the guy".  Our next stud may be a 
> senior in HS who wants to be a star and will respond to the 
> opportunity to start.  
> 
> As far as the nature of the offense is concerned, virtually 
> everyone is running some form of the spread.  So I think that 
> there is just a whole lot more demand for the sort of kid who 
> can run this kind of offense.  So I think that NU, like a lot 
> of schools, just runs the risk of having a down year until 
> they find the "right" kid.  The good news is that the "right" 
> kid can have a dramatic effect (e.g. Illinois is a much 
> better team this year with Juice Williams). But I agree with 
> many of the previous posters, it doesn't appear that Brewer 
> is the guy.  
> 
> 2. Coaches effect the quality of play and also the quality of 
> the player. Henne's HS coach was interviewed during the game 
> Saturday night and said that Henne went to Michigan because 
> they have the best QB coach in the country.  Guys who have 
> aspirations to play on Sunday are going to make those sorts 
> of choices.  Even though we aren't currently getting the 
> results on the field, we don't know yet what impact McGee is 
> going to have on recruiting.  I think we have to give him an 
> opportunity to recruit before we pass judgment.
> 
> NU doesn't release much on what assistants get paid, but we 
> do know that RW was well paid.  I suspect that our assistant 
> coaches are also paid salaries competitive to other BT 
> schools.  Fitz was a relatively young assistant, but he is 
> living in a nice house in an upscale neighborhood, and is 
> making babies.  So I suspect even before RW's passing, that 
> he was doing fine.  
> 
> I think that the coaches who left did so for two reasons.
> 
> 1. They assumed that RW was a coach for life at NU and Fitz 
> was his designated heir.  Their chance to become a HC most 
> likely required a move. So why not promote yourself to a 
> program where there was a chance to move up in ranks?
> 
> 2. They knew they had maximized their value during the Baz 
> years and that NU was going to struggle offensively for at 
> least a year trying to find the next Baz.  So if they were 
> going to have to leave eventually anyway, might as well leave 
> when you have maximum bargaining power.
> 
> The challenge for Fitz, if he does become a coach for life, 
> is to build a program where the assistant coaches have a lot 
> of say in how things run and ultimately can get the sort of 
> national recognition that the assistants at Penn State or UoM 
> get.  That, success, and money of course, are the reasons why 
> turn-over is so low in these programs.  I think Fitz is 
> trying to do that, but of course, the results have to follow.  
> 
> If the results (both wins and recruiting) don't follow, you 
> should see those coaches held accountable, just as they were 
> at UoM for example where, after a 7-5 season, there was a big 
> shakeup in the ranks including a new DC and OC.  The team and 
> coaches appear to have responded with a team that will 
> content for the NC.
> 
> Jeff
>    
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com 
> [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On Behalf Of cherron604 at aol.com
> Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 3:58 AM
> To: nwu-sports at tssi.com
> Subject: [NU Sports] Questions
> 
> 1 - Quarterbacks
>  
> Everybody involved in the program has known for 2 or three 
> years that BB was not going to be around in 2006.  If the 
> expectation was to continue to play a very 
> quarterback-centric offense, shouldn't the expectation have 
> been that the pipeline would contain as many strong QB 
> candidates (with real solid
> credentials) as possible ?  Yet all we had in the pipeline 
> for 2006 was Bacher, Kafka and Brewer.  Should we have made 
> the calculation a few years ago that, since this offense 
> requires such a high-level of QB skill, if we could not 
> maintain that skill level in the recruiting pipeline, we 
> should move to a more typical Big-Ten type offense that was 
> less dependent on highly-skilled (hard to find) 
> quarterbacks...?  Is it as simple as saying spread 
> offense=lots of QB talent=lots of talented QB recruits, or, 
> if you can't bring those recruits in, migrate toward a more 
> typical offense ?
>  
> 2 - Offensive Coordinators
>  
> Kevin Wilson took over as OC in 1999 with 9 years head coach 
> or OC experience.  He had great success for 3 years, then 
> left, not for a head coaching job, but to be OC at Oklahoma 
> (where he remains).  In 2002 Mike Dunbar took over as OC with 
> 17 years head coach or OC experience.  He had a great run for 
> 4 years before leaving for another lateral move (OC at Cal). 
> Now we have promoted an OC with no head coaching or OC 
> experience.  This raises a couple of questions:
>  
> a) Why have 2 very accomplished OC's left the program, since 
> they were not leaving to become head coaches ?  Was it money 
> ?  If it was purely money, does the university need to review 
> the pay for the assistant coaches ?  Or did they leave for 
> some other reason ?  If we are not going to pay adequately to 
> retain good OC talent, do we have to reconsider our 
> commitment to playing football at the Big Ten level ?
>  
> b) Isn't it safe to assume that the offense we have been 
> using requires exceptional OC talent as well as exceptional 
> QB talent ?  We might further assume that exceptional OC 
> talent is at least as hard to find as (if not harder to find 
> than) excepional QB talent.  Given both of these, should a 
> calculation have been made that unless the supply of 
> exceptional OC talent could be maintained and guaranteed, we 
> might need to transition to a more standard offense, not 
> requiring such exceptional OC talent to implement ?
>  
> c) Is it reasonable to assume that you could replace two OC's 
> with a combined 26 years of head coach or OC experience prior 
> to their arrival with an OC with no head coach or OC 
> experience ?  Why exactly did we think we needed to be an OC 
> training ground when for the last seven years we had been 
> more of a finishing school for highly-experienced, 
> highly-talented OC's ? Did we even consider hiring anybody 
> with HC or OC experience when Dunbar left ?  
>  
> Garrick McGee is probably a great guy, and he might be a good 
> OC someday, but why exactly did we determine that he should 
> get his on-the-job training here ?  Shouldn't that training 
> happen at some place like Toledo or Western Illinois ? 
>  
> Greg Colby is another issue entirely, to be discussed separately.
>  
> Chuck Herron   Tech '85
>  
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