Why did Chris Hatcher leave Statesboro after only two seasons???

He's having a good season at Samford, at 43, I could see him getting some looks by a few G5 schools at the end of the year.

He was regressing at GS. We fired coaches with .700+ winning percentages.

7-4 to 6-5 to 5-6 will get anyone fired usually, quickly at the most successful team in the history of the division at the time.

He's done the opposite at Samford, going 6-5 first year, 7-5 and the playoffs last season. He currently has them ranked #20 with a 3-2 mark so far. One loss was to Georgia, so 3-1 in FCS.

Maybe he has figured it out as he's gotten older, not like Samford is known as a football power.

(10-03-2017 04:08 PM)JCGSU Wrote:  He was regressing at GS. We fired coaches with .700+ winning percentages.

7-4 to 6-5 to 5-6 will get anyone fired usually, quickly at the most successful team in the history of the division at the time.

My how the turns have tabled

(10-03-2017 04:14 PM)Usajags Wrote:  He's done the opposite at Samford, going 6-5 first year, 7-5 and the playoffs last season. He currently has them ranked #20 with a 3-2 mark so far. One loss was to Georgia, so 3-1 in FCS.

Maybe he has figured it out as he's gotten older, not like Samford is known as a football power.

He also has a different OC now and the SoCon is not the SoCon of old with App and GS. Ironically we just fired the OC last year he had on staff while at GS. He took over a bad situation but did not get the fairest shake but we were the AL of the FCS winning NC's was the standard not just competing for them much less missing the playoffs.

(10-03-2017 04:06 PM)Usajags Wrote:  Why did Chris Hatcher leave Statesboro after only two seasons???

He's having a good season at Samford, at 43, I could see him getting some looks by a few G5 schools at the end of the year.

This is my take on Hatcher (skip to the "In short" part if you don't want my drawn-out story).

He's a good recruiter. He's absolutely a smart game-day coach and good at building a scheme around his players, no doubt about that. This guy is an air raid coach and he comes to Georgia Southern where we basically don't have an overly great running back, didn't have a great receiver unit, and a defensive back seven with paper-thin depth, and a QB with ridiculous speed and nimbleness who wans't that great a thrower. He made a great run-based offense out of that with offensive coordinator Rance Gillespie (who BTW was one of the guys fired last year). We missed a 32-yard field goal that would've won the Southern Conference. We also got a rare win in Boone the year App State beat Michigan.

The next year (2008) we're in major rebuilding mode, and it wasn't all his fault. We had an absurdly young team that year and even though we were 6-5 we were in every game we played except UGA. The attrition from his 2008 recruiting class was horrible, though, and that would set up the disaster the next year.

The next year Hatcher does a better job of signing guys who will stick with the program, but the damage was done. We had an entire receiver corps made up of true freshmen (that's not an exaggeration) and we led the country in sacks given up because the O-line couldn't block anything. The offense that year was a disaster and Hatcher was fired (ultimately for political reasons, but the bad season was a convenient backdrop). It was actually kind of impressive he was able to muster 5 wins with what he had (the offensive line was comically bad).

In short, he's a first-rate offensive mind, and attrition from his first two classes (especially the second one) ultimately did him in. From what he's done at Samford so far, I think he has learned his lessons from his time here. He could win at the G5 level if he gets the right assistants to supplement his weaknesses.

(10-03-2017 04:23 PM)JCGSU Wrote:  and the SoCon is not the SoCon of old with App and GS.

I just have to laff at this, the Bell Hops of the Citadel, Wofford, Furman and Western Carolina would whip GA Southern up and down the field this year. And ETSU would give you a run for your money.

(10-03-2017 06:05 PM)HerdZoned Wrote:  

(10-03-2017 04:23 PM)JCGSU Wrote:  and the SoCon is not the SoCon of old with App and GS.

I just have to laff at this, the Bell Hops of the Citadel, Wofford, Furman and Western Carolina would whip GA Southern up and down the field this year. And ETSU would give you a run for your money.

What's your point? We know we're not good this year.

We had ten SoCon championships in 20 years of being eligible, BTW.

(10-03-2017 04:41 PM)EigenEagle Wrote:  

(10-03-2017 04:06 PM)Usajags Wrote:  Why did Chris Hatcher leave Statesboro after only two seasons???

He's having a good season at Samford, at 43, I could see him getting some looks by a few G5 schools at the end of the year.

This is my take on Hatcher (skip to the "In short" part if you don't want my drawn-out story).

He's a good recruiter. He's absolutely a smart game-day coach and good at building a scheme around his players, no doubt about that. This guy is an air raid coach and he comes to Georgia Southern where we basically don't have an overly great running back, didn't have a great receiver unit, and a defensive back seven with paper-thin depth, and a QB with ridiculous speed and nimbleness who wans't that great a thrower. He made a great run-based offense out of that with offensive coordinator Rance Gillespie (who BTW was one of the guys fired last year). We missed a 32-yard field goal that would've won the Southern Conference. We also got a rare win in Boone the year App State beat Michigan.

The next year (2008) we're in major rebuilding mode, and it wasn't all his fault. We had an absurdly young team that year and even though we were 6-5 we were in every game we played except UGA. The attrition from his 2008 recruiting class was horrible, though, and that would set up the disaster the next year.

The next year Hatcher does a better job of signing guys who will stick with the program, but the damage was done. We had an entire receiver corps made up of true freshmen (that's not an exaggeration) and we led the country in sacks given up because the O-line couldn't block anything. The offense that year was a disaster and Hatcher was fired (ultimately for political reasons, but the bad season was a convenient backdrop). It was actually kind of impressive he was able to muster 5 wins with what he had (the offensive line was comically bad).

In short, he's a first-rate offensive mind, and attrition from his first two classes (especially the second one) ultimately did him in. From what he's done at Samford so far, I think he has learned his lessons from his time here. He could win at the G5 level if he gets the right assistants to supplement his weaknesses.

Wasn't his cousin also the recruiting coordinator, or am I just remembering someone running their mouth about that?

And his DC and S&C coaches were.....not good to put it nicely. We also seemed to have a lot of weird injuries as well, in 2007 our defense was about wiped out, and we had to put a true freshman RB at DB to be able to put enough guys on the field.

I don't think Hatcher was ready for the differences in D2 and D1 (even FCS), especially when you have the expectations of our crowd in Statesboro.

He's shown that on Saturdays he's a really good coach, but he had issues on Sun-Fri doing everything he needed to do while at Georgia Southern. It does look like he's on the right path at Samford though. Unless I'm mistaken, a former Eagle, Victor Cabral is still with him coaching DL.

In addition to the on-field problems delineated above, he publicly called out a petty, vengeful, micro-managing president on not getting enough academic exceptions for football recruits.

His offense was awful to watch without Jason Foster.

Screen left.. screen right.. dive.. punt.

(10-03-2017 07:41 PM)Fark Wrote:  In addition to the on-field problems delineated above, he publicly called out a petty, vengeful, micro-managing president on not getting enough academic exceptions for football recruits.

This was the death blow.

Some of the key guys on his staff when he was in Statesboro was his downfall. Bostick is the only coach that has been on staff with him EVERY year of Hatcher's head coaching career. Pretty much every OL Hatcher has had has been decent if not good. The '09 line was his worst, but that was directly attributable to the whiffs in BVG's 2006 class, and washouts from 2007 & 2008. Can't coach up sub-par talent very much..

What killed him in Statesboro was having an absolutely atrocious strength program and defense, and the offense in 2009 was particularly putrid due to the absence of WR and QB experience .... two of those guys are now are head coaches in the high school ranks. Ashley Anders (DC) is at Tift High and has done a pretty good job. His cousin Keith Hatcher is the head coach at Mt.DeSales in Macon (where Chris graduated from) and the Cavaliers have been really bad.

Hatcher throughout his career has also had some excellent coaches work for him. Everyone knows about Muschamp and Smart (I think), but he also had Ron Dugans who was a heck of a WR coach. As mentioned above, IMO Bostick really doesn't get enough credit.

(10-03-2017 09:28 PM)TheEagleWay Wrote:  His offense was awful to watch without Jason Foster.

Screen left.. screen right.. dive.. punt.

Our offense now is atrocious to watch.

Up the middle....left pitch....incomplete pass....punt.

(10-03-2017 09:44 PM)Eagle22 Wrote:  

(10-03-2017 07:41 PM)Fark Wrote:  In addition to the on-field problems delineated above, he publicly called out a petty, vengeful, micro-managing president on not getting enough academic exceptions for football recruits.

This was the death blow.

Some of the key guys on his staff when he was in Statesboro was his downfall. Bostick is the only coach that has been on staff with him EVERY year of Hatcher's head coaching career. Pretty much every OL Hatcher has had has been decent if not good. The '09 line was his worst, but that was directly attributable to the whiffs in BVG's 2006 class, and washouts from 2007 & 2008. Can't coach up sub-par talent very much..

What killed him in Statesboro was having an absolutely atrocious strength program and defense, and the offense in 2009 was particularly putrid due to the absence of WR and QB experience .... two of those guys are now are head coaches in the high school ranks. Ashley Anders (DC) is at Tift High and has done a pretty good job. His cousin Keith Hatcher is the head coach at Mt.DeSales in Macon (where Chris graduated from) and the Cavaliers have been really bad.

Hatcher throughout his career has also had some excellent coaches work for him. Everyone knows about Muschamp and Smart (I think), but he also had Ron Dugans who was a heck of a WR coach. As mentioned above, IMO Bostick really doesn't get enough credit.

Everyone forgets about Ron Dugans because he was overshadowed by Peter Warrick at FSU. He was a good receiver in his own right, and I don't recall any complaints about our WR play while he was with us. The exception being 2009 when we had all freshmen playing at that position but I'm not sure there's much that could have been done about that with all the issues from the recruiting classes.

(10-03-2017 04:41 PM)EigenEagle Wrote:  

(10-03-2017 04:06 PM)Usajags Wrote:  Why did Chris Hatcher leave Statesboro after only two seasons???

He's having a good season at Samford, at 43, I could see him getting some looks by a few G5 schools at the end of the year.

This is my take on Hatcher (skip to the "In short" part if you don't want my drawn-out story).

He's a good recruiter. He's absolutely a smart game-day coach and good at building a scheme around his players, no doubt about that. This guy is an air raid coach and he comes to Georgia Southern where we basically don't have an overly great running back, didn't have a great receiver unit, and a defensive back seven with paper-thin depth, and a QB with ridiculous speed and nimbleness who wans't that great a thrower. He made a great run-based offense out of that with offensive coordinator Rance Gillespie (who BTW was one of the guys fired last year). We missed a 32-yard field goal that would've won the Southern Conference. We also got a rare win in Boone the year App State beat Michigan.

The next year (2008) we're in major rebuilding mode, and it wasn't all his fault. We had an absurdly young team that year and even though we were 6-5 we were in every game we played except UGA. The attrition from his 2008 recruiting class was horrible, though, and that would set up the disaster the next year.


In short, he's a first-rate offensive mind, and attrition from his first The next year Hatcher does a better job of signing guys who will stick with the program, but the damage was done. We had an entire receiver corps made up of true freshmen (that's not an exaggeration) and we led the country in sacks given up because the O-line couldn't block anything. The offense that year was a disaster and Hatcher was fired (ultimately for political reasons, but the bad season was a convenient backdrop). It was actually kind of impressive he was able to muster 5 wins with what he had (the offensive line was comically bad).
two classes (especially the second one) ultimately did him in. From what he's done at Samford so far, I think he has learned his lessons from his time here. He could win at the G5 level if he gets the right assistants to supplement his weaknesses.

My nephew was a freshman QB on the 2009 team who transferred only due to the change in offense with the coaching change. He told me that he was not surprised with the success at Georgia Southern after the coaching change due to the players that Hatcher left at Georgia Southern. Hatcher knew that 2009 was going to be a tough year and was expecting the 2010 season to be the turn around year at Georgia Southern. I would have like to have seen what he would have done at Georgia Southern with one more year but it is now water under the bridge and we will never know.

(10-03-2017 06:05 PM)HerdZoned Wrote:  

(10-03-2017 04:23 PM)JCGSU Wrote:  and the SoCon is not the SoCon of old with App and GS.

I just have to laff at this, the Bell Hops of the Citadel, Wofford, Furman and Western Carolina would whip GA Southern up and down the field this year. And ETSU would give you a run for your money.

Ga So losing 7 of their last 8 games doesn't mean the SoCon is a better conference than it was 5 years ago.

(10-03-2017 07:41 PM)Fark Wrote:  In addition to the on-field problems delineated above, he publicly called out a petty, vengeful, micro-managing president on not getting enough academic exceptions for football recruits.

Unless you are head coach at Alabama, Auburn, Ohio State, Michigan, etc., AND WINNING, you are always going to lose the war if you chose to go to war with the president of the university.

That right there tells me he didn't understand what being a head coach is about.

(10-03-2017 06:05 PM)HerdZoned Wrote:  

(10-03-2017 04:23 PM)JCGSU Wrote:  and the SoCon is not the SoCon of old with App and GS.

I just have to laff at this, the Bell Hops of the Citadel, Wofford, Furman and Western Carolina would whip GA Southern up and down the field this year. And ETSU would give you a run for your money.

Guess I will laugh at your W VA. education while we are laughing at things. Honestly if you have time to troll post in a random Sun Belt thread that has nothing to do with your school or conference you really really are pathetic and need to get a life.

Yes same with you last year idiot, but we are not talking typical GS football either. Go crawl back in your wanna be AAC dying conference hole.

(10-03-2017 09:28 PM)TheEagleWay Wrote:  His offense was awful to watch without Jason Foster.

Screen left.. screen right.. dive.. punt.

That was 2009 when the offensive line could not block anything. We had a competent offense in 2007 and in 2008 we had an offense that could move the ball but turned it over constantly.

(10-04-2017 09:03 AM)EigenEagle Wrote:  

(10-03-2017 09:28 PM)TheEagleWay Wrote:  His offense was awful to watch without Jason Foster.

Screen left.. screen right.. dive.. punt.

That was 2009 when the offensive line could not block anything. We had a competent offense in 2007 and in 2008 we had an offense that could move the ball but turned it over constantly.

With some hysterical turnovers... DBs would jump the screens because the offense was so predictable at times.