We have a ton of coaching threads and most of them focus on the people themselves. However, there are a lot of things in this search that give me concerns. These are my top 3:

-No head coaching experience. This is a big one for me. If we are looking at a guy that has none, I am very concerned about his ability to be a head coach. A great coordinator doesn't mean a guy will be a great coach. We are at the top of the FCS and a program that has been referred to as one of the elite jobs. We shouldn't be a learning tool. We need a guy that knows how to be a head coach and a good one.

-Lack of success. This one goes without saying. This doesn't mean only W's and L's. What was he able to do with what he was responsible for in the past? If he was an offensive coordinator at one time, was his offense a success? While Withers had coaching experience and was a part of a national contender, his defense was suspect. While he was co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State he was in charge of the secondary, which was the weakest part of that defense.

-Over-emphasis on JMU ties. This one concerns me quite a lot. Nothing wrong with getting a guy with ties to JMU, but I get this bad feeling too much weight may be put on it. Will a guy with less experience get the nod over another more experienced coach purely due to the guys previous ties to JMU? I have a bad feeling its going to be a guy with a JMU connection but with no experience as a head coach. That terrifies me.

Agree? Disagree? I'd like to know your thoughts in addition to any other concerns.

(12-03-2018 10:08 AM)JMad03 Wrote:  We have a ton of coaching threads and most of them focus on the people themselves. However, there are a lot of things in this search that give me concerns. These are my top 3:

-No head coaching experience. This is a big one for me. If we are looking at a guy that has none, I am very concerned about his ability to be a head coach. A great coordinator doesn't mean a guy will be a great coach.

-Lack of success. This one goes without saying. This doesn't mean only W's and L's. What was he able to do with what he was responsible for in the past? If he was an offensive coordinator at one time, was his offense a success? While Withers had coaching experience and was a part of a national contender, his defense was suspect. While he was co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State he was in charge of the secondary, which was the weakest part of that defense.

-Over-emphasis on JMU ties. This one concerns me quite a lot. Nothing wrong with getting a guy with ties to JMU, but I get this bad feeling too much weight may be put on it. Will a guy with less experience get the nod over another more experienced coach purely due to the guys previous ties to JMU? I have a bad feeling its going to be a guy with a JMU connection but with no experience as a head coach. That terrifies me.

Agree? Disagree? I'd like to know your thoughts in addition to any other concerns.

Yes.

(12-03-2018 10:08 AM)JMad03 Wrote:  We have a ton of coaching threads and most of them focus on the people themselves. However, there are a lot of things in this search that give me concerns. These are my top 3:

-No head coaching experience. This is a big one for me. If we are looking at a guy that has none, I am very concerned about his ability to be a head coach. A great coordinator doesn't mean a guy will be a great coach.

-Lack of success. This one goes without saying. This doesn't mean only W's and L's. What was he able to do with what he was responsible for in the past? If he was an offensive coordinator at one time, was his offense a success? While Withers had coaching experience and was a part of a national contender, his defense was suspect. While he was co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State he was in charge of the secondary, which was the weakest part of that defense.

-Over-emphasis on JMU ties. This one concerns me quite a lot. Nothing wrong with getting a guy with ties to JMU, but I get this bad feeling too much weight may be put on it. Will a guy with less experience get the nod over another more experienced coach purely due to the guys previous ties to JMU? I have a bad feeling its going to be a guy with a JMU connection but with no experience as a head coach. That terrifies me.

Agree? Disagree? I'd like to know your thoughts in addition to any other concerns.

This happens at every institution and is not unique to JMU. A year ago due to my ties to Tennessee, I followed their HC search to replace Butch Jones. Come to think of it, everybody followed it because the AD (since fired) was a complete moron and played this thing out in public.

Once Jones was fired, everybody threw their pet name out and it all starts with drumming up every former Vol FB player who could come back and regain glory for his alma mater.

My alma mater, Georgia Tech, last week saw Paul Johnson retire. Within 2 hours the message boards lit up with every former Jacket known (maybe some even deceased) who could come back and be the head coach.

Thank goodness the vast majority of folks on fanboy message boards have no clue about what goes on and have no inputs into the process. Talking about it for fun makes sense, though some folks take it way too far. I know a few GT folks years ago who swore off support for the program just because their pet name wasn't hired. That's dumb.

Bourne has a pretty good track record hiring head coaches across multiple athletic programs, not just football where he's done pretty good there too. I have faith in him, the search firm he's contracted with, and the quality of candidates who likely will pursue the job.

We're in a position of strength all the way around.

(12-03-2018 10:09 AM)DoubleDogDare Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 10:08 AM)JMad03 Wrote:  We have a ton of coaching threads and most of them focus on the people themselves. However, there are a lot of things in this search that give me concerns. These are my top 3:

-No head coaching experience. This is a big one for me. If we are looking at a guy that has none, I am very concerned about his ability to be a head coach. A great coordinator doesn't mean a guy will be a great coach.

-Lack of success. This one goes without saying. This doesn't mean only W's and L's. What was he able to do with what he was responsible for in the past? If he was an offensive coordinator at one time, was his offense a success? While Withers had coaching experience and was a part of a national contender, his defense was suspect. While he was co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State he was in charge of the secondary, which was the weakest part of that defense.

-Over-emphasis on JMU ties. This one concerns me quite a lot. Nothing wrong with getting a guy with ties to JMU, but I get this bad feeling too much weight may be put on it. Will a guy with less experience get the nod over another more experienced coach purely due to the guys previous ties to JMU? I have a bad feeling its going to be a guy with a JMU connection but with no experience as a head coach. That terrifies me.

Agree? Disagree? I'd like to know your thoughts in addition to any other concerns.

Yes.

Agree

My biggest concern is the over all flagship coaches selected and managed by this administration (King & Rose)

- Houston = major success

- Withers = not a bad hire but he never won a big game in 2 years. Would of likely been fired a couple years after Vad left.

- Lou Rowe = inexcusable hire

- Brady = good hire that plateaued and the school kept him too long.

- Keener = bad hire

- Dillard = kept him way too long.....

That is what concerns me. People are thinking it is easy to maintain what we have.

Now if you want to go half full - look at all the other programs, but the success of the major programs have not been that great.

(12-03-2018 10:26 AM)Dukester Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 10:09 AM)DoubleDogDare Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 10:08 AM)JMad03 Wrote:  We have a ton of coaching threads and most of them focus on the people themselves. However, there are a lot of things in this search that give me concerns. These are my top 3:

-No head coaching experience. This is a big one for me. If we are looking at a guy that has none, I am very concerned about his ability to be a head coach. A great coordinator doesn't mean a guy will be a great coach.

-Lack of success. This one goes without saying. This doesn't mean only W's and L's. What was he able to do with what he was responsible for in the past? If he was an offensive coordinator at one time, was his offense a success? While Withers had coaching experience and was a part of a national contender, his defense was suspect. While he was co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State he was in charge of the secondary, which was the weakest part of that defense.

-Over-emphasis on JMU ties. This one concerns me quite a lot. Nothing wrong with getting a guy with ties to JMU, but I get this bad feeling too much weight may be put on it. Will a guy with less experience get the nod over another more experienced coach purely due to the guys previous ties to JMU? I have a bad feeling its going to be a guy with a JMU connection but with no experience as a head coach. That terrifies me.

Agree? Disagree? I'd like to know your thoughts in addition to any other concerns.

Yes.

Agree

My biggest concern is the over all flagship coaches selected and managed by this administration (King & Rose)

- Houston = major success

- Withers = not a bad hire but he never won a big game in 2 years. Would of likely been fired a couple years after Vad left.

- Lou Rowe = inexcusable hire

- Brady = good hire that plateaued and the school kept him too long.

- Keener = bad hire

- Dillard = kept him way too long.....

That is what concerns me. People are thinking it is easy to maintain what we have.

Now if you want to go half full - look at all the other programs, but the success of the major programs have not been that great.

I certainly understand your concerns, and why you feel the way you do. I think we have a couple things in our favor this go around:

1) we are fairly well established as a top FCS job now so we should be attractive to many coaches.
2) we now have established a certain expectation level within the University and our fan base, so there is intense focus right now.
3) we have somewhat broken the ceiling on pay scale- I don’t believe we will be looking to get a good “value” this time around. Not saying that we will offer MH money out of the shoot, but we now have a mechanism in place to be more aggressive.

Definitely agree on concern 2 (why hire someone associated with a losing program?) and concern 3 (don't force a hire of a JMU alum IF they are not qualified), but could go either way with concern 1. Agreed, it would be nice to hire someone with head coaching experience, but at what cost? If it's someone from a relative peer school, like Elon, Maine or even Delaware (not suggesting Rocco), then that makes sense because they've worked in a similar situation. You could even make an argument for someone with previous higher level experience like London (with his UVA stint). But I'd also have concerns if they required a head coach, but his experience is at a significantly lower level than where JMU is. At the extreme, people have mentioned the Randolph Macon (D3), Va State (D2) and even Austin Peay (weaker FCS) coaches. Even though they might have experience as the head coach, the environment and culture they are coming from is significantly less competitive. That could impact getting an experienced staff to less recruiting connections or even hype.
On the flip side, take the OC from Clemson. Although he may not have head coaching experience, you could argue that he's been involved and potentially 2nd-4th in charge of an extremely successful and high profile program. Maybe through those experiences, he could bring a lot to the table in terms of bringing a well run program, innovative schemes and a much more energetic recruiting message. Ex. - I've coached in the college football FBS championship the last 3 years and am excited to bring JMU back to the FCS championship where they belong VERSUS I coached in the ODAC where we bused 10 hours to win our first D3 playoff game in school history. I'm not busting on Arruza or Randolph Macon either as I've met him and he's a good coach and leader, but my point is he's at a much smaller scale and it could be a risk to take someone from too small of a level just to ensure they have head coaching experience.

Point is head coaching experience could go either way. Although it would be nice, you also don't want to absolutely require it if it limits our options to people who may be overwhelmed with trying to be a top 5 FCS program.

(12-03-2018 10:26 AM)Dukester Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 10:09 AM)DoubleDogDare Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 10:08 AM)JMad03 Wrote:  We have a ton of coaching threads and most of them focus on the people themselves. However, there are a lot of things in this search that give me concerns. These are my top 3:

-No head coaching experience. This is a big one for me. If we are looking at a guy that has none, I am very concerned about his ability to be a head coach. A great coordinator doesn't mean a guy will be a great coach.

-Lack of success. This one goes without saying. This doesn't mean only W's and L's. What was he able to do with what he was responsible for in the past? If he was an offensive coordinator at one time, was his offense a success? While Withers had coaching experience and was a part of a national contender, his defense was suspect. While he was co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State he was in charge of the secondary, which was the weakest part of that defense.

-Over-emphasis on JMU ties. This one concerns me quite a lot. Nothing wrong with getting a guy with ties to JMU, but I get this bad feeling too much weight may be put on it. Will a guy with less experience get the nod over another more experienced coach purely due to the guys previous ties to JMU? I have a bad feeling its going to be a guy with a JMU connection but with no experience as a head coach. That terrifies me.

Agree? Disagree? I'd like to know your thoughts in addition to any other concerns.

Yes.

Agree

My biggest concern is the over all flagship coaches selected and managed by this administration (King & Rose)

- Houston = major success

- Withers = not a bad hire but he never won a big game in 2 years. Would of likely been fired a couple years after Vad left.

- Lou Rowe = inexcusable hire

- Brady = good hire that plateaued and the school kept him too long.

- Keener = bad hire

- Dillard = kept him way too long.....

That is what concerns me. People are thinking it is easy to maintain what we have.

Now if you want to go half full - look at all the other programs, but the success of the major programs have not been that great.

That’s somewhat fair, though final jury may still be out on LR.

Also not sure how many of those hires Bourne was responsible for, and seem to recall that Withers was recommended/pushed by someone else like a board member or booster.

Good news (to me) is the search firm is the one that brought us Houston, and Cignetti to Elon. CarrSports was involved with the Withers hire.

This is definitely a “don’t screw it up” hire, we’ve all seen what that did to Basketball, it can be hard to recover after a couple bad hires.

The other good news though is even with a not great coach, we would still likely have winning seasons for a while.

(12-03-2018 10:59 AM)JMURocks Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 10:26 AM)Dukester Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 10:09 AM)DoubleDogDare Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 10:08 AM)JMad03 Wrote:  We have a ton of coaching threads and most of them focus on the people themselves. However, there are a lot of things in this search that give me concerns. These are my top 3:

-No head coaching experience. This is a big one for me. If we are looking at a guy that has none, I am very concerned about his ability to be a head coach. A great coordinator doesn't mean a guy will be a great coach.

-Lack of success. This one goes without saying. This doesn't mean only W's and L's. What was he able to do with what he was responsible for in the past? If he was an offensive coordinator at one time, was his offense a success? While Withers had coaching experience and was a part of a national contender, his defense was suspect. While he was co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State he was in charge of the secondary, which was the weakest part of that defense.

-Over-emphasis on JMU ties. This one concerns me quite a lot. Nothing wrong with getting a guy with ties to JMU, but I get this bad feeling too much weight may be put on it. Will a guy with less experience get the nod over another more experienced coach purely due to the guys previous ties to JMU? I have a bad feeling its going to be a guy with a JMU connection but with no experience as a head coach. That terrifies me.

Agree? Disagree? I'd like to know your thoughts in addition to any other concerns.

Yes.

Agree

My biggest concern is the over all flagship coaches selected and managed by this administration (King & Rose)

- Houston = major success

- Withers = not a bad hire but he never won a big game in 2 years. Would of likely been fired a couple years after Vad left.

- Lou Rowe = inexcusable hire

- Brady = good hire that plateaued and the school kept him too long.

- Keener = bad hire

- Dillard = kept him way too long.....

That is what concerns me. People are thinking it is easy to maintain what we have.

Now if you want to go half full - look at all the other programs, but the success of the major programs have not been that great.

That’s somewhat fair, though final jury may still be out on LR.

Also not sure how many of those hires Bourne was responsible for, and seem to recall that Withers was recommended/pushed by someone else like a board member or booster.

Good news (to me) is the search firm is the one that brought us Houston, and Cignetti to Elon. CarrSports was involved with the Withers hire.

This is definitely a “don’t screw it up” hire, we’ve all seen what that did to Basketball, it can be hard to recover after a couple bad hires.

The other good news though is even with a not great coach, we would still likely have winning seasons for a while.

That is good news. I remember the CarrSports search has much more debated than the one that got us Houston. I didn't know that Cignetti to Elon was also due to the same search firm.
I do have a question about that, though (not sure who can answer this). At the end of their search, how many names do they normally provide? Is it just the single guy or a list of a few and do they prioritize? I seem to recall a few last time but I don't know if they were all due to the search or just people interested that got an interview.

1. head coaching experience is not necessary. The typical path to a head coach is from a coordinators position. Looke at Dabo Sweeney, Kirby Smart and many more. First and foremost you are hiring a man and a philosophy. JMU puts a lot of weight on character, as they should. I am not suggesting just any coordinator but lack of head coaching experience is defintely not a requirement.

2. Previous record. Houston was 14-11 at Citadel. Not really a stellar record. Many on here would have discounted his DII experience because it wasn't at our level.

3. JMU ties or recruiting ties to the mid-atlantic are not required either. Any good head coach would use his first year to transfer the relationship with our former staff to his staff. Character wins in recruiting.

(12-03-2018 11:26 AM)AllForDukes Wrote:  1. head coaching experience is not necessary. The typical path to a head coach is from a coordinators position. Looke at Dabo Sweeney, Kirby Smart and many more. First and foremost you are hiring a man and a philosophy. JMU puts a lot of weight on character, as they should. I am not suggesting just any coordinator but lack of head coaching experience is defintely not a requirement.

2. Previous record. Houston was 14-11 at Citadel. Not really a stellar record. Many on here would have discounted his DII experience because it wasn't at our level.

3. JMU ties or recruiting ties to the mid-atlantic are not required either. Any good head coach would use his first year to transfer the relationship with our former staff to his staff. Character wins in recruiting.

This part I really question, as the prior staff would have no real motivation to cooperate. In our case, the prior staff will likely have some overlap in the recruits they are targeting, and may even try to flip some of ours.

I think it is important that a HC bring in assistants with strong recruiting experience along the east coast. Not convinced a west coast staff could come in and immediately establish trust and relationships with all the high schools.

Is this the most important hire Bourne will have made to this point? I think you could argue it is. There's a lot more room to fall than there is to improve. Whoever gets the job is going to be expected to at least get to the semifinals, incredible expectations for a first year coach. It's kind of how I feel about whoever eventually gets the Alabama job after Saban leaves. Can you imagine the pressure?

Houston and his staff do not have to cooperate. Any new head coach that cannot pick up where Houston left off is not the candidate for us. JMU is a highly attractive destination for high quality athletes. That does not change until the new staff screws up like Withers did. Trust comes from doing what you say you are going to do, nowhere else. A high character head coach will be able to handle that speed bump.

(12-03-2018 10:41 AM)TXGiant Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 10:26 AM)Dukester Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 10:09 AM)DoubleDogDare Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 10:08 AM)JMad03 Wrote:  We have a ton of coaching threads and most of them focus on the people themselves. However, there are a lot of things in this search that give me concerns. These are my top 3:

-No head coaching experience. This is a big one for me. If we are looking at a guy that has none, I am very concerned about his ability to be a head coach. A great coordinator doesn't mean a guy will be a great coach.

-Lack of success. This one goes without saying. This doesn't mean only W's and L's. What was he able to do with what he was responsible for in the past? If he was an offensive coordinator at one time, was his offense a success? While Withers had coaching experience and was a part of a national contender, his defense was suspect. While he was co-defensive coordinator at Ohio State he was in charge of the secondary, which was the weakest part of that defense.

-Over-emphasis on JMU ties. This one concerns me quite a lot. Nothing wrong with getting a guy with ties to JMU, but I get this bad feeling too much weight may be put on it. Will a guy with less experience get the nod over another more experienced coach purely due to the guys previous ties to JMU? I have a bad feeling its going to be a guy with a JMU connection but with no experience as a head coach. That terrifies me.

Agree? Disagree? I'd like to know your thoughts in addition to any other concerns.

Yes.

Agree

My biggest concern is the over all flagship coaches selected and managed by this administration (King & Rose)

- Houston = major success

- Withers = not a bad hire but he never won a big game in 2 years. Would of likely been fired a couple years after Vad left.

- Lou Rowe = inexcusable hire

- Brady = good hire that plateaued and the school kept him too long.

- Keener = bad hire

- Dillard = kept him way too long.....

That is what concerns me. People are thinking it is easy to maintain what we have.

Now if you want to go half full - look at all the other programs, but the success of the major programs have not been that great.

I certainly understand your concerns, and why you feel the way you do. I think we have a couple things in our favor this go around:

1) we are fairly well established as a top FCS job now so we should be attractive to many coaches.
2) we now have established a certain expectation level within the University and our fan base, so there is intense focus right now.
3) we have somewhat broken the ceiling on pay scale- I don’t believe we will be looking to get a good “value” this time around. Not saying that we will offer MH money out of the Chute, but we now have a mechanism in place to be more aggressive.

FIFY

(12-03-2018 11:50 AM)CarRamrod Wrote:  Is this the most important hire Bourne will have made to this point? I think you could argue it is. There's a lot more room to fall than there is to improve. Whoever gets the job is going to be expected to at least get to the semifinals, incredible expectations for a first year coach. It's kind of how I feel about whoever eventually gets the Alabama job after Saban leaves. Can you imagine the pressure?

Yes one bad hire can F up decades of growth. Look at what Mike London did to UVA. They were a perennial bowl and top 25 team for two decades under Welsh/Groh and still respectable for the most part when Groh left. London almost immediately turned them into a dumpster fire that they're still trying to dig out of.

I'm asking this for some of the older fans who know the history well.

Wasn't Mike Houston our first football head coach hire that had previous (outright) head coaching experience of at least one year?

Withers - One interim year at UNC. Otherwise only an assistant.
Matthews - I believe he was only an assistant prior to coming to JMU.

Wood and further back are before my time, so I can't speak for them.

edit: googled it.
Challace McMillin - first and only coaching job for him.
Joe Purzycki - Delaware State HC for four seasons, 1981-1984 before coming to JMU. 21-21-1 record at DSU. Teams improved each year though in # of wins.
Rip Scherer - only an assistant before JMU. Arizona OC just before.
Alex Wood - only an assistant before JMU. Wake Forest OC/QB coach before.
Mickey Matthews - only an assistant before JMU. Georgia DB/LB coach before.
Everett Withers - one season (2011) as interim HC at North Carolina. Ohio State Associate HC/Co-DC/Safeties coach before.
Mike Houston - five seasons of HC experience at two schools (Lenoir-Rhyne and the Citadel). HC at the Citadel for two seasons right before.

Other than Joe Purzycki, Mike Houston was the only coach hired immediately from a head coaching job at another university the previous season. Only the third HC with any HC experience and did have the most combined of any coach (five previous seasons at two schools).

The expectation that we get someone that is currently a head coach only has a one coach streak currently. Just saying.

(12-03-2018 11:50 AM)CarRamrod Wrote:  Is this the most important hire Bourne will have made to this point? I think you could argue it is. There's a lot more room to fall than there is to improve. Whoever gets the job is going to be expected to at least get to the semifinals, incredible expectations for a first year coach. It's kind of how I feel about whoever eventually gets the Alabama job after Saban leaves. Can you imagine the pressure?

This hire is incredibly important, but I'd argue the MBB HC hire is (and has been) more critical to the school but they just don't recognize it. Football is peaking at the FCS level, there's only so much more we can do in terms of awareness, alumni engagement, etc. We've had great support even without a NC finals or title (first GameDay came 10 years removed from a NC).

MBB has been 20 years of wasted opportunity that can generate far more profit and visibility for the school. We've lost millions in the attendance drop alone. It would also lead to quicker inclusion discussions into the AAC.

(12-03-2018 01:12 PM)2Buck Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 11:50 AM)CarRamrod Wrote:  Is this the most important hire Bourne will have made to this point? I think you could argue it is. There's a lot more room to fall than there is to improve. Whoever gets the job is going to be expected to at least get to the semifinals, incredible expectations for a first year coach. It's kind of how I feel about whoever eventually gets the Alabama job after Saban leaves. Can you imagine the pressure?

This hire is incredibly important, but I'd argue the MBB HC hire is (and has been) more critical to the school but they just don't recognize it. Football is peaking at the FCS level, there's only so much more we can do in terms of awareness, alumni engagement, etc. We've had great support even without a NC finals or title (first GameDay came 10 years removed from a NC).

MBB has been 20 years of wasted opportunity that can generate far more profit and visibility for the school. We've lost millions in the attendance drop alone. It would also lead to quicker inclusion discussions into the AAC.

Good points.

Brady was not a good hire.

Litigation followed immediately, he brought in Marist recruits that were not CAA quality, One of them threw a punch at Brady during a game.

He began disparaging Bourne and Alger within weeks of his arrival (as did Withers).

He tried to get a convicted felon into JMU

His record of failure speaks for itself

(12-03-2018 01:10 PM)Potomac Wrote:  I'm asking this for some of the older fans who know the history well.

Wasn't Mike Houston our first football head coach hire that had previous (outright) head coaching experience of at least one year?

Withers - One interim year at UNC. Otherwise only an assistant.
Matthews - I believe he was only an assistant prior to coming to JMU.

Wood and further back are before my time, so I can't speak for them.

edit: googled it.
Challace McMillin - first and only coaching job for him.
Joe Purzycki - Delaware State HC for four seasons, 1981-1984 before coming to JMU. 21-21-1 record at DSU. Teams improved each year though in # of wins.
Rip Scherer - only an assistant before JMU. Arizona OC just before.
Alex Wood - only an assistant before JMU. Wake Forest OC/QB coach before.
Mickey Matthews - only an assistant before JMU. Georgia DB/LB coach before.
Everett Withers - one season (2011) as interim HC at North Carolina. Ohio State Associate HC/Co-DC/Safeties coach before.
Mike Houston - five seasons of HC experience at two schools (Lenoir-Rhyne and the Citadel). HC at the Citadel for two seasons right before.

Other than Joe Purzycki, Mike Houston was the only coach hired immediately from a head coaching job at another university the previous season. Only the third HC with any HC experience and did have the most combined of any coach (five previous seasons at two schools).

The expectation that we get someone that is currently a head coach only has a one coach streak currently. Just saying.

Good list. For me, and actually I think your list illustrates my point; we're past the point of being a starting head coach experiment. We need experience.

(12-03-2018 01:32 PM)Deez Nuts Wrote:  

(12-03-2018 01:10 PM)Potomac Wrote:  I'm asking this for some of the older fans who know the history well.

Wasn't Mike Houston our first football head coach hire that had previous (outright) head coaching experience of at least one year?

Withers - One interim year at UNC. Otherwise only an assistant.
Matthews - I believe he was only an assistant prior to coming to JMU.

Wood and further back are before my time, so I can't speak for them.

edit: googled it.
Challace McMillin - first and only coaching job for him.
Joe Purzycki - Delaware State HC for four seasons, 1981-1984 before coming to JMU. 21-21-1 record at DSU. Teams improved each year though in # of wins.
Rip Scherer - only an assistant before JMU. Arizona OC just before.
Alex Wood - only an assistant before JMU. Wake Forest OC/QB coach before.
Mickey Matthews - only an assistant before JMU. Georgia DB/LB coach before.
Everett Withers - one season (2011) as interim HC at North Carolina. Ohio State Associate HC/Co-DC/Safeties coach before.
Mike Houston - five seasons of HC experience at two schools (Lenoir-Rhyne and the Citadel). HC at the Citadel for two seasons right before.

Other than Joe Purzycki, Mike Houston was the only coach hired immediately from a head coaching job at another university the previous season. Only the third HC with any HC experience and did have the most combined of any coach (five previous seasons at two schools).

The expectation that we get someone that is currently a head coach only has a one coach streak currently. Just saying.

Good list. For me, and actually I think your list illustrates my point; we're past the point of being a starting head coach experiment. We need experience.

I'd say the Coordinator vs. HC discussion is kind of like what makes a better President, a Senator or a Governor. We've seen enough good and bad from both for me to say it is more about the man than the title he brings with him. The only thing presidential politics have proven is that a sitting VP usually does not have a good presidency (i.e. we don't want to promote from within). Even when they are good it takes decades for everyone to agree how much they really did contribute (e.g. 41)