There's an article in The Athletic about the success coaches from DII, DIII and NAIA have had at the P5 level and why more of them aren't hired. It contains a bunch of great quotes from Jerry Kill. It also has this doozy from Lance Leipold:

Leipold remembers that despite his dominance at Wisconsin-Whitewater (the program went 109-6) and despite being just 90 minutes away from one of the better MAC jobs in the country in Northern Illinois, he was never a candidate when the job opened.

“Couldn’t get a sniff,” he said, laughing. “I had to go out to the furthest job east at Buffalo to get the next one.”

Timing-wise, he has to be referring to when Rod Carey got hired here.

(02-28-2024 09:41 PM)NIU1981 Wrote:  There's an article in The Athletic about the success coaches from DII, DIII and NAIA have had at the P5 level and why more of them aren't hired. It contains a bunch of great quotes from Jerry Kill. It also has this doozy from Lance Leipold:

Leipold remembers that despite his dominance at Wisconsin-Whitewater (the program went 109-6) and despite being just 90 minutes away from one of the better MAC jobs in the country in Northern Illinois, he was never a candidate when the job opened.

“Couldn’t get a sniff,” he said, laughing. “I had to go out to the furthest job east at Buffalo to get the next one.”

Timing-wise, he has to be referring to when Rod Carey got hired here.

That's amazing. He did a great job turning around that Buffalo program, as well as shaping Kansas into a legitimate player in the Big Twelve. But I think we did fine without him.

What's his record against Rod Carey? How many winning teams, divisional titles, MAC championships and bowl appearances did they have when they went head to head? I know there are issues on this board about Rod Carey turning the program back a page, but he was better in his MAC tenure than Leipold was in his at Buffalo.

(02-28-2024 09:41 PM)NIU1981 Wrote:  There's an article in The Athletic about the success coaches from DII, DIII and NAIA have had at the P5 level and why more of them aren't hired. It contains a bunch of great quotes from Jerry Kill. It also has this doozy from Lance Leipold:

Leipold remembers that despite his dominance at Wisconsin-Whitewater (the program went 109-6) and despite being just 90 minutes away from one of the better MAC jobs in the country in Northern Illinois, he was never a candidate when the job opened.

“Couldn’t get a sniff,” he said, laughing. “I had to go out to the furthest job east at Buffalo to get the next one.”

Timing-wise, he has to be referring to when Rod Carey got hired here.

He's a great coach. Management was not thinking ahead or outside the box, had no contingency in place when DD left. Carey was a more than acceptable coach, His hiring was not a mistake which is the primary goal in hiring. He won a MAC title which is what I like.

(02-29-2024 12:25 PM)NIU05 Wrote:  

(02-28-2024 09:41 PM)NIU1981 Wrote:  There's an article in The Athletic about the success coaches from DII, DIII and NAIA have had at the P5 level and why more of them aren't hired. It contains a bunch of great quotes from Jerry Kill. It also has this doozy from Lance Leipold:

Leipold remembers that despite his dominance at Wisconsin-Whitewater (the program went 109-6) and despite being just 90 minutes away from one of the better MAC jobs in the country in Northern Illinois, he was never a candidate when the job opened.

“Couldn’t get a sniff,” he said, laughing. “I had to go out to the furthest job east at Buffalo to get the next one.”

Timing-wise, he has to be referring to when Rod Carey got hired here.

He's a great coach. Management was not thinking ahead or outside the box, had no contingency in place when DD left. Carey was a more than acceptable coach, His hiring was not a mistake which is the primary goal in hiring. He won a MAC title which is what I like.

Carey had a Ferrari…and managed to park it in the garage without dinging it…I mean I guess that’s a *good job*. Could have been a bit better with it but he didn’t totally destroy anything. Hated his offense. Then I saw hammocks offense. So I don’t hate it as much as I did.

(02-29-2024 12:30 PM)BigChilla Wrote:  

(02-29-2024 12:25 PM)NIU05 Wrote:  

(02-28-2024 09:41 PM)NIU1981 Wrote:  There's an article in The Athletic about the success coaches from DII, DIII and NAIA have had at the P5 level and why more of them aren't hired. It contains a bunch of great quotes from Jerry Kill. It also has this doozy from Lance Leipold:

Leipold remembers that despite his dominance at Wisconsin-Whitewater (the program went 109-6) and despite being just 90 minutes away from one of the better MAC jobs in the country in Northern Illinois, he was never a candidate when the job opened.

“Couldn’t get a sniff,” he said, laughing. “I had to go out to the furthest job east at Buffalo to get the next one.”

Timing-wise, he has to be referring to when Rod Carey got hired here.

He's a great coach. Management was not thinking ahead or outside the box, had no contingency in place when DD left. Carey was a more than acceptable coach, His hiring was not a mistake which is the primary goal in hiring. He won a MAC title which is what I like.

Carey had a Ferrari…and managed to park it in the garage without dinging it…I mean I guess that’s a *good job*. Could have been a bit better with it but he didn’t totally destroy anything. Hated his offense. Then I saw hammocks offense. So I don’t hate it as much as I did.

Play MAC Games, Win MAC prizes. He did what he could with MAC level talent.

(02-29-2024 12:30 PM)BigChilla Wrote:  

(02-29-2024 12:25 PM)NIU05 Wrote:  

(02-28-2024 09:41 PM)NIU1981 Wrote:  There's an article in The Athletic about the success coaches from DII, DIII and NAIA have had at the P5 level and why more of them aren't hired. It contains a bunch of great quotes from Jerry Kill. It also has this doozy from Lance Leipold:

Leipold remembers that despite his dominance at Wisconsin-Whitewater (the program went 109-6) and despite being just 90 minutes away from one of the better MAC jobs in the country in Northern Illinois, he was never a candidate when the job opened.

“Couldn’t get a sniff,” he said, laughing. “I had to go out to the furthest job east at Buffalo to get the next one.”

Timing-wise, he has to be referring to when Rod Carey got hired here.

He's a great coach. Management was not thinking ahead or outside the box, had no contingency in place when DD left. Carey was a more than acceptable coach, His hiring was not a mistake which is the primary goal in hiring. He won a MAC title which is what I like.

Carey had a Ferrari…and managed to park it in the garage without dinging it…I mean I guess that’s a *good job*. Could have been a bit better with it but he didn’t totally destroy anything. Hated his offense. Then I saw hammocks offense. So I don’t hate it as much as I did.

A Ferrari? We have completely different idea of what a Ferrari runs. NIU is under capitalized, a boring campus and not a great school. Everything that has been produced by this program has been through blue collar hard work doing it the hard way, finding parts to run the machine. This is not getting behind the wheel, put on your sunglasses and go 200 mph.

Carey was a status quo hire. Almost like we didn't want to upset the apple cart and we just hired a guy within the program who didn't have the credentials or experience to get the job otherwise.

NIU could have probably had their pick of a very good litter going into an Orange Bowl invite and we "settled" with an unqualified hire.

(02-29-2024 08:56 PM)NIU05 Wrote:  

(02-29-2024 12:30 PM)BigChilla Wrote:  

(02-29-2024 12:25 PM)NIU05 Wrote:  

(02-28-2024 09:41 PM)NIU1981 Wrote:  There's an article in The Athletic about the success coaches from DII, DIII and NAIA have had at the P5 level and why more of them aren't hired. It contains a bunch of great quotes from Jerry Kill. It also has this doozy from Lance Leipold:

Leipold remembers that despite his dominance at Wisconsin-Whitewater (the program went 109-6) and despite being just 90 minutes away from one of the better MAC jobs in the country in Northern Illinois, he was never a candidate when the job opened.

“Couldn’t get a sniff,” he said, laughing. “I had to go out to the furthest job east at Buffalo to get the next one.”

Timing-wise, he has to be referring to when Rod Carey got hired here.

He's a great coach. Management was not thinking ahead or outside the box, had no contingency in place when DD left. Carey was a more than acceptable coach, His hiring was not a mistake which is the primary goal in hiring. He won a MAC title which is what I like.

Carey had a Ferrari…and managed to park it in the garage without dinging it…I mean I guess that’s a *good job*. Could have been a bit better with it but he didn’t totally destroy anything. Hated his offense. Then I saw hammocks offense. So I don’t hate it as much as I did.

A Ferrari? We have completely different idea of what a Ferrari runs. NIU is under capitalized, a boring campus and not a great school. Everything that has been produced by this program has been through blue collar hard work doing it the hard way, finding parts to run the machine. This is not getting behind the wheel, put on your sunglasses and go 200 mph.

Let's be real with ourselves. That was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Carey could have repeated if he didn't lay an egg against Bowling Green the following year. And if a combination of Matt Johnson and Alex Bayer didn't murder our defense.

We had the players to be good or great the following year. And we had a pretty great season at 12-2, defeating Iowa, Purdue and Jimmy G at EIU. But we weren't the Ferrari for sustainable success. Heck Ferraris need tons of maintenance to be the supercharge machines that we are. And that we've never had, nor will we ever have.

If we wanted to be sustainable mid major powerhouses like App St, Boise State or San Diego State. We would have needed significant capital investment like these schools have had to attract fans and players to visit our little shrine to football. We would have needed to make remarkable hires to coaches and assistants, that would have given athletes their best shot at the NFL. We aren't a beach town, we're probably a meh party school nowadays, but we would have needed to facilitate and nurture student life.

I've said this before, but the father of an offensive lineman after Carey's last year told me that his son was disappointed in how pathetic student life was at NIU. Sitting at the terminal with him and a trustee, they both agreed that the Pikes hazing incident significantly changed how the school viewed party culture and thus were super strict on fraternities and kegs in the area. Kegs were a way of life when I was a student. The chaos of the party culture was what made my experience so enjoyable. I could share countless stories of the sheer wrecklessness that was partying at NIU, that attracted students like myself and friends from back home every weekend.

With that being said, we weren't a Ferrari. Not even close. We were a team of hardhat, lunch pail toting overachievers who punched a bunch of goliaths in the mouth a couple of times. If we had more support, we could have been sustainable successes like App, Boise and SDSU. But instead we hit it big once and had a decade of good teams after that. With the support we got, we are like Hawaii after June Jones left. Not even having soap in our soap dispensers....and now we are here, ranked second to or dead last in all of college football. Hawaii is only down there because they play in a track and field stadium.

And if you question, well, why didn't I support the maintenance on the Ferrari? Over the past decade, I've tried, I've failed and I've moved on. I come on here, I read, I comment and I watch games in person and on TV.

(03-01-2024 09:21 AM)HawaiiToNIU Wrote:  

(02-29-2024 08:56 PM)NIU05 Wrote:  

(02-29-2024 12:30 PM)BigChilla Wrote:  

(02-29-2024 12:25 PM)NIU05 Wrote:  

(02-28-2024 09:41 PM)NIU1981 Wrote:  There's an article in The Athletic about the success coaches from DII, DIII and NAIA have had at the P5 level and why more of them aren't hired. It contains a bunch of great quotes from Jerry Kill. It also has this doozy from Lance Leipold:

Leipold remembers that despite his dominance at Wisconsin-Whitewater (the program went 109-6) and despite being just 90 minutes away from one of the better MAC jobs in the country in Northern Illinois, he was never a candidate when the job opened.

“Couldn’t get a sniff,” he said, laughing. “I had to go out to the furthest job east at Buffalo to get the next one.”

Timing-wise, he has to be referring to when Rod Carey got hired here.

He's a great coach. Management was not thinking ahead or outside the box, had no contingency in place when DD left. Carey was a more than acceptable coach, His hiring was not a mistake which is the primary goal in hiring. He won a MAC title which is what I like.

Carey had a Ferrari…and managed to park it in the garage without dinging it…I mean I guess that’s a *good job*. Could have been a bit better with it but he didn’t totally destroy anything. Hated his offense. Then I saw hammocks offense. So I don’t hate it as much as I did.

A Ferrari? We have completely different idea of what a Ferrari runs. NIU is under capitalized, a boring campus and not a great school. Everything that has been produced by this program has been through blue collar hard work doing it the hard way, finding parts to run the machine. This is not getting behind the wheel, put on your sunglasses and go 200 mph.

Let's be real with ourselves. That was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Carey could have repeated if he didn't lay an egg against Bowling Green the following year. And if a combination of Matt Johnson and Alex Bayer didn't murder our defense.

We had the players to be good or great the following year. And we had a pretty great season at 12-2, defeating Iowa, Purdue and Jimmy G at EIU. But we weren't the Ferrari for sustainable success. Heck Ferraris need tons of maintenance to be the supercharge machines that we are. And that we've never had, nor will we ever have.

If we wanted to be sustainable mid major powerhouses like App St, Boise State or San Diego State. We would have needed significant capital investment like these schools have had to attract fans and players to visit our little shrine to football. We would have needed to make remarkable hires to coaches and assistants, that would have given athletes their best shot at the NFL. We aren't a beach town, we're probably a meh party school nowadays, but we would have needed to facilitate and nurture student life.

I've said this before, but the father of an offensive lineman after Carey's last year told me that his son was disappointed in how pathetic student life was at NIU. Sitting at the terminal with him and a trustee, they both agreed that the Pikes hazing incident significantly changed how the school viewed party culture and thus were super strict on fraternities and kegs in the area. Kegs were a way of life when I was a student. The chaos of the party culture was what made my experience so enjoyable. I could share countless stories of the sheer wrecklessness that was partying at NIU, that attracted students like myself and friends from back home every weekend.

With that being said, we weren't a Ferrari. Not even close. We were a team of hardhat, lunch pail toting overachievers who punched a bunch of goliaths in the mouth a couple of times. If we had more support, we could have been sustainable successes like App, Boise and SDSU. But instead we hit it big once and had a decade of good teams after that. With the support we got, we are like Hawaii after June Jones left. Not even having soap in our soap dispensers....and now we are here, ranked second to or dead last in all of college football. Hawaii is only down there because they play in a track and field stadium.

And if you question, well, why didn't I support the maintenance on the Ferrari? Over the past decade, I've tried, I've failed and I've moved on. I come on here, I read, I comment and I watch games in person and on TV.

Yea it seems like NIU went out of their way to make campus life less fun and destroy gameday.

From a MAC team's standpoint, we were basically a Ferrari. But the Ferrari was left out in the elements and degraded over time. When Carey left the Ferrari was still running but needed maintenance. At this point we're just trying to keep it road-worthy.