Might as well get this going as it is the biggest thang going now. Please give me your best coaching staff members and why. I'm talking Head Coach down every Position Coach. I know many on here will have there favorite HC or even favorite OC. Yes I know Huff and Staff is still here but atleast maybe this can be a way to relieve a little stress atleast. I know you all won't let me down on this one and I'm looking out of the box kind of coaching as well ( meaning any level of NCAA football ) not just a Marshall inner circle type of search I want a true pick the nation for the best we can get with WHAT MARSHALL CAN AFFORD. I.E CURRENT PAY per position Coach and head coach and so on.
Looking ahead for new football staff.
- Thread starter herdinmichigan
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1)Gary Goff. OC.Head coach Mcneese State. Was head coach at Valdosta State and won conference championship and wet to the finals Divison II. OC at WV Wesleyan. Familiar with state. Keep honing his skills could possibly fill HC position when open.
2)Rush Probst. OC/DCGreat High school coach. (Yes I know about his past.) Relates well with the kids and a great all around coach. Had a team at Colquit County Georgia where every senior on the team was offered a scholarship to play football.
3) Kerwin Bell. OC/DC. HC Western Carolina. D II championship. Son would probably follow. O coordinator.
2)Rush Probst. OC/DCGreat High school coach. (Yes I know about his past.) Relates well with the kids and a great all around coach. Had a team at Colquit County Georgia where every senior on the team was offered a scholarship to play football.
3) Kerwin Bell. OC/DC. HC Western Carolina. D II championship. Son would probably follow. O coordinator.
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No one that doesn't have HC experience on the D1 or FCS level.
I'd be ok with a successful OC. Just someone that has experience making in game adjustments and has been successful at it.
Sorry my friend but tired of just assistants only. We need Someone that had run the show, hired a staff. The last three hires have been average at best.
Coordinators aren't just assistants. Pruett was a DC and Donnan was an OC. The issue is we hired Doc who was an Assistant HC and Huff who was a RB coach. Neither were the ones creating the game plan or making the chess match decision during games.
That's our issue. We have a HC and an OC that have no experience in making adjustments. They don't have years under their belt calling plays to know what worked and what didn't in each situation.
It's why Huff looks completely confused on the sidelines when things start going sideways.
He screwed up badly promoting Trickett because he can't mask his inexperience with his OC's.
Preferably I'd perfer an OC over a DC as most DC are more inclined for a conservative ball control system.
Drew Cronic, Mercer head coach: Mercer is 6-1 atop the Southern Conference, averaging 41 ppg. Cronic is moving up the head-coaching ranks and been successful at NAIA, Div. II and now FCS levels. He's a known commodity in the southeastern states we recruit, and played for Jim Donnan at Georgia (for whatever that's worth).
RichRod, Jacksonville State head coach: Jax State is 6-1 atop the Atlantic Sun Conference, averaging 37 ppg. You all know his story. Enough time has passed that I think it'd be a nice fit. He's reinventing himself well at Jacksonville State, and Marshall would be a nice next step for him since a lot of P5 schools will shy away.
The more I think about it, the more I strongly believe it needs to be someone with FBS or FCS head coaching experience. We're not friggin' Charlotte or Akron. This is not a place that should provide on-the-job-training for a head coach. We're better than that. Our fanbase deserves better than that. We can attract quality candidates with head coaching experience.
RichRod, Jacksonville State head coach: Jax State is 6-1 atop the Atlantic Sun Conference, averaging 37 ppg. You all know his story. Enough time has passed that I think it'd be a nice fit. He's reinventing himself well at Jacksonville State, and Marshall would be a nice next step for him since a lot of P5 schools will shy away.
The more I think about it, the more I strongly believe it needs to be someone with FBS or FCS head coaching experience. We're not friggin' Charlotte or Akron. This is not a place that should provide on-the-job-training for a head coach. We're better than that. Our fanbase deserves better than that. We can attract quality candidates with head coaching experience.
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Agree. I guarantee that if we go with a career assistant, even a former OC or DC we will be in the same boat.
My preference would be an former D1HC or current FCS HC that was a strong OC in his career.
Forget about it boys..Huff will be here the rest of this year and at least next.
If I he can somehow pull off 6 wins this year some moronic school might just hire him because of the perceived glitter. Otherwise he is going nowhere soon. And that would include complete meltdowns this year and next.
If I he can somehow pull off 6 wins this year some moronic school might just hire him because of the perceived glitter. Otherwise he is going nowhere soon. And that would include complete meltdowns this year and next.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Snyder was a coordinator but it was a D co-cordinator for like 3/4's of a season
Great post and candidates. I found 3 candidates last week and will fill out my staff tomorrow. That's why I have said there was no real search done, if I can find more quality canidates on Google than surely a search committee can do better. These are guys that would be getting a huge payraise and an elite g5 job. The pool was stacked so we would have to hire Lambert. But someone stood up and said no and we give our beloved program over to a RB coach. In hindsight we should have just given Lambert a 1 year contract until the new president and AD was in place. If Lambert earned it great, but if not then we could have done a proper search with the new leaders.
He was. I'm not saying it's a slam dunk requirement, but that is just a notch under HC. You shouldn't go any lower than a DC or OC.
Being an OC or DC is far from just a “notch under being a head coach.” They are completely different skillsets. A person can be great at one of those and awful at the other. Look at some of our peer institutions who hired some of the hottest coordinators in college to be a head coach and look at the failure rate.
Wanting only somebody with HC experience, and only at the FBS/FCS levels at that, is shortsighted. There have been far too many first-time head coaches that were successful out of the gate. Our peer institutions have had recent success plucking guys from lower levels. Marshall doesn’t have the budget to be that selective to close off so many quality candidates nor should they.
There are plenty of quality candidates that Marshall would have a shot at getting even with a $900k salary. But there’s always a risk. The HC could be good at many of the job requirements, but one bad coordinator hire could ruin all of the good.
Everything being mentioned in this thread is what every single peer school of Marshall’s already does. And how does that work out for them? Some succeed but most have average results or are outright failures. So why continue doing what the majority of our peer institutions do that ends up failing the majority of the time?
If you want to be different from their results, you have to do things differently.
What isn’t as risky? Finding ways to intelligently mitigate those risks. How do you do that?
1) Find somebody who loves and wants to be at Marshall. That won’t be most outsiders.
2) Find somebody who has led programs before. And that doesn’t have to be football programs. Leading large organizations, regardless of the industry, requires the same skillset. If you have done it multiple times before in different organizations, you can replicate it with a college football program. But what about the intricacies of college football- the scheduling, the relationships to be able to recruit coaches, game strategy, etc.? Some random company bigwig won’t be able to do those things. Well, find somebody who knows the game . . . perhaps somebody who has spent time coaching at the collegiate level.
Want to know who used that strategy? Coastal Carolina. How’d that work out for Coastal? They hired a head coach who had been out of coaching for 30+ years and whose highest level coaching was in the Ivy League as an assistant. But what did he have? The leadership skillset to know how to build an organization and then hand it off to the next groomed head coach. He quickly turned what had been a very average FCS program for the previous few years into a top 5 power at the FCS level and then just as quickly had similar success at the G5 level.
3) Upon finding that candidate, he will have already succeeded financially. That, plus his love of Marshall, will allow Marshall to get him for $200k - $300k. What does that do? It allows the remaining budget set aside for the HC ($600k - $700k) to be split between coordinators. Now, instead of paying coordinators $175k, Marshall is able to pay each of them $500k+. Marshall could then hand-select the best coordinators in G5 or some of the best position coaches with coordinator potential from the top power schools. Want to stack just one stud coordinator? Keep a DC at the regular salary and give the $600k - $700k head coach savings plus the regular OC budgeted salary to just the OC. Now, you have an $850k+ budget to get an OC. For reference, Phil Longo makes $900k at UNC. Think he’d take a step down for two years to Marshall with the promise of the HC role after this HC gets Marshall back on track in two years? Possibly. If not, you have $850k+ to find yourself an absolute stud OC. That greatly mitigates the risk.
Wanting only somebody with HC experience, and only at the FBS/FCS levels at that, is shortsighted. There have been far too many first-time head coaches that were successful out of the gate. Our peer institutions have had recent success plucking guys from lower levels. Marshall doesn’t have the budget to be that selective to close off so many quality candidates nor should they.
There are plenty of quality candidates that Marshall would have a shot at getting even with a $900k salary. But there’s always a risk. The HC could be good at many of the job requirements, but one bad coordinator hire could ruin all of the good.
Everything being mentioned in this thread is what every single peer school of Marshall’s already does. And how does that work out for them? Some succeed but most have average results or are outright failures. So why continue doing what the majority of our peer institutions do that ends up failing the majority of the time?
If you want to be different from their results, you have to do things differently.
What isn’t as risky? Finding ways to intelligently mitigate those risks. How do you do that?
1) Find somebody who loves and wants to be at Marshall. That won’t be most outsiders.
2) Find somebody who has led programs before. And that doesn’t have to be football programs. Leading large organizations, regardless of the industry, requires the same skillset. If you have done it multiple times before in different organizations, you can replicate it with a college football program. But what about the intricacies of college football- the scheduling, the relationships to be able to recruit coaches, game strategy, etc.? Some random company bigwig won’t be able to do those things. Well, find somebody who knows the game . . . perhaps somebody who has spent time coaching at the collegiate level.
Want to know who used that strategy? Coastal Carolina. How’d that work out for Coastal? They hired a head coach who had been out of coaching for 30+ years and whose highest level coaching was in the Ivy League as an assistant. But what did he have? The leadership skillset to know how to build an organization and then hand it off to the next groomed head coach. He quickly turned what had been a very average FCS program for the previous few years into a top 5 power at the FCS level and then just as quickly had similar success at the G5 level.
3) Upon finding that candidate, he will have already succeeded financially. That, plus his love of Marshall, will allow Marshall to get him for $200k - $300k. What does that do? It allows the remaining budget set aside for the HC ($600k - $700k) to be split between coordinators. Now, instead of paying coordinators $175k, Marshall is able to pay each of them $500k+. Marshall could then hand-select the best coordinators in G5 or some of the best position coaches with coordinator potential from the top power schools. Want to stack just one stud coordinator? Keep a DC at the regular salary and give the $600k - $700k head coach savings plus the regular OC budgeted salary to just the OC. Now, you have an $850k+ budget to get an OC. For reference, Phil Longo makes $900k at UNC. Think he’d take a step down for two years to Marshall with the promise of the HC role after this HC gets Marshall back on track in two years? Possibly. If not, you have $850k+ to find yourself an absolute stud OC. That greatly mitigates the risk.
JC Price? Tony Peterson? Maybe not as successful as you’d imagine, but I just don’t think Marshall has the resources to get anybody other than a diamond in the rough.
I still think the coolest would be Byron Leftwich, but that’s not realistic.
Maybe simpler to do would be Huff putting a new offensive staff together. Just seems like everything fell apart when we lost our OLine coach.
Oh no, I should have clarified. I 100% agree with you. Just meaning we need people with experience not a coach who has been a coordinator for 1 year or a position coach.
To be honest, based on what rifle wrote out, I think he's talking about me.
welcome back Rifle. Hope you will chime in more often on the current state of affairs as it pertains to Marshall football. No doubt you have insights that none of the rest of us have. Would love your thoughts on what is going on with us since the ND game.
I love JC Price, but not sure if he'd be a good HC. I'd also prefer an OC. DCs are more inclined to have ball control offenses because it's their nature. While that's not always the case it does trend that way.
Also it may seem like things have just fallen apart since ND, but if you view his entire resume as our HC ND and NAVY are aberrations. Unless he brought in an all-world OC and got completely out f their way I don't see the results being much different. He also needs to find some way to get a really good QB coach in here to develop our QBs because there is A LOT lacking at that position.
Chad Pennington would love Marshall as no one else could. He might be willing to take the job. Just as Brad Smith gave up his Intuit past to lead MU, maybe Chad would be willing to lead the football program. Stranger things have happened. Who would not be willing to give him a chance to make us great again.
Chad has said on multiple occasions that he loves what he is doing now (coaching high school and being home with his family) while also being an ambassador for Marshall... He didn't outright say "I don't want to be on the football staff," but he has certainly implied it.
Byron will get an NFL head job sooner or later.
Troy Brown just got in a sideline fight with his best player yesterday... He might be looking for a change, but probably not as a head coach. Maybe OC if that opening were to arise?
I believe Brad was retired from Intuit, but agreed to serve on some type of advisory board, as opposed to being pulled away to become the MU President.
Chad has different priorities at the moment. His younger son is still in school and I think any chances of him taking interest in being a head college football coach would only be after his youngest graduates high school. That having said, I'm fine with Chad being in his current role of just supporting Marshall. I don't want to see him trying to be our head coach, not having success, and the fanbase and alum being soured by this. He deserves to remain one of the most respected and beloved Marshall football legends.
Byron is likely headed for major income and notoriety advancement in the NFL. Our athletic department has not done enough to give him much reason to return anyway.
Chad has different priorities at the moment. His younger son is still in school and I think any chances of him taking interest in being a head college football coach would only be after his youngest graduates high school. That having said, I'm fine with Chad being in his current role of just supporting Marshall. I don't want to see him trying to be our head coach, not having success, and the fanbase and alum being soured by this. He deserves to remain one of the most respected and beloved Marshall football legends.
Byron is likely headed for major income and notoriety advancement in the NFL. Our athletic department has not done enough to give him much reason to return anyway.
See Scott Frost at Nebraska. I don’t think either side wants things to end like that.
I really wish the Chad and Byron stuff would stop. It's never happening. There's never going to be a "you never know crazy things could happen" scenario where they actually do. Chad has said time and time again that he has no interest in coaching college or being on the recruiting trail. That he wanted to coach HS so he could give those young men the tools to be successful after HS.
Byron would be absolutely insane to leave the NFL to come here and coach. He's making millions in the NFL and is on track to be an NFL Head Coach.
Byron would be absolutely insane to leave the NFL to come here and coach. He's making millions in the NFL and is on track to be an NFL Head Coach.
JIm Justice is essentially bankrupt, but we can leave that for another thread.
The guy can win though. Hell, everyone makes mistakes. Hopefully he’s learned from his. I also like this guy as mentioned, success at the D2 and FCS level.
Ummmm, he'll be back next season but we probably could afford to cut bait after a disasterous 2023 campaign!
$3,020,000. Sounds like alot of money but in the grand scheme of things wouldn't be that much if he loses out. How much revenue will be lost from a 3-9 season and next year looks to be worse. I will personally double my donation if he loses out to move on from him. This was not a rebuild when he took over. But it appears to be one now.😠
Head Coach: Jay Hill
Co-Offensive Coordinator: Mack Leftwich
OL Coach/ Co-OC: Scotty Walden (HC in waiting)
RB Coach: Kam Martin
WR Coach: Billy Fessler (don’t think he’ll last as Akron OC)
TE Coach: Mike Bartrum
Defensive Coordinator: Kenneth Norton Jr
DL Coach/AHC: Adam Clark
LB Coach: Brian Vaganek
CB Coach: Akeem Davis
Safeties: Mookie Carlile
Co-Offensive Coordinator: Mack Leftwich
OL Coach/ Co-OC: Scotty Walden (HC in waiting)
RB Coach: Kam Martin
WR Coach: Billy Fessler (don’t think he’ll last as Akron OC)
TE Coach: Mike Bartrum
Defensive Coordinator: Kenneth Norton Jr
DL Coach/AHC: Adam Clark
LB Coach: Brian Vaganek
CB Coach: Akeem Davis
Safeties: Mookie Carlile
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