A lot of his success came from being at the right place at the right time. For example, without Greg Ward’s magic, he doesn’t look good.
But then again, if he wins a couple more last year, he would still be here…and Holgo would not!
To be more accurate of late, to see which SEC team, or Clemson, wins the playoff.
I didn’t like the hire, but in Applewhite’s first year the D played well. We kept scores low. The offense was bad so we brought in Briles. That offense puts a strain on the defense, The two styles didn’t go together.
Injuries definitely made it hard but we got gassed playing Tech. Applewhite seemed to have a low ceiling. We could win games but nothing seemed impressive.
Levine was more interesting.
Sum up the Applewhite era in one word
Bla
1 Like
Army had a damn good team… again; their only loss of the year was to OU in OT in Norman.
All’s well that ends well. I am very happy with Dana the future is very bright. But in Major’s defense, if we don’t have all the injuries we would have won the West and quite possibly the AAC.
1 Like
Yes, they did - - - and they scored every darn time they had the ball in the bowl game, except for one possession; they fumbled the ball and we recovered on that one play; otherwise, they would have scored on that possession too.
And yes, we had a lot of injuries, including our Heisman-candidate QB. Still, we made a huge mistake when we hired ANY whorn as our head coach. Just my opinion, I know; but THERE it is!
I am so glad - more like “ELATED” - that Holgersen is now our coach!
1 Like
It wasn’t entirely Major’s fault. People forget the defense was historically bad, especially after all the injuries. He’s ultimately the one who decided to hire coach No D though. Sucks for him because if he had made a better hire at defensive coordinator it might have bought him another year.
He pretty much missed on all his coordinator hires, whether it was inept, like D’Onofrio, or band-aid compromised short term fix like Briles. Combination of inexperience, bad counseling or whatever.
1 Like
or rather, what teams will be invited to compete against Alabama in the playoff.
2 Likes
Holgorsen’s staff didn’t cost double Applewhite’s. I don’t have the salaries for the last two hires Holgorsen’s hires (Johnson amd Etheridge) but I’m guessing they will be close to what Gideon got. If so, Holgorsen’s 10 on the field staff will be ~2.9M. Applewhite’s on the field staff was ~$2.1M. So, it’s a big increase but not nearly double.
The $4.5M staff budget for Holgorsen included the entire football staff while the $2.3M for Applewhite was only on the field. I did a back of the envelope for all of the staff and was at about $3.5M for Applewhite last year.
CMA was incompetent both as a head coach and a coordinator !!!
The man had NO imagination.
3 Likes
I believe that when you are a head coach you have to have a sizable ‘rolodex’ with lots of potential assistants.
IMHO, Levine and Applewhite lacked the ‘rolodex’.
3 Likes
Agree, same applies to AD. Rhodes and Yurachek has none either.
Travis Bush had lots of imagination. Give me execution over imagination every day of the week.
1 Like
Ridiculous to say he was incompetent as a coordinator when his offense finished #10 and #26 in scoring offense behind patchwork offensive lines.
You got a calculator out for every staff member’s salary? I don’t know exactly what it was for Applewhite, but it was not what it was for Holgorsen, who was able to pay some coaches more to get them here; others from WVU didn’t have much choice as they would have been released by Neal Brown. In retrospect he shouldn’t have listened to Orlando about D’Onofrio, but it’s easy to understand why he did.
Some of you go over the top with your criticism of Applewhite. No one is saying he was a great coach. He still had a ways to go as a head coach, and I agreed he needed to be fired. But if we had not lost King and several key defensive players, and if Oliver had not played the games he played both before and after his injury, I’m confident we would have won the division. Sometimes you get dealt a lousy hand, and he definitely was last season.
4 Likes
Yes, I added up the salaries. It only took a few minutes. The on the field staff is pretty easy to calculate.
What is the Briles situation during the season? Rejuvenating the offense?
His offense was Greg Ward scrambling !!
He had no concept of a running game.
2 Likes
Nonsense. But you hold on to that.
Seriously? The offensive coordinator is working to get out of a just renegotiated contract, and you don’t think that affects the players and staff? Whatever. We’ll just agree to disagree.