I don’t know about you guys, but the current coaching staff just feels… I don’t know… temporary? I know coaching changes and promotions happen all the time all schools, but we clearly have an issue in our hands like always.
I think we can all agree that if we are successful this season and the next, it’s going to be CKB that gets poached first. So here is my question. Say CKB gets offers from other schools for a HC gig… does the Prez/BoR fire CMA and match those offers? Or do we let CKB and keep CMA?
Sure. Maybe it’s too soon for HC gigs for CKB. Even if he gets better offers for OC at P5 schools, do we just let him go? What if we fire CMA and promote CKB to HC?
The worst case scenario is that both get poached, then we have an even bigger problem. CKB is a UH alum, but I’m unsure if he holds any pride in that.
If we have a good staff, it will always be a “temporary” staff. If it’s s bad staff, we want it to be temporary.
If we have a good year, firing CMA to hire CKB is suicide for the program.
If CKB were the HC, he would also leave for a better gig. It is in a coaches competitive nature to want to play against the best. Can’t do that on a regular basis at UH. Could change in the future. Who knows? The fact that CKB is an alum is irrelevant when considering the above.
I believe it will take until year 5 for CMA to get poached, as so may teams in Texas are coached by former UH coaches. I just don’t see those teams dipping in the well a 2nd time so soon - UT, aTm, Baylor, Tech all have or have recently had a former UH staff member as HC, and TCU ain’t quittin’ Patterson so… Applewhite’s contract is prohibitive to Texas teams as well.
Now, whether CKB is here in year 5 is a different story. He has no loyalty to UH in regards to his coaching career. I think he does two, maybe three, years here. Even if he leaves to OC somewhere else, we could hire him as the replacement to CMA, so I am not that worried about it. No P5 would hire him as a HC direct from UH OC, so we’d have a crack at him one way or another.
I think this will require him to have at least 2 consecutive 10 win seasons with one being 13 wins and a NY6 but it could be 1 if he does it this year. Not likely to happen in 2019 given all we lose on D next year. This is/was the year he had to win big and only hope now is if Boise keeps stumbling and we beat UCF for American. Then win the NY6. Very tall order!!!
Applewhite gets fired?
I think he stays the HC if the D improves and we win 11 games including the Bowl game this year. I think Dr. Khator would fire him winning 10 this year if we dont play for AAC championship.
He needs 9-10 wins in 2019 depending how 2018 turns out.
If he gets (2) 10/9 win seasons Major is coaching 4th season at UH in 2020.
Major is a really bright guy but there is so many factors including luck that determine luck as a young HC. Herman was lucky to have Elandon Roberts, JackBoyz, Bowser, and Marcus Oliver fall in his lap.
CMA won’t be fired if he wins 10 and we miss the Championship. I doubt he gets fired if we win only 8 games. Just isn’t going to be a consideration unless we win 6 or less.
Also, this idea that we’d fire CMA if there is a risk to losing CKB…absolutely wont happen unless we only win 6 or less games and decide to move on from CMA. If he wins 9-10 and CKB gets offers, we’d be absolutely crucified in the media and coaching/agent circles if we switch out CMA for CKB.
I also agree with @H-Town; CMA May be here for the long term. Just not sure what P5 schools would go for him that he’d want to go to. His recruiting prowess is limited to mainly TX and LA so he’s basically limited to this area.
A&M seems set and probably isn’t going for another UH coach that also has Horn ties.
TCU has Patterson.
Baylor has Rhule and it probably wouldn’t be a good look to hire a guy with sexual transgressions in his past (not that I think CMA still does that).
Tech could be a possibility as the Applewhite name would be valuable up there, but the Horn connection might scare them off. Main thing is Kingsbury and whether he’s turned them around.
Texas has Herman and I can’t see them going for CMA if Herman fails. I figure they’d try to one-up A&M and go for a huge name.
LSU is a maybe if Orgeron fails.
Maybe Ole Miss or Miss St, but I’m not sure CMA would go to Starkville. Ole Miss is a maybe.
Arkansas could come calling in a few years once Yurachek realizes they hired a coach that went .500 at SMU.
Outside of that, I doubt he gets good offers. Maybe an Iowa State, Kansas, or another bottom-feeder P5 comes calling, but CMA might look the other way if they do.
Jury is still out for me until I see what he does this season. If he gets to the Memphis game with a chance to go to the championship game, I’m happy.
Maybe, but I think they give Frost a long leash. They’re also not too keen on Horns up there (I still have memories when I was stationed up there of being run off the road after The Horns beat them because I had Texas plates on my car).
I guess I just don’t worry about the future of head coaches anymore. We have been through a string of successful coaches here. I am of the opinion that the program now has structural advantages over the rest of the AAC (and a lot of the P5) that we will be successful no matter who is the coach. Our worst coach since 2003 (15 years) was Tony Levine and he was 21-17 and 1-1 in bowl games.
Coaches come and go. I am not looking and hoping for the next Bill Yeoman. New young coaches and new young ideas makes the University of Houston the cradle of coaches and an incubator of offenses. To me that is interesting. If we win out and Major goes to what ever Big 12 or SEC job that comes available, then I am ok with elevating KB. When KB’s teams set offensive records and win a bunch of games and he leaves, then we find the next young offensive mind.
In the mean time, we win a lot of games and we keep investing in the structure of the program.
I think it’s a foregone conclusion that CKB will leave - if not at the end of this year than certainly the following. We’ll get 2 years if we’re lucky.
What worries me more than CKB leaving is that the lack of a coaching tree from Art Briles system. I know Phillip Montgomery comes from CAB but even he has had spotty success and doesn’t quite run it as elegantly. Contrast this with Leach whose tree extends pretty far and include successful HCs (Kingsbury, Holgersen, others?). Who is learning the Briles system today? Who can carry this system forward once CKB departs?
For all the complaints about Sumlin, he did plan for succession in his staff extremely well so that he reloaded coaching staff and not rebuilt when one left - or fired. Is CMA doing this? I don’t believe we have a Co-OC or anyone that is shadowing Briles.
Personally, I don’t believe CMA will be asked to go anywhere until we achieve some form of extreme success in G5 - and I’m skeptical that this will happen under his watch.
Applewhite got most of his previous jobs because of recruiting. Not because of coaching success. At UT, he was like that character in Seinfeld that Elaine kept promoting because she was afraid to fire him. When the UT staff was cleared out, Applewhite was unemployed for a year because he didn’t want to take a step backwards to be a QB coach somewhere.
If Briles does good enough this year to make Applewhite look good, it’s not like Applewhite can claim he found a diamond in the rough. Briles is first going to get offered OC jobs at P5 if the offense continues to have success. He might turn them down because he knows he can turn that into a head coaching job. Don’t forget that his dad was the play caller at UH and at Baylor until he handed over the reigns to Kendal.
I can picture a scenario where UT’s offense costs them a few games in conference play finishing with another mediocre 8-4 type season and Herman talking his BOR into some kind of deal that if he can bring in Briles, he will promise and immediate conference championship and offer up some kind of cheap buyout if it doesn’t happen. Then Kendal turns down the job anyway with hopes of replacing Herman at the end of next year.
I don’t think this is realistic. Dr Khator gets a lot of grief for her “we fire coaches who go 8-4” statement. People read in to this statement WAY TOO MUCH! I don’t think she meant to be taken literally, but rather to be taken as we won’t settle for mediocrity. She wants the program challenging for championships, so IMO @pray10 prognostication is much more realistic.
Last year under CMA, this team was the definition of mediocrity, but CMA to his credit went out and changed OCs, and if we get to 9 wins this year, I think he is comfortably moving into 2019.
In regards to a team poaching CMA, Rhule never went to a NY6, Norvell is getting serious interest at Memphis without a conference championship (he turned down offers this last off-season), Fuente went to VT only having a shared conference championship. If CMA starts winning 9+ games a year for 2 or 3 years, there will be programs that will be after him. There is no doubt.
I will add I am not worried if or when CMA leaves as long as he does it the right way. Hopefully he has seen what pisses the fan base off with the departure of Judas and goes a different route.
We don’t even know if Case is interested in coaching and if so, he has zero experience. He is my all time favorite Coog, but do you think we would hire someone with absolutely no experience? And do you think good assistants would hith their wagon to someone with zero coaching experience? I could see him taking an assistants gig and then maybe moving up if the head coach gets fired or poached. Of course the we would get the howls about a “down the hall” hire.