I’ve already said I would try to woo Rhett Lashlee as OC and QB coach. I think he’d be a grand slam hire.
I would replace Guiton with Jason Phillips, maybe give JP co-OC or passing game coordinator title.
Pope is a good coach but he’s 65. I would replace him with Clarence McKinney.
I would hire Vic Koenning or David Bailiff as new DC, move D’Antonio to LBs, and push out Carrel. Koenning or Bailiff could assist with DBs as well. Another way to do it might be to bring in one of those two as a play calling co-DC with D’Antonio keeping the title, much like Meacham and Cumbie at TCU.
For the 10th assistant I would hire a successful ST coordinator from maybe the Sun Belt or C-USA.
Sam, these are the kind of moves on offense that could get us to 10+ wins next year. I am willing to give CMD another year with better talent and more experienced players, as he should have both next year…
I am not familiar with Koenning or his record as a defensive coach. What are the details on his coaching background? What about Bailiffs record makes you want to consider him? His SWT teams won with offense, not defense. His Rice defenses ranged from average to awful, depending on the year, though its always going to be difficult to tell about coaching, considering the talent disparity Rice suffers from yearly.
D’Onofrio has a two more years guaranteed left on his contract. The defense played well enough to win 10-11 games. I don’t anticipate any changes on defense.
On offense, I think Vincent Marshall has been the 10th coach “in waiting.” He certainly knows the Briles offense, having played for Art and coached for Dino.
Bailiff was DC at TCU under Patterson and also DC at Texas State. Koenning has been DC at Clemson, Illinois, Wyoming, where he was also head coach, and presently at Troy, which finished 13th in scoring defense and 8th in sacks. He runs a defense similar to what Orlando and D’Onofrio have run here.
Having said that, offensive production was clearly more of an issue than defense this year, but by the same token we couldn’t get off the field in several games and were far too vulnerable to the pass. We made Fresno look like Baker Mayfield and OU. Their QB threw for a career-best 342 yards against us. And my point was bringing in defensive help, a veteran coach like Koenning or Bailiff. D’Onofrio would still be here, maybe as co-DC or whatever. Anyway I’m just spitballing. Doubt anything I recommend will happen, but I would like to see changes similar to those.
I don’t think D’Onofrio would accept a demotion. Carrel is also considered a rising young coach and the staff seems to like him. Doubt they’d get rid of him.
On offense, would love to bring Jason Phillips home.
Pope doesn’t seem to want to stop yet and he recruits well. McKinney would be a good pickup, but I doubt they drop Pope.
I don’t want to get rid of CMD. I want to see what he can do with a better secondary. As @Manster54 posted in another thread his problems at Miami were the opposite he’s having here (better secondary but bad run defense).
I’d just like to know what’s the big problem with Guiton? Everybody seemed to love the hire so what has he done to warrant his replacement? Only thing I can think of is the underclassmen WR aren’t developing too well but Lark came on at the end of the season and we’ve seen sparks here and there with Corbin.
He was going to be a GA until Wyatt left at a weird time. I don’t think he’s even remotely qualified to hold his current position, at least here. His lack of coaching experience at this position shows itself in the mediocre play of all of our wide receivers not named Bonner or Dunbar.
Sam, I like your ideas. I think Koenning would be a great hire. Aside from one bad season at North Carolina he’s been successful, and runs an exciting pressure-defense more aligned with TO’s style.
I’d imagine they’d work out a buyout for the remainder of his contract as I doubt UH wants to be paying a position coach as much as much as he would be making.
Edit to add: Or he’d go find another school where he could be DC. He did enough where someone would probably take a chance on him.
He should be demoted because he took a job at a school that had to start 2 non scholarships CBs with zero experience?
The defense gave up 22.2…#33
Defense Efficiency # 27
Take Aways # 30 something
Red Zone TD % 48%
10 Pass TDs Allowed, 15 Ints
I won’t bash the offense…look up their rankings yourself
Who were the two non scholarship cb ‘s? Myres is one I’m assuming but Johnson and Winchester are in scholarship.
And the defense gave up 23 points per game and was ranked 39th according to ESPN.
Johnson was a scholarship WR…converted to CB. Not a down of college experience. Myers former walk on…not down D1 experience.
When you take out the 3 TDS scores vs offense and specials…it’s 22.2…teamranks does stat…”Offensive Points Allowed”. True points allowed stat
Phillips was WR coach in '08 when no one thought we’d have receivers who could catch the ball. Instead he helped develop Edwards and Carrier into one of the best receiving duos in UH history. He’s been a passing game coordinator in the PAC 12 and co-OC at UH and SMU. Guiton was a grad assistant a year ago who never played WR and who mentioned something about learning from Bonner and Dunbar. Not a tough call for me.
So we are going to fire an RB coach that makes $158,000 in order to hire a guy who made 458,000 this year? Who will have good offers? Mmmmk.
Assistant coach contracts are rarely, if ever, negotiated down in a buyout. But even if they were, we are going to pay out $800,000 to make D’Onofrio go away? And pay the next guy 500K (with a 3-4 year deal after he just saw D’Onofrio get canned)? Mmmmmk.
Jason Phillips was an amazing player but is a divider (some say cancer) in the locker room. People here say it. People at Baylor say it. People at SMU say it. There’s also a reason he’s never risen above WR coach after 15 seasons.