I meant Tommy Bowden, finished undefeated. I love HC Willy Fritz.
Yes, Tommy Bowden had success there nearly 30 years ago. No one else had even a little until Fritz.
Let’s go back to HC John Jenkins.
A question that I wanted to get feedback on.
HC John Jenkins was on HC Jack Pardee’s squad with the Gamblers.
What would have happened if HC John Jenkins had been part of the Oilers squad?
Buddy Ryan would have punched him instead of Kevin Gilbride.
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Fat pig buddy ryan would have punched your Grandma.
buddy ryan was adverised as a defensive genius. Did the Oilers defense stop the opposition and win a Super Bowl?
The answer will be no.
May he RIP.
Uhhhhh……
We had already been on probation one year at that point, and we’re coming off a 9-2 season with a Heisman winner and better defense under that same probation.
That was a good year, and Jenkins deserves credit for it, but Jenkins’ overall record as a college head coach DOES NOT MATCH Fritz’.
To call Jenkins more accomplished than Fritz with only ONE such season, and two very embarrassingly bad seasons after that with high profile blowout losses, is simply NOT convincing.
Happy birthday HC John Jenkins.
Some of you can belittle HC John Jenkins all you want. Do whatever you want. You clearly align yourself with the worst administration that gave us HC Helton and got us into cusa.
My buddy that has season tix with me was at every game during the 0-11 season… 2001… seems kike that was the worst era for UH sports.
I believe the UH administration and a significant number of fans were tired of Jenkins bravado, after back-to-back 4-7 seasons, and they were looking for a reason to make a change. I know there were fans that thought the R&S had run its course. I do not agree with the argument that Jenkins was handcuffed with probation and reduced scholarships. Jenkins was not a great recruiter. After several years of UH putting up pinball offensive stats, defenses caught up to the scheme. The R&S had no TE, and there were 5 OL trying to block 6 or 7 rushers. R.C. Slocum and Texas A&M’s defense were in the UH backfield more than Klingler and Weatherspoon. That is a scheme issue, not a reduced scholarship issue.
In today’s game, we see the same issues with the Kendal Briles’ offensive system. An offense based on passing, creating mismatches, and tempo. When the offense is humming, it looks unstoppable, but when it faces a good defense, it has problems. Briles has been OC at Arkansas and TCU, and neither were handicapped by probation or limited scholarships. Their fans are saying the same thing about Briles’ offense as UH fans were saying about Jenkins’ offense.
My point is that the R&S had its day in the sun and the scheme and Jenkins’ inability to recruit and change the scheme to stay one step ahead of the competition, not probation or limited scholarships, led to UH’s black hole in football that was dug deeper by Kim Helton and Dana Dimel.
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The real question is this.
Would keeping Jenkins have produced a better program from 1993-2002?
We fired him to get Helton and Dimel.
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Helton and Dimel is a separate issue from Jenkins being fired. When the practice tape came out, an already frustrated administration and fanbase had to let Jenkins go. The press really piled on Jenkins, considering UH was already on probation.
The Helton and Dimel hirings were on UH. No one would argue that. I was told that that with UH’s football program being down, bad facilities, no support from the administration, there were not many attractive candidates that were willing to take the UH job at what UH was willing to pay. That is why AD Bill Carr went to his Florida buddy Kim Helton. Kim proceeded to alienate Texas high school coaches, push his son to start at QB, and promote his alter ego, the “Love Coach”, on a local radio station.
“HC John Jenkins was not a great recruiter”
I had to take a pause when I read that one.
Do you realize what you wrote?
How can you be a great recruiter, a recruiter, any recruiter when your entire program is on probation and has been for a number of years?
Again, I had to take a pause when I read that.
There is no way of knowing what HC John Jenkins could have accomplished with recruits that would have come if we had not been on probation.
Should I had about recruiting better defenses coaches? Of course they would not have came. We were on probation. We were handcuffed.
This is why having a 10-1 season is a master piece by itself.
Again, I can’t believe some of these posts.
Jenkins might have done better than Helton and Dimel has he stayed, but that wouldn’t be saying much because that’s an awfully LOW bar.
It’s unlikely he would have replicated his 1990 success, given how the next two seasons went.
It’s pretty telling that he never got another college head coaching gig again, and only one CFL head coaching gig for a team that folded.
That should tell you something.
Can someone outline how many scholarships we lost when on probation in the late 80s, early 90s?
I know we lost 10 in 1989 (before Jenkins was JC)? What about 1990-1992 before he was fired?
Did you or others so critivcal of HC John Jenkins went to school at that time? That I would like to know. If you did not you have no clues on how TOXIC the entire administration was toward our football program. You can’t seem to realize the gravity that we found ourselves in. We were this close to have our football program go away. That is how bad it was. Nobody wanted to come to our football program. If this would have happened in 2025 most would have transferred to another school.
Why would you come to U of H and play football during that time with an administration that clearly had one goal in mind?
One more time a 10-1 season is an amazing Head Coaching feat. You can belittle Head Coach John Jenkins all you want.
Thank you Head Coach John Jenkins for the memories. For the ones that do not know basic information of that time period please abstain for making rather stupid statements.
This time period was devastating. We did build the Hall of Champions building, thank you to John Moores. I am sure he would have preferred a dedicated football stadium. The then administration was all too happy to take his money.
That article confirmed that the 10 ships taken away were in 1989 before Jenkins was HC.
And I haven’t been critical of Jenkins at all.
15 scholarships not 10 and how long does it take to develop football players before they become starters? Are you going to tell us that a five stars player would have wanted to come to U of H at that time with all of what was going on? The answer is clearly no. At one point the pool of “quality” players was no longer there. Did you go to UH at that time? Just curious.
It had an impact on depth. I never said otherwise.
But I don’t think it was the only issue impacting his recruiting.
I’m not a Jenkins hater. I just don’t think he was as amazing as you do. That’s fine.
Did you go to school at that time? Yes or no, it is important otherwise you can’t even fathom what was going on.
For the ones that do not know. All schools, Nationwide did the same thing. The ncaa had uta graduated folks working for them.
Guess which school did not get the hammer thrown at them?
Yes you know the answer. Some of you might understand why I and others do not “fancy” uta. Austin is a fine city but time after time there is a common denominator and you know what it is.
I can’t wait for our five stars QB to come into our team. That in itself is historical and hopefully signaling a trend for more five stars coming to UH.
I never said we were treated fairly or that others didn’t get away with anything. I never mentioned 5 stars either.