Houston players in familiar territory with coaching change
“Distractions have kind of become our thing out here,” McCloskey said. “It happened all year with where is our coach going to go? We were expecting some type of change. We kind of turned it into a joke in the locker room. A debate of where our coach is going, but we never let it affect us.”
I’m not going to get mad about this all over again.
I do hope the area high school coaches, players and parents will actually hold him accountable for it, but I doubt there will be significant fallout. The bigger impact comes from raising the profile of UH, continuing to have success on the big stage, and closing the perception gap between playing in Houston vs Austin. Major is in a position to make that happen.
th was shopping his services to South Carolina. Now we know it happened. The UConn LET DOWN is a direct consequence of it. Yes, we could have been undefeated. How many other Schools was he talking to? Your guess is as good as mine.
Now why did he do it?
It is fairly simple. Briles, scumlin took us back to National ranking while in a G5. The MENSA genius knew what the greater Houston area can produce on a regular level. He knew that we are the ULTIMATE SPRINGBOARD. He could even have looked at the uta job as his primary goal. He knew long ago how uta politics works. It does not take a genius to know that Strong was on thin ice since the beginning. th just had to prove himself to uta that he was worth driving their bus.
It is going to be very, very interesting on how OUR local Coaches react to th going to uta. It is going to be fascinating that we now have MAJOR FIGHTING th for local talents. I am convinced that Mr. Fertitta thought about the best way to nullify th exit. Hit him where it hurts the most. Recruits that is.
Think about something else. The current uta squad admired their Coach for its integrity. How are they going to react to th and the fact that he proved to be the exact opposite?
I 100% believe that our leaders knew he was not 100% dedicated when they found out. We will never know what was said to th when it happened. I sure hope that he was sent a message. What is said publicly is one thing. What is said in private is another. Mr. Fertitta is too good of a business negotiator to not have seen this coming. Again, Major represents the State of Texas. That is why he was hired over Coach Orlando. Each recruit should be taken as a fight against th. We will be able to gauge fairly quickly how the local HS Coaching fraternity reacts to Major vs th.
I guarantee you all these HS coaches heard CTH tell these kids to stay home and play for their City, then heard him or his assistants tell these same kids a few weeks later they should flip to UT. Unless these coaches are blind, the way CTH left UH should have left a very bitter taste in their mouths about his character. My guess is CMA will come off far more genuine, which is why it was reported area HS coaches called UH in support of CMA during the search process. That speaks volumes to me.
I don’t think he thought that comment through. For the SMU and Memphis games, they were either affected by the distractions or we had a terrible game plan.
“For those counting, Houston has had four head coaches in the last two years and possibly five if reports about Kiffin were true.”
Had an earlier post in this thread that detailed some of what was going on, but deleted it as I had forgotten some of the info was told to me in confidence.
Basic premise: team was distracted as soon as the LSU rumors came out and for good reason. Seniors and some others tried to hold it together, but it was difficult to do so as players weren’t stupid.
Sad that it happened, but we should be in good shape moving forward.