That’s why I don’t blame coaches for striking while the iron is hot. People say you could have a job for life and be happy where you’re at but that’s not necessarily true.
Jeff Bower is an example of that. He was a USM alum and still was fired one year after playing for a conference championship.
With UConn gone, I would love to see Tulsa dropped. Just so hard for them to make any noise nationally. ECU when good can put 50k in their stadium, Tulane looks to be committed to winning so they aren’t great but at least trying and it gives UH two schools within 5 hours. Do not want Southern Miss at all. Unless it is going west, 10 would be the best number.
Considering the financial crisis, we may not have to boot Tulsa out and they may leave in their own. Then we don’t look like the bad guy.
AAC with one exception is a city conference. Mississippi doesn’t have a city in the whole damn state. Besides, Tulane and even Tulsa have brought winning programs to the NCAA, just not in the big two.
I remember when Bower was fired by their AD it was an absolute shock to him and he was angry about it. He was getting ready to get on with the next season when the AD and top boosters forced him out but allowed him to resign. He was a long time defensive minded coach in a period of time when offense was taking over the sport.
Look at some of the SEC schools he upset over his tenure: LSU, Georgia, Alabama and Auburn.
His most successful year of upsets came in 2000 when the Golden Eagles beat Alabama, Oklahoma State and TCU.
He is still young enough and I believe still lives in the area. If they makes another change…
I think he is 67 so he is getting up there. See this article from 2016 when their coach went to the NFL he said he would have accepted to take the position if asked and that was 4 years ago.
He is thought of as a defensive coach, but he isn’t. He is just known that way because he had such good defenses at USM. He is really an offensive coach. I think there are many that would say the game has passed him by and so forth because he just wasn’t known for having offensive teams. But for a small little school in southern Mississippi, he had very tough minded football teams that were very physical. I was convinced that Ol Miss and Miss St were afraid to play him.
I think his past offensive expertise is part of what made it tough to get another shot. He either needed to step down a level or be an assistant somewhere. Not sure he would fit as an assistant. Maybe one of those AHC that don’t coach a major position type deals.
Either way, it seems he’s probably done at 67.
They really should have kept him and if they didn’t like his offense then just encourage or force coaching upgrades. He would have finished his career and possibly retired by now.
Agree. In hindsight, it was a big mistake. 2011 was awesome for them but not big enough to justify the long term pain felt. Who knows, that awful 2012 season may have been what got them left behind with the AAC.
Despite the history they share with many AAC schools, they simply do not fit the profile of AAC schools, especially in terms of market and budget, which are the strongest aligning factors of this league.
I believe most think that way. They don’t have the market and the future is about market for every non-P5 to be part of any elevation effort. You must bring value from your market. They could have a team, but not the market value.
It will be about big state schools and small private or state schools will be on the outside looking in. USM is 14K students which puts them in the range of a small state school and a nice size private school. School size and more importantly market size is the most important.
He has already stated he would come back and coach. The fans have called for his return. Hind sight. At this point though, I am not sure how that would turn out. I think he could have done some great things at UH though, and he probably would have stuck around.
East Carolina was good when Skip Holtz was there and they went down after he left.
I flew with the team to ECU, a game which we barely lost at Dowdy Ficklin in Skip’s last year there…he left and went to USF (Big East), and guess who was their President ?
Renu…
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