I can’t find the exact article, but of the Heisman candidate QB’s, Bo Nix has a crazy number of his passing yards come AFTER the catch. Bo Nix is also older and was not great when he was at Auburn. That means the play calling on offense is getting guys open in good areas of the field and his receivers are also running great routes and have great vision when they turn up field. As for that first part, Will Stein is the OC (play caller) at Oregon. He was OC at UTSA last year under Traylor. A lot of folks here like Traylor but think he’s older and wouldn’t be a great recruiter. Will Stein is 34 years old and coached at UT, UTSA, and Lake Travis HS (Austin). Dude’s got Texas connections.
As a G5 school, UH was able to nab the OC for then National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes (Judas Herman). Why wouldn’t we be a good landing spot for another big time P5 school’s OC?
Let’s blow 14 million dollars and bring an assistant coach from last year’s UTSA team that Dana beat that has zero head coaching experience. Talk about reaching on a candidate. Oregon has been putting points on the board for decades. No way would I bank on this guy being the reason for their offensive success. Even if he was, how many coaches are great OCs but bad head coaches?
I put Tom Herman as an example. We’re not going to poach the Dan Lannings or Jim Harbaughs of CFB, but we sure can take a shot at a big time school’s coordinators. And it’s not 100% his ability to coach that will make or break him. He also has to be able to recruit. Bama, OSU, Mich, etc are not great simply because of their coaches. They are able to recruit the top talent across the nation. All we need is someone that can recruit the crap out of Texas. Has Stein proven that? No. Has Traylor or any other potential hire? Not exactly either.
I believe the instant transfer rule changes everything. How many players did Herman inherit when he came to Houston that may have left if they didn’t have to sit a year? Would he have had Greg Ward Jr still? Stuff like that would have changed everything for him. What about when Herman went to Texas? Would he have been more successful at Texas if he could have brought Ed Oliver, D’eriq King, and others with him like the current transfer rules allow.
What I’m getting at is now you can. What can Stein bring with him from Oregon? Are any of their best players going to quit Oregon and come to Houston to play for him I don’t think so. Is he bringing other staff with him he’s an assistant so probably not. Do we really believe he is making Oregon go or have they been going well before he got there? Hell you could replace Stein as OC at Oregon with Dana Holgorsen and I could guarantee you that offense would be just as lethal as they’ve been all year.
I just think the best decision has to be getting a coach like the one at Tulane. He’s done it before as a successful head coach at many schools, he could bring as much or as little staff with him as he wants, and with Tulane being relatively close to Houston we could potentially pluck a few of their best players to come across the state line and suit up from the Coogs. Correct me if I’m wrong but you look at a lot of similar programs with newer coaches like Kansas and their coach came in with a bunch of impact players, staff etc from their previous stop. Same could be said about Deion at Colorado or Kinne at Tx State.
Stein bailed on UTSA and Traylor right before the bowl game last year. I know that is not uncommon these days but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth that a coach would abandon his team like that.
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theant
(College of Technology Grad 1981, Bring back REAL Shasta!!!)
8
Made me think… Ben Stein might be better than what we got. “Bueller… Bueller, Bueller”
His experience is very thin. He was quality control at UT, which is basically another grad assistant. This is his first season as being the solo OC. He seems like a great offensive mind, but as a P5 head coach? At least give him another year of P5 recruiting and seeing how a program is built.
The Herman comparison is not a good one. Herman had 10 years of experience as an OC including 6 at the P5 level. On paper, they aren’t even close.
I’m just on board with taking a flyer on an up and coming coaching talent. I think we’d be able to get a team friendly deal and his youth could be attractive to recruits.
Frank Harris threw for 337 yards and 3 tds against us. Didn’t know the 37 we hung on them was Will Stein’s fault. Who knew?
Also, UTSA’s offense was ranked 14th last year. They rank 33rd this year.
Oregon’s offense was ranked 8th in yards and 12th in scoring under Dillingham last season yet Stein improved them to 2nd and 3rd this year.
Also, you never eliminate a candidate based on head coaching experience. If Georgia and Clemson followed that advice then neither school would have 4 nattys among them in the past 7 years.
Relax bud UTSA hung 24 points on us in regulation under Stein. This is Doug Belk’s defense we’re talking about here. If you can’t hang 40-50 points on Belk’s defense then I wouldn’t even bring you in for an interview .
For anyone that thinks Will Stein is the guy to get how do you put him in front of a candidate like GJ Kinne? Kinne has Texas ties and NFL QB experience and is recruiting here in Texas at a very high clip for Texas State. He also has already done the OC stuff that Stein is currently doing.
Kinne was also successful as an OC at UCF years ago. He became a head coach at UIW next and had the best scoring offense in the nation. He then took the head coaching job at Tx State this year and is tearing it up taking them to their 1st ever bowl game in history behind his explosive offense.
I can understand someone thinking that Kinne doesn’t have the experience yet to be the guy but in what world is he not miles ahead of a candidate like Stein that hasn’t even done it at the highest level yet?