SFA

[dmr55]

I honestly don't know why the current and previous ADs don't look at successful D2 coaches or an Assistant HC or Coordinator from a D1AA powerhouse such as North Dakota State.

We need to get out of the mentality of just hiring former EKU coaches.

I completely agree, although to be fair, they did deviate from that with Elder. They should have hired Chris Olover from Lindsey Wilson who was very successful and just won coach of the year at Georgetown College

I know we're not getting a new head coach next season, but if/when the time to make the next hire does come, I think successful D2 head coach or perhaps an existing FCS head coach who has had some success at a lower-budget program could absolutely be the way to go.

[dmr55]

Chris Oliver current Georgetown College coach and former Coach At Lindsey Wilson College should have been hired he has a 105-34 record with a national championship

[CorbinMaynardIsGod]

I honestly don't know why the current and previous ADs don't look at successful D2 coaches or an Assistant HC or Coordinator from a D1AA powerhouse such as North Dakota State.

We need to get out of the mentality of just hiring former EKU coaches.

I completely agree, although to be fair, they did deviate from that with Elder.

I know we're not getting a new head coach next season, but if/when the time to make the next hire does come, I think successful D2 head coach or perhaps an existing FCS head coach who has had some success at a lower-budget program could absolutely be the way to go.

Elder must have given one heck of an interview for EKU to hire him, he was just the tight ends coach/special teams when he was at Tennessee.

[EKU05]

Elder must have given one heck of an interview for EKU to hire him, he was just the tight ends coach/special teams when he was at Tennessee.

I'm sure he interviewed well, but programs are also just attracted to people coming from P5 jobs. It feels more exciting to the average, half-tuned-in fan to have someone who was "on the staff at an SEC school."

P5 coordinators are generally making too much money for us to pry them away. Some G5 coordinators are as well. I remember one of the other candidates was the OC at Southern Miss. He allegedly turned down not only us, but Louisiana Tech in C-USA as well just to take the coordinator job at Arizona State.

So with all of that in mind, if you want the shine of someone coming from a big time program, you have to dip down into the position coach ranks. I don't think it's inherently a bad idea. There have been plenty of cases where hiring assistants have worked out even at high levels. I mean...Georgia hired Kirby Smart with no HC experience. Notre Dame promoted from within going with a coordinator who had never been a head coach before. Louisville had a few successful hires with no HC experience (Bobby Petrino, Charlie Strong).

But we've *never* gone the other way. We've made four head coaching hires since Roy Kidd retired, and all of them were first-time head coaches. We'll never know how far Danny Hope might have taken us if Purdue hadn't come calling, but the other three had middling results at best.

[martinhall1966]

I am a Danny Hope guy! He wins , he is loyal and a Colonel to his core!! Enough said!

[EKU05]

I am a Danny Hope guy! He wins , he is loyal and a Colonel to his core!! Enough said!

I agree. He’s been the best of the bunch in the post-Kidd era. But I’ll take anyone who can bring back winning whether they are Colonel to the core or not.

[And1]

UAC member Utah Tech just fired their head coach.

https://twitter.com/UACinsider/status/1 ... 6435718264

[eku022]

Elder must have given one heck of an interview for EKU to hire him, he was just the tight ends coach/special teams when he was at Tennessee.

There have been plenty of cases where hiring assistants have worked out even at high levels. I mean...Georgia hired Kirby Smart with no HC experience. Notre Dame promoted from within going with a coordinator who had never been a head coach before. Louisville had a few successful hires with no HC experience (Bobby Petrino, Charlie Strong).

I think we need to look at the coaching tree a coach comes from. Kirby Smart came from the Saban school. You usually can tell if an assistant coach is going to be successful based on the HC they are under and the other assistant coaches that have left and have become successful.

Success matters no matter what level of play its on. Its hard to consistently win let alone be in contention year in and year out for a playoff spot let alone a National Championship. Going 6-6 or 7-5 is unacceptable. We need to consistently be 8-4 9-3. Makes me wonder what JSU has that we don't. John Grass was a damn high school coach I believe before coming to JSU.

I agree with an earlier statement saying G-town's head coach should have been given an opportunity but again to your point the optics don't look great, and that type of hire doesn't bring buzz to the program.

Maybe we could pull someone from Brohm's camp. He's had success as an HC at every stop from WKU, Purdue, to now Lville.

[DannyHopesGhost]

Coaching tree hires are hit or miss. Look at Urban Meyer’s tree as an example. Some successes, some BIG misses. That’s true with every coaching tree. BUT you do need some semblance of combination. Coming from a winning culture, proven success at developing players in your position roles (I’m talking 4 year samples, so you can see what someone does with THEIR players, not benefiting from previous development), are they flexible enough to adapt coaching style to the players you have and put them in spot to succeed, and so forth and so on.

That’s kind of the danger of longevity, if you look at Coach Kidd, the lack of a true bench of assistant coaches developed and sent out to grow more and return home some day has hurt. There’s some exceptions, such as Steve Bird, et al. But for the most part, we had many go to the high school ranks, maybe move up to college, and never get pulled back to us. Walt has a chance to break that streak some but he HAS to majorly shake up his staff before he gets passed by on the chance to develop his own bench/tree while growing our program back to the prominence we want and expect.

Honestly, I would not be at all mad if he reached out into the HS ranks for a couple of successful coaches to pull into position coach roles and develop them. Kentucky has a ton of good HS coaches who could/would succeed in the right situation, are often still young enough to relate to todays players and be “closers” in recruiting, etc.

[eku022]

Coaching tree hires are hit or miss. Look at Urban Meyer’s tree as an example. Some successes, some BIG misses. That’s true with every coaching tree. BUT you do need some semblance of combination. Coming from a winning culture, proven success at developing players in your position roles (I’m talking 4 year samples, so you can see what someone does with THEIR players, not benefiting from previous development), are they flexible enough to adapt coaching style to the players you have and put them in spot to succeed, and so forth and so on.

That’s kind of the danger of longevity, if you look at Coach Kidd, the lack of a true bench of assistant coaches developed and sent out to grow more and return home some day has hurt. There’s some exceptions, such as Steve Bird, et al. But for the most part, we had many go to the high school ranks, maybe move up to college, and never get pulled back to us. Walt has a chance to break that streak some but he HAS to majorly shake up his staff before he gets passed by on the chance to develop his own bench/tree while growing our program back to the prominence we want and expect.

Honestly, I would not be at all mad if he reached out into the HS ranks for a couple of successful coaches to pull into position coach roles and develop them. Kentucky has a ton of good HS coaches who could/would succeed in the right situation, are often still young enough to relate to todays players and be “closers” in recruiting, etc.

Trent Steeleman was a good one that left.

Only if we could have gotten Will Stein sooner . Former Card is well out of EKU's price range but doing great things at Oregon now as the OC.