(05-15-2015 10:00 AM)Brother Bluto Wrote: (05-14-2015 12:57 PM)Stammers Wrote: (05-14-2015 12:05 PM)TiminMem23 Wrote: (05-14-2015 09:28 AM)DallasTiger Wrote: (05-14-2015 08:41 AM)Brother Bluto Wrote: Aren't you one of those saying that we can't get anyone better to coach basketball? Yet you are confident in the search firm to get another football coach?
Never said that. What I said was I don't see a screaming need to change our current basketball coach today. When that time comes....should it ever come....I think we are capable of finding an excellent coach (probably someone under the radar similar to the hiring of Gene Bartow and Dana Kirk). And, as for football...for those concerned about the possibility of Coach Fuente leaving.....should that event ever take place....I think we are capable of finding a capable replacement (again, probably someone under the radar such as Coach Fuente). I hope that clarifies my position. One thing I have noticed in numerous posts by numerous posters is the lack of mention of Eastman & Beaudine despite their great impact and influence on the recruitment of our AD and coaches.
Fuente is probably the best coach Memphis football has ever had. What makes you think they can easily find a guy just like him when he leaves? The odds are that they'll get another Rip Scherer or Tommy West. I know that sounds pessimistic, but it's hard to sustain success at a program that has been bad historically.
I'd be more optimistic at the basketball team's chances of finding a good replacement when Pastner leaves or gets fired. The bball team has a history of good coaches and has tradition and investment in the program.
My opinion is that Memphis got lucky with Fuente. When you take chances on guys with no head coaching experience, that's what it takes to get one who is on his way to bigger and better things. Fuente's success, in my opinion, won't make them able to attract a successful young coach who does have head coaching experience at the D1 level. They'll still have to go after a coordinator or retread and hope they can be successful as a head coach. So, in essence, they will be doing the same thing they did when they replaced every coach they've ever had. It won't be any easier this time because of success under Fuente.
I think it is easier to find a football coach than it is to find a basketball coach, and much less luck is involved.
I would think it would be harder to hire a guy that can assemble a staff with a dozen or so assistants and 95 scholarship players than it is to hire one with 3 assistants and 13 scholarship players. Might be the reason we've been successful in basketball under numerous coaches and not so much in football the last 40 years.
Facilities wise it has always been apples and oranges. The reason I say this is because with basketball, the responsibilities and the perception of responsibilities are limited mostly to the head coach. It isn't easy to identify the assistant coaches that can be expected to be good X and O guys and recruit at a high level, because the head coaches are so highly visible.
In football, you have offensive and defensive coordinators on every team that you can assume have a very hands on involvement, and are directly responsible one or all of player development, recruiting, and game planning.
One can assume that Fuente was very involved at TCU because as you mentioned, there are 95 players to look after, and coordinators/coaches, for offense, defense, special teams and the various position coaches.
Quote:Might be the reason we've been successful in basketball under numerous coaches and not so much in football the last 40 years.
Perception has probably been that we were one of the 10-20 worst jobs in the country up until 5 years ago. Before 5 years ago the LB was falling apart, we didn't even have the team logo on the field, it hadn't been painted, Tiger Lane didn't exist, and the practice facilities and weight room didn't exist in their present state.
If you look back to 2009, there wasn't a single marquee program in our conference. If you look back to 2002, the only really good program was TCU, and they were just starting to be really good, and were drawing 25,000 per game. Louisville, Cincy, and Houston were average programs. The best program in the conference was probably USM.
Flip flop the facilities and football would be easier to grow than basketball. Plug the equivalent of FEF and the Finch as our football facilities, and have us playing in a conference where our football mates (Louisville, Cincy, Marquette, DePaul) were equivalents in football, and we would probably be a top 25 program every year.
Where would we be in basketball if we were still playing at the MSC, and it was completely neglected up until 2010?