(12-10-2013 03:15 PM)GaSoEagle Wrote: I did not realize that. Is there no good food in Jonesboro or what? You guys deserve alot of credit for maintaining good football teams through all the change.
Lots of bad luck
Roberts hung on about three years too long, so we didn't fire him until after 2010. Ironically our AD at the time did not want to pay his buyout of a measly 200K.
Freeze was OC during Roberts final year, and then got our job less than a week later. We knew going in that Ole Miss was his dream job, but the odds that Ole Miss would fire Nutt, and then be forced to drop all the way to Freeze on their coaching list were low. As it is, Freeze had an amazing year, turned down the Tulane job to stay here, and then got a call a week later that Ole Miss wanted to interview. It was well known that Freeze loved Jonesboro, and actually was visibly upset having to take the job. Broke down in tears in the final players meeting. He called Gus Malzahn and told him to take the ASU job.
Malzahn comes in on Freeze's word and ran his mouth about how he would not be a one and done coach. We survived the firing of Petrino at Arkansas in April because their AD moronically chose John L Smith. We thought there was little chance Auburn would run Chizik out 2 years after a National Title, but Auburn's high ups believed Malzahn and not Chizik was the reason they played in that game. Malzahn leaves and sort of fails to meet with the players on his way out.
Fast forward to today. We knew Harsin's dream job was Boise State, but thought Chris Petersen would retire there. He's turned down so many opportunities that we got complacent. We never guessed he would leave for Washington.
Ironically, the fact that it took Harsin a few games longer to figure things out, and that wild loss to WKU two weeks ago might be one of the big reasons we are going to hold onto him.
We've managed to recruit over this period simply because we've always had one or two commitments that loved ASU, and they would call other recruits and tell them to come here. We've signed two kids this year who have already brought two friends along into commitments, that we would never have signed at we not gotten the other guy. That and John Thompson has been a god send in terms of his ability to hold things together last year, when it nearly fell apart after Malzahn left for Auburn.
