Aaron Rodgers' Neighborhood » coaches

Cal Defensive Coordinator Leaves for Boise St.

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 06:50:12 +0000

In a surprise move, Cal announced today that 8 year Cal defensive coordinator Bob Gregory is leaving the Golden Bears for Boise State. While a move to Boise State might make sense given the Broncos’ success lately, something fishy is going on once you look to the particulars of the change. Gregory left Cal not to become Boise State’s defensive coordinator, but instead to become a “defensive assistant” with an unidentified title. What’s clear is that Gregory will not be the defensive coordinator, as Boise’s coaching vacancy at that position was already filled in the offseason by Pete Kwiatkowski after Boise St.’s defensive coordinator left for Tennessee. So, Gregory is taking a position downgrade to move from the Pac 10 to the WAC.

The move also has strange timing. The start of spring ball is only 2 weeks away at this point. It is odd for Cal or Gregory to make a decision like this so late in the game when practices are about to get underway. Plus, the explanation for the late move is vague and less than satisfactory. Head Coach Jeff Tedford commented on the change by saying: “This was coach Gregory’s decision all the way to make what he feels is the best move for his family.” Gregory echoed this rationale without explaning why moving from his home of 8 years to take a demotion is best for his family.

Basically, this move seems like a rush job to get Gregory out of town. Perhaps there were disagreements in defensive philosophy, as Tedford has noted that the Bears need to be more aggressive on defense. Gregory often played a soft zone coverage during the season, limiting blitzing opportunities for the Bears and relying on 3 man rush and a “bend don’t break” philosophy. Cal’s defense was highly touted coming into the season, with an experienced secondary, but drastically underperformed after a stellar 2008 performance where Cal lead the nation in turnovers. Perhaps Tedford and Gregory couldn’t come to an agreement on the sort of changes the Bears needed to make on defense. Ultimately, Gregory’s firing means that Cal will be shifting to a more aggressive defensive philosophy, and may even change schemes depending on who they bring in. For now, we can only speculate about why this strange move occurred and wait until Cal selects a new defensive coordinator.

Chicago Can’t Find an Offensive Coordinator

admin — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 01:20:28 +0000

This is looking like the Tennessee head coaching job all over again. The Chicago Bears have been looking for a new offensive coordinator since the end of the season to no avail. Rumors have swirled around multiple guys, and lots of those same guys have either been rejected or apparently turned down the offer. The latest is current University of Pittsburgh (and former Cal) offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti, who indicated he was “wholeheartedly committed” to staying at Pitt. Other decliners or rejects include Ken Zampese of the Bengals (staying as QB coach), Rob Chudzinski of the Chargers (not getting the job), Jermey Bates (who followed Pete Carroll to Seatlle), Jedd Fisch (University of Minnesota offensive coordinator who became Seattle’s QB coach) and Hue Jackson, who accepted a job with the RAIDERS, THE RAIDERS PEOPLE, instead of becoming Chicago’s offensive coordinator. Rumor has it that the Bears are now interviewing Mike Martz, who has pratically been begging for the job. So what gives? Why can’t the Bears land an offensive coordinator? Here are my guesses:

1- Jay Cutler. Now, some would think this is an asset, as Cutler has amazing physical talents and can get amazing zip on the ball. However, Jay doesn’t have the reputation of being the easiest to coach or get along with. He threw a temper tantrum in Denver to get shipped to Chicago, allegedly berates recievers with profanity, and loves to throw on the pouty face when things go wrong. Basically, besides Brett Favre, he is the prime example of a football prima donna. And the Bears have basically given the keys to the organization to Cutler, basically because they have invested so much in money and draft picks in the guy, letting Cutler sit in on interviews and giving him input on who his next coordinator will be. For Hue Jackson to have decided that he’d rather work with Al Davis and JaMarcus Russell instead of Jay Cutler has to say a lot about how Jay comes across in these meetings. Maybe coaches are afraid that control of the franchise has been handed over to an immature guy, who hasn’t won anything and makes bad decisions when he throws. Why else would so many coaches, including some who have worked with Cutler before (Bates and Fisch) be walking away from this job? I mean Jackson turned it down FOR THE RAIDERS. I can’t stress that enough.

2- Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo’s job security. Rumors were swirling at the end of this year that Lovie Smith, GM Jerry Angelo, or both were going to be fired after the Bears’ lackluster season. That means that if the Bears don’t produce next year both of these guys are likely gone…and possibily anyone else associated with the Bears staff, even a brand new offensive coordinator. So maybe these guys are thinking becoming the Bears OC is a potential career killing move, given that the Bears are aging on defense, have young WRs who are still learning on the job, an old and ineffective offensive line, and don’t have the money or draft picks to address their problems. If it’s a one and done situation for Lovie, it might be hard to lure guys away from their stable situations to a spot where they may not be gainfully employed for more than a year.

Ultimately, I bet Mike Martz gets this job. He wants back into the NFL and has actually indicated interest in the position. He’s pass happy and we know Cutler loves to sling it. Plus Martz wouldn’t mind having his name thrown in the ring as the next head coach of the Bears if Lovie fails this year. Sounds like a match made…of convenience.

I Have No Idea What the Raiders Are Doing.

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:01:52 +0000

Rumor has itthat Al Davis and the Oakland Raiders have been interviewing potential replacements for current head coach Tom Cable for the last two weeks. Problem is they haven’t exactly fired Tom Cable yet. In fact, for the last two weeks rumors kept surfacing that Davis and Cable were set to meet about his future, only those meetings kept not happening. At least two people interviewed by the Raiders include former Giants coach Jim Fassell, who has publicly stated he wants to coach the Raiders, and Marc Trestman, former Raiders offensive coordinator.

This may be the very reason that Buffalo G.M. Buddy Nix commented, while introducing Chan Gailey yesterday: “Don’t ever think you can’t fill coaching jobs, even if they’re bad. Oakland gets a lot of calls.” I don’t understand how Al Davis can keep stringing along Cable by not telling him if he’s fired while interviewing other candidates. Who would ever want to coach for this team? Al Davis runs through head coaches like Tiger runs through mistresses. This is just another example of how Al Davis clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore. He can’t even make up his own mind about who should coach his own team, let alone make a good pick in the first round (*Darius Heyward-Bey*).

Tom Cable deserves another season. He managed to lead the Raiders to victories over the Bengals, Eagles, Broncos, and Steelers later in the season with an assortment of second/third tier quarterbacks. Cable didn’t draft JaMarcus Russell, and shouldn’t take the fall for his inadequacies. If Cable goes, it means that Al Davis isn’t willing to say that he made a mistake by picking JaMarcus Russell and likely won’t part ways with him. If that’s the case, good luck Oakland, no matter who the coach is.

Update: Someone Will Coach the Vols

admin — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 02:09:27 +0000

Derek Dooley of Louisiana Tech will become the next head coach of the Tennesee Volunteers. Now this isn’t a huge name, but he worked with Nick Saban at LSU and got his endorsement, although he was 17-20 at La. Tech, which isn’t exactly SEC football. I bet Tennessee fans don’t like this, but maybe this guy just needed his opportunity. I just didn’t expect it to be at Tennessee…

I’ll root for him though because the dude was a lawyer for 2 years before he became a football coach. That gives all of us hope.

Why Won’t Anyone Coach at Tennessee?

admin — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:20:32 +0000

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills, but it looks like no one wants to be the head coach of the Tennesee Vols football team. ESPN is reporting that David Cutliffe, former University of Tennessee offensive coordinator, withdrew his name from consideration as a candiate to replace Lane Kiffin as the head coach at Tennessee so that he could stay at DUKE. Before Cutliffe got there, Duke, playing in the dominant ACC (please tell me you got the sarcasm), won a combined 10 games in its previous 8 seasons. So apparently these days Duke FOOTBALL is a better place to be than Tennesse. So is being the head coach in waiting at Texas for perhaps a decade or more apparently, since Will Muschamp also turned down the job.

This makes no sense to me. Tennesee is still a top 15 place to coach. It’s in one of, if not the, best football conference in America, has 6 national championships, boasts a 100,000+ capacity stadium with crazy loyal fans and has been a traditional NFL pipeline (see Manning, Peyton and Haynesworth, Albert). Even if guys like Muschamp and Cuttliffe don’t want to end up there forever, it’s not a bad stepping stone to a top 5 job, as Lane Kiffin illustrated.

A lot of speculation about why people don’t want to coach there now is that the program is somehow now “runined” becuase Lane Kiffin bailed after one season. I don’t see how that’s possible. Yeah, a lot of recruits could leave for USC a-la John Callipari, but a good coach could easily steal a bunch of those guys back. Plus the recruit problem could give the new head coach a lot of leeway with performance next season…”Sorry fans, I came into this situation late, we may have a rough year next season but I’ll turn it around.” It’s also not like the players left at Tennessee are bums– they were recruited by an SEC powerhouse so they must be pretty damn good. Nick Saban demonstrated that you can take a historically good program that has been down for a while and turn it into a national championship team pretty quickly if you are a good coach. Plus as much faith as I have in Lane Kiffin’s ability to ruin a program, it takes exceptional skill to completely destruct it in one year, and I doubt Lane has that kind of saavy. People also say Kiffin’s series of minor recruiting violations could mean sanctions are coming against the program. While there were a bunch of minor violations at Tennessee under Kiffin, I doubt they are enough to warrant any major sanction (it’s not like we’re talking Reggie Bush type stuff).

It looks like some less known coach is going to get a chance to prove himself at a historically great football program. I think that a lot of these big name guys aren’t taking the Tennessee job says more about them than it does about the program. It says they are scared to fail and doubt their ability to bring Tennessee back to prominence. It’s too bad for Tennessee that they won’t get a big name guy– but I won’t be shocked if whoever goes there manages to do well in 2-3 years and keep moving on up the coaching ladder.