desertfan wrote:I can live with Leavitt leaving at this point, there's been enough smoke on that fire that I've been bracing for this reality for awhile now....
But to replace him with an unproven position coach with zero DC experience is a massive fucking mistake. I really hope I'm wrong but this feels like Pellum all over again...
Isn’t that how we got Mario though? Although he had head coaching experience he hadn’t had great success in his previous stint. Also Heyward was co-defensive coordinator of our defense.
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Good point. I will add that Mario's tenure at FIU needs to be examined through the lens of what he was up against. They were winless the year before he arrived and had only started plating football at the school a few years prior. They had no weight room. The facilities were abysmal and he had a tiny budget for assistants, recruiting, etc. They were put on probation nearly the whole time he was there (losing 4 scholarships) due to actions of the previous staff. The list goes on. Getting them to two bowl games and beating Louisville is a pretty phenomenal job, all things being considered.
As to your second point - does anyone have insight into the amount of involvement Heyward had on the D gameplan and playcalling? My assumption is if you're paying a guy 1.7 million to coordinate the defense it's because he knows how to do it without needing a lot of help. That's just my perception, not actual knowledge of the workings of the staff.
DuckMastaFunk wrote:
Good point. I will add that Mario's tenure at FIU needs to be examined through the lens of what he was up against. They were winless the year before he arrived and had only started plating football at the school a few years prior. They had no weight room. The facilities were abysmal and he had a tiny budget for assistants, recruiting, etc. They were put on probation nearly the whole time he was there (losing 4 scholarships) due to actions of the previous staff. The list goes on. Getting them to two bowl games and beating Louisville is a pretty phenomenal job, all things being considered.
As to your second point - does anyone have insight into the amount of involvement Heyward had on the D gameplan and playcalling? My assumption is if you're paying a guy 1.7 million to coordinate the defense it's because he knows how to do it without needing a lot of help. That's just my perception, not actual knowledge of the workings of the staff.
I have seen in a couple of places (I think one was an article, not just a fan post) that Heyward was mostly in charge of planning and calling the defenses for the Redbox Bowl. Not sure how accurate that is, but if it's true then it's good news bc we wouldn't have won that game on our offensive production alone.
RanDux wrote:Will miss Captain Pepsi. I hope he finds a job that brings satisfaction.
To me it appears his incident with that player is going to haunt him for the rest of his career.
that and the fact that by all accounts he is not the easiest person to work with. There were issues at Colorado with him and McIntyre and there were rumblings when he was with the 49ers that there were issues. Never anything confirmed with the 49ers but the local reporters always hinted that Jim could be difficult.
One of the most significant issues with Leavitt was that he would not move to Eugene. He did rent a place but never moved his wife and young daughters to Eugene and commuted back and forth when there were no games etc. The question that was repeatedly asked of him was 'how can you sell a recruit and his family on the community and university when you don't even live here'? This surfaced with some recruits in the past thus the reason there were multiple coaches involved in recruiting.
lmduck wrote:
that and the fact that by all accounts he is not the easiest person to work with. There were issues at Colorado with him and McIntyre and there were rumblings when he was with the 49ers that there were issues. Never anything confirmed with the 49ers but the local reporters always hinted that Jim could be difficult.
One of the most significant issues with Leavitt was that he would not move to Eugene. He did rent a place but never moved his wife and young daughters to Eugene and commuted back and forth when there were no games etc. The question that was repeatedly asked of him was 'how can you sell a recruit and his family on the community and university when you don't even live here'? This surfaced with some recruits in the past thus the reason there were multiple coaches involved in recruiting.
Thanks for the info. That puts a lot of this into perspective.
He's gone, almost zero chance he ends up at a Pac12 school, so why care where he goes?
agree and chances that he ends up somewhere in FLa are quite good because other than Colorado that is the only place that his wife will agree to move to based on what knowledgeable sources have indicated.