Fourth and Dumb

Only a few details remain to be worked out today before Skip Holtz is introduced at USF. This is a good hire; East Carolina has made a name for itself the last couple years with big wins over Virginia Tech and West Virginia to open 2008 (on the way to the C-USA title). Still, if I were a Bulls’ fan, I’d be a bit underwhelmed. Holtz will build on the foundation Jim Leavitt built, but it remains to be seen if he can take a BCS program to a conference title. But I reckon there’s only one way to find out!

Just a brief post to throw out some random candidates, both plausible and implausible, for the two open BCS Conference coaching jobs at USC and USF. Please comment on what you think might happen!

USC: Jack Del Rio is supposedly the favorite of the USC administration. I suppose if you had such incredible success with a NFL coach who led underachieving teams in the NFL before coming to SoCal, you’d be willing to try it again. Steve Sarkisian’s name is in the mix, though he says he’s not going anywhere. Yesterday, Gary Patterson of TCU said he didn’t know what he’d do if he was asked, which is interesting. Who else might be in the mix?

USF: Florida’s defensive line coach Dan McCarney, who has head coaching experience at Iowa State and was an assistant for the Bulls a couple years ago, has indicated he’d take the job if offered. Tony Dungy visited the USF players yesterday, getting ESPN all lathered up, but Dungy won’t come back for a college gig. Kevin Sumlin of Houston would be a great choice, but he may want to wait for a bigger job next year. Rick Stockstill of Middle Tennessee State would be an awesome hire; a former QB at FSU, Stockstill has done a great job recruiting mid-level players in Florida and has a lot of connections down here, but is he “sexy” enough as a hire to make Bulls fans happy? Finally, there’s Tommy Bowden, who would likely love a chance at such a gig, but if USF is going to tap the Bowden tree, one hopes they’d go for Terry. Who else?

Thanks to intrepid F&D friend Ahmad Ragab for giving me first alert that reports say Jim Leavitt will get shitcanned in about 38 minutes (noon) when USF has called a press conference.

The old-school bullying of players by coaches doesn’t seem to be tolerated anymore; this is an interesting trend, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, I don’t think college kids need to get slapped or have their coaches make fun of family members’ murders (right, Mark Mangino?), but on the other hand this is big-time college football, and it’s a pretty rough world. Sounds like a good off-season post topic!