Food for thought for the “Whitt has hit his ceiling crowd”

[gothamute]

 

https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2017/11/27/16704020/kevin-sumlin-todd-graham-texas-am-arizona-state-coaches-fired

“When you find yourself stuck with a coach who is good but not good enough, the problem often isn’t him.

It’s infrastructure. It’s history. It’s program support. It’s something other than the head coach. But the head coach is the easiest thing to change, so schools follow the same fruitless road over and over and over again.

Maybe Arizona State and/or Texas A&M turn out to be the exceptions. But you can almost never fire your way out of Glen Mason Territory, no matter how good it feels to try.”

[NarfUte]

ASU AD’s arrogance is gonna bite him in the ass. 

[ladyinred]

Agreed. And I  was surprised that he was willing to trash the Sun and Vegas bowl before, you know, they had actually selected ASU. I mean, don’t they have the option to invite someone else? 

[NarfUte]

Sumlin *might* be the only good hire available to them. Even then they would have to change their offensive identity. I hate graham, but IMO he outperformed the talent he had this year.

The number of jobs better than ASU available this year is huge – I don’t know that they’ll find a better coach than what they had

[Grayshirt]

I think they should go after Rocky Long from SDSU. 

[UteFanatic]

Verbatim quote from ASU’s AD:

“2nd place in the weak Pac-12 South just isn’t good enough.”

OK.

[EagleMountainUte]

I don’t necessarily argue he has hit his ceiling. I just think we have seen enough of him for long enough that my expectations are not CFP champion or PAC 12 Championship. He twice almost fell ass backwards into the Pac12 title game. A kicker would have got Utah in 2012. 

Utah under Whittingham has a fairly consistent history of problems with injuries and offensive production. It is tied to several decisions that may or may not have worked. I think health at the qb position specifically has some ties to the offensive play calling. He has yet to improve on those things. You could even say Utah’s defensive health is tied to inept offense. 

[gUrthBrooks]

I’ll take the bird in the hand for now… I feel like this is a discussion for the end of next year after the Whitt/T.T. experience has gone a complete round. 

[EagleMountainUte]

Ok so some of the high on Whitt people think Utah will compete for the P12 title game in 2018 right?  

So just as a hypothetical look who Utah plays if they book that ticket?  BYU final game I am still so p**sed that Hill agreed to that. BYU will be pretty irrelevant by the end of the season and if anything hurt Utah heading into its first P12 title game. 

Hard for me to blame Whitt for that but I will he should have told Hill hell no. 

[ladyinred]

Yeah, the game next November is now looking like it will be a really bad blemish on our strength of schedule.
Not to mention awkward with ARod as their new OC.

[RiseasUtes]

My argument in support of KW is that he used this season to get ready for the next two seasons.  We lost a bunch of NFL players after last season and we knew that we would be playing lots of young guys throughout the season.  He went with Huntley over Williams knowing that Williams would probably win an extra game or two, but that Huntley could really use the experience(along with 4 new starters on the Oline).

Just this year we got these guys a ton of experience to go into next year with.

QB-Huntley(So)

RB-Moss(So), DHC(So)+Shyne(Jr)

WR-Wilson(So), Thompson(Fr), Nacua(Fr)+ we get Singleton(Jr)Covey(Fr), Dana(Jr), Boyd(Fr) back for next year

OL-Barton(Jr), Falamaka(should get medical rs), Agasiva(Jr), Paulo(Fr)+Toala(So), Capra(So)

DL-Penisini(So), Anae(So), Repp(So), Hart(So), Tonga(Fr), Tupai(Fr), Fotu(So), Heninger(Fr)

LB-Thompson(So), Barton(Jr)+Tafua(Fr transfer from BYU)

DB-Johnson(Fr), Hughes(Jr), Blair(Jr), Hansen(Jr), Ballard(Jr), Blackmon(So), Burgess(So), Afia(So), Guidry(Fr)

Plus all the redshirt Freshman, sophomores that havent been in the rotation yet.  We will also be getting Wishnowski and Gay back.  Next year I have much higher expectations than I had for this year.

[EagleMountainUte]

Define much higher??

 I personally had 7 or 8 wins for this season. He competed in games he shouldn’t have and blew it against teams I had as wins. Oregon and ASU specifically. UCLA was worst than I expected and Rose was out.  

For 2018 I am setting 8-9 wins but I am trying to factor in the wtf losses and November slide in there. 

[RiseasUtes]

I expected 7-8 wins this season also(with Williams at QB).  So with Huntley starting the majority of them I am not as disappointed with the result of 6-6(outside of the terrible efforts in the Az St and Oregon games).  We were right there with the 4 top teams in the conference.  I think next year we can win some of those closer games that we lost this year.  I am not negating the losses, but losing to Stanford(3 points), USC(1 point), Washington(3 points), and Wash St(8 points) shows that we were close this year.  I think 9-10 wins next year is possible, but would be happy with anything over 8.  Our schedule will be pretty tough next year also, but we get Washington, Oregon, USC, and BYU at home.

[TexanUte]

My argument against Whitt is he had a team full of NFL players but still disappointed in the end.

[Utahute72]

Hard for me to blame Whitt for that but I will he should have told Hill hell no.

Millenials! I’m sure you go into your boss and tell him no all the time.

[EagleMountainUte]

Please Whitt has no leverage in scheduling at all?  Hill was a moron and I would have said find someone else to play that game right before the end of the season. Whitt has more clout than Hill at Utah. 

[Red Don]

“Whitt has more clout than Hill at Utah”

Uh, Hill can fire Whitt; Whitt cannot fire Hill.>

[Puget Ute]

Please. That game time was scheduled so Stanford (or USC?) could play Notre Dame that week, and was done to facilitate PAC scheduling. When that game was scheduled 4+ years ago Utah didn’t exactly have a lot of leverage with the league, and still received only a part of the payout each year. That wasn’t just Chris Hill stupidly making a deal with byu, it had bigger implications outside of the two teams.

[ragtownute]

For those that think the best is yet to come with Kyle, what are those expectations? What should the fans expect as his ceiling? 

[RedLine]

Hmmm. Maybe fans not looking for excuses to fire a coach who is winning in a tough confrenece. 

[EagleMountainUte]

*Winning is beating Zona and UCLA without their difference makers playing? Colorado is bad just a young bad team. Same with UCLA going through the motions without Rosen playing for an nfl contract they are super awful. 

[RedLine]

Ask Tennessee fans if firing Phillip Fulmer was a good decision for long term success. His last records in the SEC were 10-3. 5-6, 9-4, 10-4 5-7.  Let’s look at Whitt’s last 5: 5-7, 9-4, 10-3, 9-4, 6-6 (pending bowl game).  

[ragtownute]

This isn’t a good comparison at all. Fulmer had 3 division titles in the years you selected and also had a conference championship and national title under his belt at Tennessee. 

Whit is sub-500 in conference and isn’t close to digging himself out of that hole at this pace. 

[RedLine]

It’s a perfect example actually.  They prematurely fired a long tenured program coach thinking it would lead to… well, look at Tennessee since they fired him… 

[EagleMountainUte]

I am not in the fire Whitt crowd for this purpose I fear the replacement would be worst. I don’t forget post Majerus years which is the most accurate comparison. Majerus was Utah Basketball for so long and it will be hard to duplicate that quickly. Same with Whitt he is a large part of Utah’s rise in these past two decades. After he retires or is fired it will be difficult. Even for the replacement to get out of that shadow and make his own mark. 

I honesly wouldn’t want to be the guy who replaces Whitt. 

[ragtownute]

Fulmer was a TITLE WINNING coach. Tenure isn’t the attribute to compare by itself. It’s tenure and success in conference. Far from a perfect example man…

[TexanUte]

I think it is a bad analogy because it presumes that just because Tennessee hired a string of bad coaches that Utah is obligated to do the same.

[Ute Gnome]

Not having a go here, but you seem willing to excuse other teams  but ignore the fact that Whitt lost a ton of talent from last years team, lost his own starting QB for three plus games, had a brand new o-line, and was still in every game but a handful.  8-4 would have been a phenomenal rec

[EagleMountainUte]

No I love explaining my position.  Because Whitt has been granted that excuse repeatedly. Name a year he didn’t have an injured QB as an excuse.  Whitt will also be the first to say you don’t have that as an excuse.

Two things you can always depend on with Whitt horrible offense and mounting injuries throughout a season.   

[ragtownute]

Seriously though, what should our expectations be for Kyle? I think we should average 8 wins a year given then s**t out of conference we have lined up. 

[shakeitsugaree]

This was a good read – thanks.

Sometimes I feel like college football is one huge Tinder date. “You’re attractive, but when I got to know you, it turns out you’re a real person with imperfections. I’m certain ‘the one’ is still out there, so imma keep swiping until I find you, oh person of my irrational dreams.”

😉

[TexanUte]

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2683411-remembering-when-alabama-football-was-a-laughingstock

I link this because I am tired of the linear static thinking of many that Utah is just Utah and that’s it or the assumption (short sighted) that the current major powers were always major powers uninterrupted. Look at Alabama’s futility for the decade before Saban and then their record with him. I realize Alabama has had many eras of good ball but the point of this is to show that coaching can and does matter. Yes young kids on this board, Alabama was indeed a laughingstock when you were young.

Conversely Utah with the right hire could ascend to the top if even only for a short run.