Big Game Bob makes another bad hire decision at LB Coach

There are some of us, myself included, that don’t think a similar type shake up to what you all did w/ your staff would be a bad thing. I’m really starting to wonder if Bob still has the drive to be the best in the country and I thought bringing his brother back and this latest hire were a sign of that.

I do think Mike can bring some toughness back to the defense and I’m a fan of some of the differences he and Brent Venables have, but schematically (which is where I think we’d be well served by changes) very little will be different IMO.

The biggest positive in Mike coming back is that by all accounts he’s the only person
Bob has ever had on staff that will get in his face and challenge him on things. Which is something I think Bob desperately needs.

And multiple sources who have confirmed it, Metoyer was finally just cleared by the NCAA Clearinghouse. This was the second week of classes I believe and I think the talk was that as long as he didn’t miss more than that he’d be fine academically once/if he got cleared.

As for a Q&A, I doubt many here would be all that interested but if I’m wrong I’d definitely be up for it. I very much enjoy what BFLT does Sunday nights here and I hate Texas, so that’s a real testament to what he and all of you bring to that (along w/ everything else here of course).

Fresh ideas aren’t really the problem.

Great, I start reading up a little to brush up on Nix’s defensive production and draft picks, see in his wiki bio that he has eleven fingers, and I can’t find a picture that shows his entire left hand (the right has five–I counted). This is going to drive me nuts.

Anyway, Nix has coached up a lot of excellent all-conference and all-american performers, national award winners and nominees, and NFL draft picks. He made guys like Rod Davis, Jasper Brinkley, and Michael Boley (who played low-level competition as a RB/S/WR in HS) into really good linebackers. He also coached Adalius Thomas as USM. His defenses had very good rankings all but in his last year at USM (2004) and last two years at Ole Miss (2010-2011). It’s hard to know what happened at Ole Miss, but I have a couple of theories:

1. Loss of talent that was not successfully replaced. Nutt often seemed to treat recruiting as an afterthought at some of his other stops, and that held up at Ole Miss. When Nix’s defense lost future NFL players Periah Jerry (after 2008 season), JaMarca Sanford (2008), Kendrick Lewis (2009), Ashley Palmer (2009), Marshay Green (after 2009), Greg Hardy (2009), Emmanuel Stephens (2009), Patrick Trahan (2009), Cassius Vaughn (2009), and Jerrell Powe (2010). They also lost some solid starters who didn’t play in the NFL. Sure the losses of Jerry, Sanford, and Powe hurt, but that defense lost seven starters just to the NFL, not counting guys who didn’t make or are not currently on NFL rosters, after that solid 2009 season and prior to the significant drop for 2010. Returning star and NFL-caliber DE Kentrell Lockett also missed the opener (heart) and then suffered a season-ending injury very early. Their top defensive recruits from Nutt’s first class weren’t around (Stephens and Trahan were jucos and went to the NFL, Demareo Marr transferred, Derrick Herman and Jared Mitchell were moved from DB to WR, Horatio Williams didn’t qualify and went to juco and then LSU, Julian Whitehead and Darius Barksdale transferred, etc.), and of those who did play defense there in 2010, only Justin Smith was considered anything better than a two-star (mid-major quality) recruit. The same story was largely true for the second class, including top juco recruit Hornsby, who was released from scholarship due to felony assault charges, transfers like Willie Ferrell, and of course plenty of guys who didn’t qualify. Sure one could argue that Nix should’ve coached up what talent he had, but that many losses in one off-season can kill, especially when effed up by mediocre recruiting and double-effed by attrition of the least-mediocre recruits.

2. The offense went from very competent to one of the worst in FBS. While Snead wasn’t good, he was better than anyone Ole Miss has had since, and they were actually forced to start Masoli, who had zero experience in that kind of offense. They lost all but three starters on offense, including its three best in RB/slot receiver Dexter McCluster, OL John Jerry, and WR Shay Hodge. They were in the bottom ten in FBS in scoring offense, total offense, 1st downs per game, 3rd down percentage, 4th down percentage, penalties, and sack yardage lost. I’m not sure what their total turnovers were, but they were ranked 88th in the nation at -6. They were also horrible in rushing average (3.4yds/carry, 17th-worst), passing yards per game (151.7, 13th-worst), sacks allowed (34, 19th-worst, and likely would’ve been 18th-worst but for the 13th games for some ahead of them), and bad in rushing yards per game (129.6).

3. Coaching turnover may have played a key role on both sides of the ball. Popular Ole Miss alum OC Kent Austin, who at least provided some sort of balance to Nutt’s desire to control the offense in addition to being the HC, left after the 2009 season to take the head coaching job at Yale. He was succeeded by co-OCs Dave Rader and Mike Markuson. Rader, a former Tulsa HC and Alabama OC, had been out of football three years and working in sales for a manufacturing company in Tulsa when Nutt hired him. He was so bad he lasted just one year before he was fired and went back to his sales job. Markuson had already been Ole Miss’ OL coach and running game coordinator, and filled either OL coach or OC positions under Nutt every year since 1993, including at Murray St., Boise St., and Arkansas. He’s now the OL coach at Wisconsin, and probably very well suited for that job, but having him and Rader as co-OC’s with a micro-managing Nutt was a recipe for disaster.

Anyway, long post, but the short of it is that Nix had mostly great runs as DC and LB coach at all his stops, and there are probably good reasons to look past the precipitous dropoff in 2010-2011. I think he’d make a good DC for a lot of programs, but an excellent hire as a LB coach for OU. I’m sure Steve Spurrier, under whom Nix was DC at South Carolina, can give his own former DC a pretty good idea of what he’d be getting in Nix.

I suppose Manny Diaz didn’t have anything going for him in recruiting either, but he certainly had some decent defensive performances. As I understand it, Kish does bring some modest SoCal recruiting, uh, familiarity. Good luck, right?

Although like Mack at UT, he probably doesn’t bring particular prowess in one region or the other, but rather let his assistants develop their territories. It looks like Kish’s territory, other than of course the in-state guys, was mostly SoCal (especially the Inland Empire and desert areas) and the inland cities further north (Bakersfield, Fresno, etc.). Of course the commitments he won were usually from battles with the likes of ASU, Colorado, Nebraska, and a bunch of mid-majors, not USC or even UCLA.