From the oggling stage to the delirious stage

Kliff Kingsbury. Texas Tech. Googly eyes. Etc.

Texas Tech has hired former quarterback Kliff Kingsbury as its new coach, the school announced Wednesday.

Kingsbury, 33, was offered the Tech job on Wednesday afternoon, and athletic director Kirby Hocutt announced the news of him accepting it with a video posted on Twitter not long after.

"Wreck 'em Tech," Kingsbury said in the video, giving the school's "Guns Up" sign when the camera panned to him.

/all of Lubbock faints simultaneously

So that's that; everybody's happy and therefore Texas Tech will go on to win the next eleventy hundred straight Big 12 titles. Or something. I'm pretty sure that's how it works. But I'm contractually obligated (not really) to produce some words here anyway, so here goes.

Kliff Kingsbury is 33 and has a coaching resume only slightly longer than mine. Five years ago, he was making less than $30K as a quality control something something at Houston; he's now making just a little more than that every week ($2 million annually). Like ... I mean ... dang, dude.

Here's the extent of his job history: Houston quality control something something in 2008 and '09, Houston quarterbacks coach and co-offensive coordinator in 2010 and '11 and Texas A&M quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator in 2012. So he's had playcalling responsibilities for all of three years; he also was given playcalling responsibilities by one of the better offensive coaches in the country after two years of not even being a real assistant, which LOLWUT.

Here's a quote from Houston coach Tony Levine:

"The thing that stood out to me and that I don't know that everybody's aware of is how intelligent Kliff Kingsbury is. People talk about men and women in all different occupations at times as being brilliant, and Kliff has a brilliant mind. He's an outside-the-box thinker. He's extremely creative. And he's extremely organized. And he's got a memory as sharp as anyone I've been around." 

 /all of Lubbock swoons simultaneously

Of course, nobody outside than the Houston/A&M staffs really noticed any of that until OMG JOHNNY FOOTBALL HEISMANZIEL WOOO. But here are some numbers for context: 2010 Houston finished 11th in total yards, fifth in passing yards and 13th in scoring, 2011 Houston finished first in total yards, first in passing yards and first in scoring (swell) and 2012 Texas A&M finished the regular season third in total yards, 14th in passing yards and fourth in scoring (despite playing three of the top 11 scoring defenses in the country).

Given those numbers and the numbers Kingsbury put up back in the day under Mike Leach, who gives his quarterbacks a crapload of freedom at the line, it's probably reasonable to say this: Kliff Kingsbury is quite good at calling plays. Given the complete lack of all other potentially useful data, it's also reasonable to say this: There is absolutely no way to know if Kliff Kingsbury is any good at anything else related to being a head coach. Recruiting? No idea. Player development? No idea. System implementation? No idea. Game management? No idea. Staff assembly? No idea. He's never done literally any of those things anywhere. He's 33 and has been doing actual coach stuff for three years. Three years!

But he's a former player (and therefore can do no wrong, according to every fan base everywhere) and can do "Guns Up" like a mofo, so the celebration is nigh. A probably-not-really-serious tweet that's actually 1,000,000 percent correct:

@ralphDrussoAP: Tommy Tuberville has never been more popular in Lubbock.

Indeed.

Tommy Tuberville's problem was that he (a) wasn't a "Guns Up" lifer and (b) wasn't Mike Leach and therefore was Guy Who Follows Mike Leach And Eventually Gets Fired For Failure To Meet Unrealistic Goals; he just avoided the "gets fired" part by leaving of his own volition.

Leach coached at Tech for 10 years and had an average record of about 8-4, a median record of exactly 8-4 and an average record over the last five years of 9-4. Those numbers were all legitimately impressive because they were accomplished at Texas Tech, which (a) is nowhere and (b) isn't Texas or Oklahoma, the two programs that spent the entirety of Leach's tenure laughing at the rest of the conference. I mentioned this in my Tuberville post last week but will repeat it here: Spike Dykes made a career out of going about 7-5. At Texas Tech, that's ... like ... pretty decent.

Tuberville went 8-5 in his first year, 5-7 in his second year (which compelled him to bring in D-coordinator Art Kaufman, who put together a weirdly good defense) and then 7-5 this year. And that was cause for much rabbling; how much of that was pure win-loss rabbling and how much of it was he's-an-outsider rabbling is hard to say without being embedded in the war zone that is West Texas. At least Kingsbury won't have to deal with any of the latter. He will have to deal with the former, though, unless he literally is Mike Leach (or better), both in terms of philosophy and winning an inexplicable amount. Maybe he'll get a little leeway since he's Kliff Kingsbury; maybe he won't since being Kliff Kingsbury comes along with an assumption that the offense will be exactly as good as what it was when he was quarterback except with more wins (seven wins a year pffft).

I mean, Texas Tech finished the regular season second in the country in passing yards, seventh in the country in pass efficiency and 12th in the country in total offense (and in the top half of the conference in every relevant defensive stat); is significant improvement even possible? I dunno. Maybe it won't need to be if Kingsbury wins a decent amount and runs around doing stuff like this:

/all of Lubbock orgasms simultaneously

I mean, there is a hilarious lovefest going on right now at Tech blog Viva The Matadors. It's like Christmas morning combined with prom night combined with an explosion at the doughnut factory. For serious:

My kiddo refuses to say anything I ask him to say and I have asked him numerous times to say, “Wreck ’Em Tech.” I just played Kliff’s video with the sound up on the computer and my kid just said, “Wreck ’Em Tech.”

Even babies love him! There are (as of right now) 1,070 other comments, all of which are either similar to that or a celebratory gif. I guarantee that the reaction would've been less unanimously WWWHHEEEEE if Nick Saban had been hired since, I mean, will defense work in the Big 12?

And that's cool. He's basically Texas Tech's Brady Hoke, complete with press-conference teehees (Ohio!):

 "I was going to see if there's any way possible we can get Cincinnati on the schedule next year?"

/all of Lubbock fires real guns into air simultaneously

Except people were rightfully critical of Brady Hoke because of his relatively meh history that included only eight years of building something slightly better than decency at a couple programs that definitely weren't Michigan; nobody's critical of Kliff Kingsbury despite only three years of anything.

I actually like Kingsbury (he might be a genius and almost definitely knows how to run an offense) but have some valid concerns about whether he can do anything other than run an offense since the data is nonexistent. See about 10 paragraphs ago. If everybody loves him just because he's Kliff Kingsbury and regularly winning seven or eight games will be fine since he's Kliff Kingsbury, I'm sure he'll be fine. If everybody loves him because he's Kliff Kingsbury and therefore will make Texas Tech the most awesomest thing ever (even better than in the good ol' days but in a Big 12 that has nine legitimately competitive teams out of 10), I'm less sure he'll be fine. I guess it depends whether he can do all those things he hasn't had to do so far; in that regard, your guess is as good as mine.

Meta: No content today because ugh

I dropped my 5-year-old off at kindergarten this morning. At almost the exact same time, a bunch of kids effectually the same as my son at a school effectually the same as his in a place effectually the same as where I live were getting brutally murdered for no fathomable reason. I can't even (or just don't want to) imagine. Words: There are none. None.

With that in mind, Kliff Kingsbury's introductory presser and the stability of the Big East just seem ... I dunno ... something. Unimportant? Yeah, I guess so.

So instead of writing I'm gonna get my work done, leave a little early, take my kids to ride the Christmas train and then put them to bed. And the latter part will be a little easier knowing that there are a lot of people out there right now who thought they'd get to do that tonight but won't.

What a sad, sad world. I don't even know, man.

Of course Greg Garmon is gone

Iowa running back yadda yadda you know how this sentence ends:

The running back exits continue for Iowa, as freshman Greg Garmon has decided to transfer from the team. There's nothing official from Iowa, but Garmon told multiple media outlets that he asked for and received his release from head coach Kirk Ferentz on Wednesday.

Garmon was a moderately highly touted four-star dude last year who ended up with 38 carries for 122 yards and eight catches for 57 yards, with most of those touches out of necessity since obviously. Recruiting rankings aside, he was the No. 3 option for most of the year behind walk-on fullback Mark Weisman and converted receiver Damon Bullock; interpret that as you will.

An explanation from Garmon via 247Sports:

"This had nothing to do with my grades or getting in to any trouble at all. I just didn't feel comfortable here anymore with the offense. It is a power offense and I am not a power type of a back. I'm more of a scat-back type guy. I can run, but I like to catch the ball out of the backfield and do different things."

Iowa runs a power offense? Surprise! It's almost like recruits don't really know anything about the systems they commit to play in. Or something. I dunno.

Anyway, seeing as how Weisman, Bullock and Jordan Canzeri (who made his first start in last year's Insight Bowl and played decently but then tore his ACL this spring) will all be back next year, Garmon was unlikely to be a significant part of the offense next year regardless. Except he undoubtedly would've been since those guys will all be struck down in inexplicably vengeful fashion. BHGP summarizes:

Garmon is the third running back to transfer out of the Iowa program in this calendar year, the fourth to leave the team. He is the sixteenth consecutive running back to leave the program early; the last Iowa running back to actually complete four years with the program remains Damien Sims, who graduated in 2007. In the last four years, Iowa has signed four Rivals.com four-star running backs. All four of them left the program before the beginning of their third year in the program.

The Hawkeyes' running back depth chart is now a converted two-star wide receiver, a walk-on fullback who transferred from Air Force, and a two-star scatback who spent the season recovering from a torn ACL.

Fun times in Babylon, indeed.

Indeed. But it's OK because Greg Davis will fix everything.

Catching up will only work with Michael Lombardi

It's been real: So ... Marcus Lattimore. He be gone:

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Injured South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore is finished with college football. Lattimore announced Wednesday he was giving up his final season to enter the NFL draft.

He was considered a can't-miss, first-round talent after his first two seasons. However, a horrifying right knee injury in October has dropped his draft stock, and it is unclear when Lattimore might return to action. Lattimore dislocated his knee and tore several ligaments when he was tackled against Tennessee. He had what doctors say was successful knee surgery and is off crutches.

Sigh. He's basically taking the Willis McGahee route, with the differences being (a) the desirability of running backs 10 years ago as compared to now and (b) McGahee's one major injury as compared to Lattimore's one major injury and one utterly devastating one. And I can't say I blame him; keep in mind that Lattimore probably isn't gonna play at all next year (the estimated recovery time for a total knee-ligament reconstruction is 12-18 months), meaning he'd have been looking at a year and a half away from football entirely followed by a senior-year return in 2014 that would've served almost no purpose other than to re-establish draftability. The alternative: leave school now, get drafted a little later than he probably would in 2015 (after a hypothetical return to South Carolina) and get paid some not-insignificant amount while rehabbing with NFL trainers/doctors.

So the choice probably wasn't really that hard from a what-makes-more-sense standpoint; it was definitely depressing for those of us who have enjoyed watching Lattimore be a manchild for the last three years, though. I'll try to remember the good times rather than the AAAHHHHH screenshots (don't click here) and accompanying sadness.

Southern Miss has a coach: It's Todd Monken, most recently Oklahoma State's offensive coordinator. As you may or may not recall, Monken was brought in (he had been quarterbacks coach and receivers coach for the Jaguars but had worked his way up as passing-game coordinator for Okie State and LSU) after Dana Holgorsen left for West Virginia and detailed a very specific plan to change nothing and learn the intricacies of the offense from Brandon Weeden; that obviously worked out pretty well for all parties involved since Okie State finished third in total yards and second in scoring last year and then fifth in total yards and fourth in scoring this year.

It's worth noting that Oklahoma State's O-coordinator before Holgorsen was Larry Fedora, who of course went to Southern Miss and did some pretty swell things before leaving for North Carolina last year. It's not unreasonable to think that the Monken offense will bear some resemblance to the Fedora one and therefore require less of an overhaul than in most coaching-change instances.

The problem: Fedora was one coach ago. Ellis Johnson took over before last season and promptly lit the program (one coming off a 12-2 season resulting in a Conference USA title) on fire en route to the only 0-12 finish in the country. Given the relatively typical number of returning starters from the 2011 team, it seems likely that this year's inexplicable awfulness had more to do with coaching than it did with talent (although the situation at quarterback wasn't a good one), so just getting the offense back to its typical level of production should be sufficient to get Southern Miss back to its typical level of production, which is to say 9-3 and the Liberty Bowl (or whatever Conference USA is affiliated with now). Really, based on historical success and recruiting locale and whatnot, Southern Miss is a pretty good job (probably one of the better ones) by non-BCS-conference standards; a couple years of success there could definitely make Monken the 2014 version of 2011 Larry Fedora.

Arkansas State has a coach: It's Bryan Harsin, most recently Texas' O-coordinator but probably known better as Boise State's O-coordinator for the five seasons prior to the past two, when Boise was putting up hilarious numbers and going 11-1 pretty much every year.

Harsin is 35, meaning he's been a big-time program's playcaller since the age of 28 (wow); he's also pretty highly regarded, in part because of what he did at Boise and in part because he was able to extinguish some of the Greg Davis dumpster fire and re-establish a respectable running game at Texas over the last two years. For statistical reference, Texas finished 21st nationally in rushing yards in each of the last two years while going from 54th in yardage and 55th in scoring in 2011 to 37th and 24th this year (despite the weird inability to find anything resembling consistency at quarterback). So he's probably a pretty good coordinator, and considering that he's spent the last 12 years under Mack Brown and Chris Petersen, he oughta have a pretty decent idea of how to assemble a staff, too.

The nice thing about Arkansas State is that the program's in pretty good shape right now: Hugh Freeze won a lot and got the Ole Miss job last offseason before Gus Malzahn won a lot in his one year and got the Auburn job this offseason. So the complete lack of historical success means little considering that the last two years have been full of pure Colombian awesomeness (by Sun Belt standards). FYI, Arkansas State wrote a massive buyout into Harsin's contract that makes it pretty much impossible for him to leave after next year and only slightly easier to leave after the 2014 season; still, if he can do what the last two guys did (stay around 9-3 and win a conference title or two) over the next two or three years, he'll probably have the option to leave and take over some program that (a) is in an actual conference and (b) isn't located in northeast Arkansas.

As for Texas, finding Harsin's replacement required about seven seconds of searching, and by "searching" I mostly mean "drafting a press release":

Applewhite, who has been Texas' co-offensive coordinator the last two seasons, was handed play-calling duties for the Texas bowl game and next season on Wednesday when co-coordinator Bryan Harsin left to become the head coach at Arkansas State. Applewhite will also tutor the Texas quarterbacks. Applewhite has held the co-coordinator title for the past two years while Harsin called the plays. 

FWIW, Applewhite has called plays before: He was O-coordinator at Rice in 2006, when the offense was pretty average at everything, and then at Alabama (?!?) in Nick Saban's first year in 2007, when the offense was pretty average at everything. Interpret that data as you will. If nothing else, Mack Brown's obviously got a lot of faith in the guy since his other coordinator hires over the last few years have been based on the mission statement "find elite coordinator, offer him lots of money, profit." Then again, Mack Brown also had a lot of faith in Greg Davis, so yeah.

UTEP has a coach: It's Sean Kugler, most recently the Steelers' offensive line coach and otherwise an unknown since his relevant college experience consists entirely of eight years at UTEP from 1993-2000 and one year at Boise State in 2006. He has never been a coordinator or head coach or anything other than an O-line coach at any level, although that apparently wasn't a concern for the UTEP administration/alumni:

"Sean is one of the most incredible people I could ever imagine taking this position," said former college teammate Philip Gabbard. "His knowledge and experience are unparalleled. His coaching style soaks into players, they play for him. So many people in El Paso wanted this."

After his hiring, UTEP released two pages of quotes from people who worked with and played under Kugler and all painted a similar picture of a man players love to play for and get better under.

Some of those references: Mike Tomlin, Chris Petersen, Steve Mariucci, et al. So that's nice; what's less nice is the aforementioned total lack of experience. Having coordinator experience isn't an absolute necessity -- Brady Hoke is doing OK for himself after having been only a D-line coach before getting the Ball State job -- but it's definitely helpful, especially without having the recruiting background or current network (at the college level) to readily build a staff.

That said, UTEP is UTEP; Mike Price did pretty well to finish 40-45 since no coach has left with a .500 record in 25 years. In that regard, getting a guy with legit NFL experience and legit UTEP connections probably qualifies as a win. Also a win: getting a guy who looks like this.

Kentucky has an O-coordinator: Unsurprisingly, that O-coordinator is Neal Brown, the former Kentucky receiver who's been doing the Air Raid thing as offensive coordinator at Texas Tech for the last three years:

As expected, Neal Brown will be the offensive coordinator on Mark Stoops' first football staff at Kentucky, the school announced Monday.

The 32-year-old Brown, a Louisville native who was a wide receiver at UK before transferring to Massachusetts, was the offensive coordinator at Texas Tech for the past three years.

In other news, what am I doing with my life?

Anyway, Brown did reasonably well at Texas Tech (even if he didn't get much credit for it since NOT MIKE LEACH RABBLE): Tech finished 15th in yardage and 23rd in scoring in 2010, 13th in yardage and 22nd in scoring in 2011 and 12th in yardage and 16th in scoring this year. The offense was slightly more run-biased than it was under Leach, but that was partially by default and perhaps partially by Tommy Tuberville mandate.

Regardless, what Brown's hiring means for Kentucky is that there is a philosophy on offense, and that philosophy is as follows:

"We’re going to have an offense you’re going to be proud of," Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. "We’ll get out there and rip it around a little bit -- we are going to throw it.”

That quote really shouldn't have come as a surprise considering what The Other Stoops have been doing for most of the last decade. It's still newsworthy, though, that Kentucky is apparently assembling a staff of actual coaches and therefore making more progress toward respectability than at any point in the Joker Phillips era.

Arkansas has two coordinators: SEC money, yo: It buys SEC coordinators.

Former Tennessee offensive coordinator Jim Chaney was hired to the same position by new Arkansas coach Bret Bielema on Wednesday night, becoming Bielema's second assistant this week. Chris Ash was hired away from Wisconsin on Tuesday as Arkansas' defensive coordinator.

The Ash hiring was expected; Ash, who was Wisconsin's D-coordinator for the last two years after Dave Doeren left for the Northern Illinois job, was reportedly the only assistant asked to join Bielema at Arkansas. The Chaney one was definitely not expected (at least not that I'd heard of) since what Tennessee had been doing under Chaney in no way resembled what Wisconsin had been doing under Bielema. Details: In four years under Chaney, Tennessee averaged a ranking of 35th nationally in passing yards and 84th nationally in rushing yards, with both the 2010 and 2011 offenses finishing below 100th in rushing. BTW, Chaney was also Purdue's O-coordinator back in the Drew Brees days before spending some time in the NFL; he likee the pass.

An apt assessment from ESPN:

His hiring also shows Bielema, who was known for a power running attack while guiding Wisconsin the last seven seasons, is serious about being committed to a balanced offensive attack.

"Jim Chaney's approach will blend well with my ideas as we work to put together a plan for the team we have and over time develop our specific philosophy," Bielema said.

Given the talent that currently exists at Arkansas, having an O-coordinator with the ability to manifest a coherent passing-game will undoubtedly be beneficial (at least in the short term); the question is whether the playcalling on the whole will be coherent when the coordinator and the coach apparently have entirely different ideas about the best way to, like, score points and stuff. I'm intrigued.

This week in 'Nick Saban to the NFL': Via Greg Bedard of the Boston Globe:

According to the NFL sources, Saban has let it be known that if he returns to the NFL — where he previously flopped, going 15-17 with the Dolphins from 2005-06 — it would likely be with (Browns GM candidate Michael Lombardi) playing Pioli to his Belichick.

Saban could well be looking for his next/final NFL opportunity if he wins his fourth national championship next month in the BCS title game against Notre Dame. If the Browns (Saban is from northern West Virginia, played for and coached at Kent State, and was a Browns assistant under Belichick) and Lombardi are dangled, he may indeed take the plunge again.

/rest of SEC West nods approvingly

Rabble rabble tradition: Notre Dame will have names on its jerseys against Alabama:

Notre Dame will be wearing names on its blue jerseys for the Jan. 7 national title game against Alabama, continuing its bowl tradition under coach Brian Kelly.

The Irish had names on their away jerseys in the 2010 Sun Bowl win over Miami and on their home attire last year in the Champs Sports Bowl loss to Florida State. 

Rabble rabble? Ehh. Notre Dame apparently used to do the names-on-the-jerseys thing in bowl games way back in the day under Ara Parseghian, then stopped doing it for a while until the 2008 Hawaii Bowl under Charlie Weis. So it's kind of a tradition; this isn't Penn State deciding to throw names on the back of the been-plain-forever jerseys just to do something different. Rabble-ness on a scale of 1-10: 2.

LOL jkjkjk: Marquess Wilson didn't really mean "abuse" when he said "abuse," obviously:

Washington State has completed its internal investigation into abuse allegations by former wide receiver Marquess Wilson, and athletic director Bill Moos concluded that no such abuses occurred. ...

Moos revealed in his memo that he received a text message from Wilson after the UCLA game "where he recanted the allegations of abuse made in a letter written by he and a relative and sent to the media earlier that evening."

Wilson's text to Moos was included in emails released by the school Wednesday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

"Mr. Moos this is marquess ... With that letter I wasn't trying to accuse the coaches of hitting players or anything. I was just trying to put it in different terms and now everything is getting misinterpreted and I didn't mean it like that at all ... I simply was trying to get my story across and get my name cleared instead of having it say I'm suspended for breaking team violations ... That could mean like I did drugs or something."

I blame Craig James. #cjk5h

Colorado is kind of like Shoney's, I guess

Really, all that needs to be known about Mike MacIntyre is that he spent a year working at Shoney's right out of college and ended up as a Division I football coach, which ... ummm ... I don't really know what that means, but it probably offers some hope for all the employees of Shoney's who strive to one day get paid millions of dollars to take over crappy football programs.

And speaking of crappy football programs:

Mike MacIntyre turned around the San Jose State football program in short order and will be asked to do the same at the University of Colorado.

On Monday, MacIntyre signed a five-year deal to coach the Buffaloes. He will make $2 million a season. MacIntyre inherits a program that's had seven straight losing seasons, including a 1-11 record this year under Jon Embree that was the worst in the 123-year history of the program. 

Indeed.

Backing up a little, I wrote the other day that Western Kentucky was probably the worst program in the country when Willie Taggart took over given the 20 straight losses and general Sun Belt-ness and whatnot. San Jose State definitely wasn't that bad when MacIntyre got there but had gone 2-10 the year before and 25-35 overall under Dick Tomey, who had a 16-24 record in the WAC (which is the WAC).

MacIntyre (who had been Duke's D-coordinator after a couple NFL secondary jobs) took that hot mess and went from 1-11 in 2010 to 5-7 in 2011 to 10-2 (and 8-1 in the WAC) this year, which lolwut? If Utah State hadn't run the conference table, that 8-1 record would have been good for SJSU's first championship-type thing of any kind since 1991 (1991!). I know. Remember when Stanford was definitely headed for 7-5 after needed a fourth-quarter field goal to beat San Jose State 20-17 way back on the opening Friday night of the year? Not so much; in hindsight, that game said a lot more about San Jose State's progress than it did about Stanford's anything.

This is the part where I attempt to allocate credit for said progress (based on data and stuff) to determine whether it was actually related more to mad coaching skillz or general cyclical-ness of the universe or something else entirely. To the numbers (especially the defensive ones)!

Probably not coincidentally, San Jose State's defensive numbers coincide almost linearly with San Jose State's records over the last three years. The defense might have been worst in the country in Tomey's last year (109th in both yardage and scoring) and was similarly pathetic in MacIntyre's first year (117th and 105th), then improved to just regularly bad in 2010 (93rd and 86th) before becoming legitimately good this year (28th and 25th). Pretty much every relevant number was the second-best one in the WAC behind Utah State's. Offensively, the improvement was similar but built pretty much entirely around the passing game, with David Fales coming out of nowhere this year to finish second nationally in pass efficiency and 11th in yards. So progress: There was a lot.

And that's good since Colorado ... I mean ... holy hell.

And the problem wasn't really the lack of wins; the problem was that Colorado was terrible at literally everything to the extent that only a handful of games all year were even vaguely competitive, and one of those was a loss to an FCS team. The rest were just flat-out embarrassing: Oregon led 56-0 at the half, USC led 40-3 after three quarters, Fresno State (Fresno State!) led 55-7 at the half, Stanford led 45-0 after three quarters, etc. Colorado's average Pac-12 game this year was a 48-17 loss, and the only win required a 17-point fourth-quarter comeback against a Washington State team that was similarly awful and ended the year with one conference win.

Some more numbers: Colorado finished the season 116th in total offense, 116th in scoring offense, 108th in rushing offense, 118th in pass efficiency, 118th in total defense, 120th in scoring defense, 115th in rushing defense, 120th in pass-efficiency defense, 119th in turnover margin ... yeah. So Colorado was basically the worst BCS-conference team in literally every relevant statistical category. That is amazing.

Hence 1-11 this year and 4-20 in Jon Embree's two years as coach. And the Embree era was just sort of a continuation of the trajectory of the Dan Hawkins' era, when Colorado went from a pretty good program to a .500 one to a crappy one (probably in part due to the awkwardness at the end of the Gary Barnett era and the accompanying recruiting restrictions put in place afterward). Upshot: Colorado hasn't finished above .500 since 2005 and has been getting progressively worse ever since.

So yeah: Some serious rebuilding (like reassemble-after-a-freaking-earthquake-level rebuilding) is necessary. There's no way Colorado is close to being a good (read: winning) program right now based on the complete lack of talent that became more and more evident with every hilariously pathetic Pac-12 loss. I wrote this when Embree was mercifully let go:

The good news: There's nowhere to go but up. Seriously. The bad news: Having nowhere to go but up means the program currently is at rock bottom ... (but) I'm not that old and can still remember when Kordell Stewart was awesome and Rashaan Salaam was winning the Heisman and Colorado was regularly finishing in the top 10. The Gary Barnett era had some, um, uncomfortableness but was pretty respectable on the field, at least kinda/sorta maintaining some of Bill McCartney's awesomeness; since then, Colorado has regressed from "meh" to "ugh" to "gack." But based on tradition and facilities and alumni support and all that infrastructure-type stuff, there's no reason Colorado shouldn't be at least competitive in the Pac-12.

That's all true except the facilities part; I was thinking specifically of Folsom Field, which was renovated a couple years ago, but wasn't really taking into account the lack of a viable practice facility and other Oregon-esque palaces. That's undoubtedly somewhat of a hindrance in recruiting. An appropriate quote from Rick Neuheisel back when he left Colorado:

"Colorado has everything that money can't buy."

That's what I was trying to say. I've been to Colorado (the university and not just the state), and facilities aside, recruiting to Colorado shouldn't be that hard. Winning (at least some) at Colorado shouldn't be that hard, either.

The caveat (other than the total lack of talent, of course) is the division: Oregon is elite, Stanford is very good, Washington is good, Oregon State is typically good-ish, Cal is probably headed back toward comparable good-ish-ness and Washington State just hired Mike Leach a year ago. The caveat to the caveat: Chip Kelly could be gone by the time I'm done writing this sentence, Stanford has to start gravitating toward the historical mean at some point and none of the other aforementioned programs are consistently at a level that a normal version of Colorado shouldn't be at. The long-term ceiling in the Pac-12 North for both Colorado and Cal is located somewhere significantly higher than the ceiling that's located at "third place in the division" right now.

Actually getting to that ceiling would require a lot of things going right, obviously, and whether MacIntyre is the kind of guy who can make that many things go right is unknown. The San Jose State data seems sufficient for a positive hypothesis, at least, and that's more relevant data than Butch Jones would've provided after taking over two already-pretty-good programs and keeping them pretty good. But being better for Colorado than Butch Jones would've been isn't the goal going forward; the goal is actually getting Colorado back to competitiveness and then back to something better than competitiveness (basically just reversing the last 10 years of yuck). Doable? Yes. Likely? Depends entirely on whether MacIntyre is what his head coaching data indicates he is or whether he's closer to Dan Hawkins and/or Jon Embree.

Bobby Petrino has a job (!)

Word on the interwebz Monday morning was that Bobby Petrino was on campus at Western Kentucky, presumably interviewing for an undetermined position with the women's volleyball program. A couple hours later, this happened:

Western Kentucky announced Monday that Bobby Petrino has been hired as the new Hilltoppers' football coach. The 51-year-old Petrino replaces Willie Taggart, who left WKU on Saturday to become South Florida's coach.

Chances Western Kentucky will be pretty good (relatively speaking) next year: good. Chances Bobby Petrino will be at Western Kentucky after next year: zero. Chances that will bother Bobby Petrino in any way: zero.

That is all. Commence internet asplosion.

/spends 10 hours in gales of laughter after googling "Bobby Petrino gif"

Shouldn't South Florida be good?

So South Florida has a coach. It's Willie Taggart, who was expected to be among the frontrunners for the Kentucky job way back when but didn't get serious consideration and then dropped off the face of the coaching-search Earth until Friday night:

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Willie Taggart has been hired as South Florida's football coach after establishing himself as one of the nation's top young prospects by turning around a losing program at Western Kentucky.

The 36-year-old grew up in the Tampa Bay area before heading off to play and later coach at Western Kentucky. He replaces Skip Holtz, who was fired following the worst season in USF's 16-year history.

Taggart led Western Kentucky to a 7-5 record this season. The Hilltoppers will make their first bowl appearance against Central Michigan in the Little Caesars Bowl.

Western Kentucky was quite possibly the worst program in the country when Taggart took over. I distinctly remember buying the Athlon preview magazines that had Western Kentucky on the very last page of actual copy, meaning, "It's OK if you don't read this page because this team is totally and completely irrelevant and awful." To be more specific, Western Kentucky had lost 20 straight games (!) as of the start of the 2010 season, at which point Taggart left Stanford (where he'd been running backs coach for Toby Gerhart, et al) to come back to the only other place he'd ever coached. Yes. The guy played at Western Kentucky, moved right into a job as receivers coach, then worked his way up to assistant head coach/offensive coordinator over the next seven years before getting a job on Jim Harbaugh's staff at Stanford (presumably due to a relationship established when Harbaugh was working as a consultant on his dad's staff at WKU after retiring as a player). Some basic addition indicates that he's now 36; dang.

Anyway, Western Kentucky went from 0-12 in 2009 to 2-10 in Taggart's first year to 7-5 last year to 7-5 this year, with one of those losses to Alabama and the other four by a combined 18 points. Granted, the Sun Belt is thoroughly terrible, but it's all relative.

And really, that's been South Florida's problem recently: Even in a terrible conference, USF has gone 2-14 in conference play since the middle of Skip Holtz's first season. I know: 2-14! In the Big East! South Florida went from 8-5 to 5-7 to 3-9 under Holtz, with the latter number being totally inexplicable for a team picked to finish either first or second by pretty much every coach/media-type person.

I will now Ctrl+C/Ctrl+P from my Holtz postmortem since I'm lazy and the stuff I wrote a couple weeks ago is all still relevant:

There was an almost-linear trend of regression under Holtz, who took over after the Jim Leavitt weirdness and inherited a team that had gone to five straight bowls and had finished with at least eight wins in each of the previous four seasons. So he got a good-ish program and went 16-21 in three years, won a total of five conference games and took a seemingly decent team straight to the bottom of the crappy Big East this year, which is to say he pretty much massively underachieved.

The Big East thing was really what mattered. I mean, there are some obvious inherent disadvantages at a not-exactly-tradition-laden school like USF, but those mean little in the Big East, where everybody is comparably mediocre and UConn can go to the Orange Bowl. Losing to Florida State? Whatever. Being not even vaguely competitive against Temple and Pitt? Not whatever.

Actually, USF doesn't even have the "inherent disadvantages" that are extant at the UConns of the world; there's the Tampa metro locale, the new-ish NFL stadium, the above-.600 all-time winning percentage, etc. Winning (at least winning to some reasonable degree) at USF isn't that hard; it can't be any harder than winning at Western Kentucky, anyway.

A related quote from Taggart at his hiring presser:

"I always said I wouldn't leave WKU unless I had a chance to go and win a national championship, and I truly believe that can be done here. It wasn't long ago USF was No. 2 in the country. It's been proven that we can get there."

He's right: South Florida was 6-0 and ranked second in the country just five years ago before losing three straight by a total of 15 points en route to a 9-3 finish. And considering that there were no unbeatens that year and only one viable one-loss team (Ohio State), South Florida unquestionably would have played for the national title by just beating Rutgers, UConn and Cincinnati. Again, that was five years ago. To be clear, winning a national title out of the Big East is gonna be a lot harder going forward since, I mean, the Big East is now Conference USA, but it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility, nor is getting to the Orange Bowl on a semi-regular basis.

FWIW, Taggart is a pro-style guy all the way since he wants to be (philosophically and in every other way) Jim Harbaugh:

"I tell people today that ever since I met Jim Harbaugh, my life has been going nowhere but up. Ever since then, I've been trying to be like him -- a coach like him, a father like him, a brother like him, everything like him. And it's gotten me to this point."

Probably not a bad way to go from a coaching standpoint considering that Harbaugh's gone from an unpaid assistant at Western Kentucky to head coach at San Diego (the FCS one) to head coach at Stanford to head coach of the 49ers.

The stats don't necessarily demonstrate offensive amazing-ness, but keep in mind that (a) Western Kentucky and (b) pro-style offense. And there was notable improvement each year, with the rankings in total yards and points going from 98th and 90th in 2010 to 89th and 89th in 2011 to 71st and 67th this year and the rushing offense finishing in the top 40-ish each year. The defense improved in a similarly linear fashion, BTW.

Given South Florida's general awfulness on offense the last few years, even a respectable running game would be something and would probably yield overall decency, and in the Big East, that's really the only necessary step between crappiness and the Orange Bowl.

Whether USF can make that second step is another matter, but the data and anecdotal support from Tony Dungy and the Harbaughs and the like indicate that Taggart probably knows what he's doing in terms of program development. Is he Jim Harbaugh? Probably not. That "probably" is necessary, though; I don't see any reason USF can't do in the Big East what Stanford's been doing in the Pac-12, in which case USF and Boise State would probably play for eleventy straight conference titles. And in the much-more-likely scenario in which Taggart is just a pretty good coach who isn't Jim Harbaugh, USF will probably still be better (via the aforementioned consistency in the run game and on defense) and thus a contender-type entity in the Big East, as that program should be. Make it so, guy who's barely older than I am.