Twists and turns in UH coaching search
Tuesday, word trickled out from UH that Dave Maggard had narrowed the coaching search to Mike Haywood and Jack Pardee.
By Wednesday afternoon, KBME-790 was reporting that the list wasn't so narrow after all, that TU offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn was not completely out of the running.
Later Wednesday, the Chron's Michael Murphy and KRIV-26's Mark Berman were reporting that Haywood was out, and OU co-offensive coordinator Kevin Sumlin was back in the mix, along with Pardee.
Haywood may be the next great thing, but I'm not sad that he's out. He's been on several elite staffs and has a reputation as a recruiter, but it seems like he's mainly been a position coach (Charlie Weis is generally thought to run the offense at Notre Dame). That's a gamble, although he could well turn out to be an excellent head coach (think of a certain tight ends coach for the Dallas Cowboys who became a successful head man at Oklahoma State, and then moved on to his current job at LSU).
I've warmed to the idea of Pardee a little bit, aside from the notion of David Klingler as offensive coordinator. It just doesn't seem like a good idea for a guy with no college coaching experience to be named offensive coordinator at a program with aspirations. If that's part of the deal, then I hope Maggard goes with another option.
The Sooner fan in me really likes the Sumlin pick, though. The guy enjoyed success running A&M's offense. And even though Kevin Wilson is truly in charge of Oklahoma's offense, Sumlin is, by all accounts, heavily involved. He's been around some very good coaches and should be able to put together a quality staff (and he already knows UH's strength and conditioning coach well, from their time together at Oklahoma, so he's not coming in to CUSA and UH totally blind). He's supposed to be a good recruiter, and supposed to be an energy guy. UH needs those things.
So, yesterday's news that Haywood was out and Malzahn/Sumlin might be back in certainly cheered me a bit. And hey, if Sumlin gets it, we can have Oklahoma/Oklahoma State proxy wars in CUSA between UH and Southern Miss (which just hired Oklahoma State's offensive coordinator)!
UPDATE: Put it in the bank -- Murph says Sumlin is the guy. Boomer Cougar, anyone? :)
Crossposted to Bad Sports
BLOGVERSATION: Lose an Eye, It's a Sport.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 12/13/07 08:56 | Sports | Technorati
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Welcome Coach Sumlin, nice to have some new blood around here.
...oops, wrong blog.
Posted by Vernon Guy @ 16:17 on 12/13/07
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