Dimel
UH athletic director Dave Maggard is denying reports that Dana Dimel will be fired at the conclusion of the football season.
Well, actually he's not quite saying that.
He seems to be denying reports that he's already TOLD Dimel that he will be fired:
"That is absolutely not true," Maggard said. "Dana and the football staff have been told nothing of the kind. We are all unhappy with the way things have gone this season. We are all working to make it better in the six remaining games."Not much of a vote of confidence.
Honestly, the UH athletics department has been making bad decisions for so long that we can probably count on them to make the wrong decision with Dimel.
And I don't think I even know what the right decision is. Dimel has recruited locally much better than his predecessor, who was more inclined to head off and recruit Florida (for inexplicable reasons, frankly). But Dimel's teams look completely clueless, even more so than Kim Helton's. And they aren't showing any real signs of improvement. But that may be due to the young athletes learning a new system. Hard to say.
So what if Dana Dimel has the potential to be another Dan McCarney, who suffered terrible seasons before turning Iowa State into probably the best team in the Big 12 North this year (the blowout loss to Oklahoma earlier notwithstanding). And who's to say the replacement is going to be any better?
It would be nice, of course, if Dave Maggard would look north and make a pitch to either Mike Stoops or Brent Venables (assistants at Oklahoma). As Oklahoma's offensive assistants have gotten Big 12 head jobs (Mike Leach to Texas Tech and Mark Mangino to Kansas), the leaders of the heart and soul of Oklahoma's team -- the defense -- have barely gotten sniffs from big schools. Those guys would probably turn down Houston because of its pitiful stadium and pitiful conference affiliation, but it's worth some informal discussion.
But if Maggard isn't pretty sure he can attract some assistant of that caliber (I would be surprised if any decent head coach would take the Houston job at this point), better to give Dimel a complete vote of confidence now, so as not to destroy Houston's recruiting.
And hope for the best.
[Posted at 22:25 CST on 10/19/02] [Link]
