But wasn't the whole point of hiring a head coach with now experience to maintain staff continuity? Now we've lost probably our top two position coaches. Maybe the point was to keep the offensive and defensive structure in place to hold the recruiting class. I suppose the case could be made that Taylor would've left even if Kelly hadn't quit.
Taylor's gig is a promotion so he's taking that either way.
Freeman likely would have had HC consideration at some smaller schools and very likely could have left this off-season. If Freeman left for a HC gig and Elston didn't get DC, he probably leaves still just like he did after not getting the DC job again with Freeman. Oh and if Freeman left for a HC gig somewhere, there's a chance Mickens might have left with him. Bowden definitely leaves if Freeman does.
Del likely would have been canned anyway if BK stayed but feel like Quinn and Polian would have been back.
In short, there was going to be a lot of turnover regardless.
The coaches that were kept became valuable to other schools---a good sign itself.
Also, Freeman is free to do what he wants in building a staff that fits his own vision.
All in all, the lights are still very green for this program.
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That said, ND is keeping Freeman, Rees, Mickens, O'Leary, and McNulty...and kept all the recruits they were going to keep (Williams, Moore and Williams would have left the class even if Kelly stayed). So I think the goal has still been accomplished (barring any more coaches leaving).
We were told that there would be an in depth search for the next coach. 48 hrs later they hired Freeman and the reasoning was staff and recruits.
Then Swarbrick allayed my fears, (by lying of course) that there would be a national search, and he already had interested candidates....He knew he was picking Marcus Freman from the beginning....Any program with ND's storied history, and cachet, should be filling head coach vacancies only thru a national search, with highly qualified candidates identified either by search firms, via intermediaries, direct apps, or identified by AD himself..Interviews should have been conducted and most highly qualified candidate selected, whether it be luke Fickell, Marcus Freeman, or Nick Saban, I can dream.....Why you would hand the keys to someone without this process boggles my mind, its pure laziness..
Now, as someone said, we have to await to see if we have Faust 2.0...And the bowl performance was unnerving..
I still dont understand, why in interest of continuity, Freeman didnt keep defensive coaches alone, and coach the D himself...Especially since he had nothing to do with offense, and delegated totally to Rees..
your hands and waiting to see if he was Faust 2.0?
BUT, Id feel a lot better about it if he actually came out first in a field of competition....And naturally, that would assume everyone went into the evaluation stage with an open mind...AND it could have meant any of several things such as applicants turning them down, being eliminated on account of resume transgressions, making unreasonable demands for compensation....insisting on academic exceptions, etc, etc..
BUT, Ill never understand handing the keys to the store of this storied university without an open competition..
How would you feel if tomorrow , you heard Saban was interested, but only after Bama's season ended
Saving recruits, making the team happy, doesn't interest me...it was much more important to get this hire right....ND IS 54-10, program is in perfect position to be top 5 for awhile..Let's hope they didnt blow it..
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the beginning of the end for Tom Brady has to happen sooner or later, why not today....31-0 in..I realized it wasnt today..
The reason given by Swarbrick was that he was sold on Marcus Freeman. He never said anything about needing to keep the coaching staff in place. In fact, he had already secured the ones that he thought were the most important to keep. I do believe there was a desire to keep the 2022 recruiting class from falling apart, but I doubt that the hire was made for that reason alone.
So now the complaint is, we have really good assistant coaches that are coveted around college football. Which is it - they are too good and might get opportunities or they are not very good.
And as someone who has employees, I love when my guys get life better opportunities. I want to hire guys that are so good, they get chances to improve themselves and I'm happy for them and the time I had them.
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My point is that hiring Freeman was and is a risk. That risk was worth it to keep the staff in tact. Since that isn't happening, is it worth it? I normally dont have an issue with assistants taking promotions but continuity is important too
and if it doesn’t hurt recruiting. In my opinion.
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We had more fumbles under Taylor.
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