The coaching carousel has already begun, with a handful of firings and resignations over the last week. In this week’s column, we take a look at these coaching changes, highlighting quotes from the departed coaches talking about the state of their respective programs.
UNLV Runnin' Rebels
In five years on the job, Mike Sanford went 15-43 overall, 7-32 in Mountain West Conference play and notched only one conference win on the road. Sanford failed to get UNLV to a .500 record or a bowl berth, although he is leaving the program in better condition than when he arrived, following the disastrous last few years of the John Robinson era.
Sanford ripped the school and the facilities in his post-firing press conference, staying true to his pattern of blaming everybody else for the Rebels failures.
“In the last 20 years that UNLV has played close to or at BCS level competition, no football coach has left this program with a winning record,” he told the media. “In my opinion, this must be a systemic, infrastructure, and commitment issue, and not a coach issue.”
“Our locker room is the worst locker room in college football,” he continued. “If people really want to win here, if they're going to hold the football coach and the football coaching staff here to a high standard, they need to put their money where their mouth is. I don't believe that's ever been done here. I don't believe it was done one bit during the time I was here.”
UNLV quarterback Omar Clayton seemed resigned to Sanford’s fate.
“You realize if things don't go a certain way, certain things have to happen,” he told reporters. “(Sanford) is our head coach. Everyone sees him as our leader, so something had to happen. I think either the president or the athletic director did what they needed to do.”
UNLV has a bye this week before its season finale against San Diego State next Saturday.
Memphis Tigers
Tommy West enjoyed success with the Tigers earlier in his nine-year tenure, taking Memphis to four bowls in a five year span between 2003 and 2007. But 2008 brought a losing record and 2009 was a complete collapse from a program built upon high-profile transfers as opposed to standard four or five-year recruiting commitments.
West, as always, was both blunt and honest at his post firing press conference.
“I’m the seventh straight coach that stands here saying the same things to you. This is the seventh straight time this has happened. And history is going to continue to repeat itself, folks, if they don’t do something about it.”
“Whoever they hire – they’ll hire a good guy and I’ll pull for him, OK. But our fans have got to demand – you’ve got to do one of two things – you’ve got to demand that you give him an equal stick to fight with within our conference. You’ve got to give him a level playing field to fight. Give him that.”
“At some point in time, you’ve got to say – we’ve got to help this football program. We’ve got to do the things necessary to make this what we want or do away with it. I couldn’t say that as a coach, because it’s too painful. It’s painful for coaches, for players and people, for fans. Put something in it or do away with it. That’s what they should do.”
West also had some things to say about this week’s matchup at Houston.
“We're a very beat-up team right now, and the situation we're in right now makes our injuries hurt a little more. In the secondary, we're down to just about nothing. We have four safeties out and three left on the team. If we lose the three guys, I don't know what we will do. I may call (Houston coach) Kevin (Sumlin) and see if we can get it called off.”
The Memphis players seemed intent upon giving West a proper sendoff.
“We need to leave coach West with a happy note,” said receiver Carlos Singleton. “It's like Coach West said, it's bad when you can't (find) an adjustment to help this team this late in the season. That's on us right now. We've got to take all the blame off coach West, just be men and (correct) it ourselves. We've got to fight for coach West, for our school and for our program right now.”
Memphis is a 23.5-point underdog at Houston this weekend, with the total set at 75.5.
San Jose State Spartans
Dick Tomey is 71 years old. He’s been a college football head coach at one place or another since getting his first gig at Hawaii back in 1977. Tomey announced his retirement effective at the end of the season, following the Spartans’ eighth loss in nine games at Utah State this past Saturday.
San Jose’s program has been a mess for decades. The Spartans have been hampered by scholarship limitations and miserable attendance figures throughout Tomey’s tenure and those of his predecessors.
Tomey said the next coach should understand what a difficult task is at hand.
“It has to be somebody who does not get discouraged about the roadblocks. There will be some. He has to handle the fact you're not going to get everything you want.”
“No coach wants to go out when he's not succeeding with his football team. I will not apologize for one second for our football team over the last five years.”
Tomey did seem very concerned about the Spartans’ ability to compete in the final few games of the season, starting this Saturday at home against Hawaii. The Spartans are 3-point home underdogs against the Warriors with the total set at 55.
Thanks to injuries and attrition, nearly half of the 22 players who started the season opener against USC won’t be available here. Forty different players have already started a game this season.
“We're not the same team as we were two months ago, so we've just had to mix and match,” said Tomey. “Unless you're real, real lucky, where you have a lot of depth, you have to do that, and we do not have a lot of depth. By this time of the year we start to take some losses.”
Tomey said he prefers to redshirt all freshmen, but limited numbers this season have forced him to change that view. This year's team has been hit particularly hard in the trenches, where three starting offensive linemen remain sidelined and three defensive starters have changed.
“We had two freshmen on the defensive line (against Nevada), which is not really fair, but they had to play. We're going with the best guys we have. We've pressed those guys into service because they have the ability, but it's not your first choice.”
Western Kentucky Hilltoppers
The three firings/resignations described above all make sense with lesser-tier programs looking to replace older head coaches with younger, more energetic guys after an extended run of mediocrity or worse.
Western Kentucky’s firing of head coach David Elson doesn’t fall into the same pattern. Elson has been with the program for 13 years, the head coach for the last seven, guiding the Hilltoppers from FCS to FBS status in the process.
In a prepared statement, Elson made it very clear that he doesn’t intend to discuss his firing.
“We’ll take it one day at a time, prepare like we typically prepare and get ready for (our next game). It’s business as usual.”
The Western Kentucky seniors were uniformly in support of their fired coach.
“It’s a common occurrence whenever you guys interview me that I say we can only control the things we can control: our attitude and our work ethic,” said senior center Cody Hughes. “Given the situation, coach Elson has told us what we need to focus on. And he’s my leader, I do what he says…..I’m focused on getting wins to send coach Elson out the way he deserves to be sent out.”
Senior wide receiver Jake Gaebler echoed those sentiments.
“I wasn’t sure how things would go (at practice) considering the circumstances we’re under. Everybody came out here and continued to fight like nothing was going on and I think we’re glad to finally get back out here and start practicing and working hard and getting our minds off recent events. It speaks to the maturity of our team, not letting this affect our preparation and getting ready for the next game.”
Western Kentucky has a bye this week before squaring off against Florida Atlantic and Arkansas State in its final two games.