Hiring the opposite shows it was never wins, scandals, or boycotts

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fmlizard

fmlizard

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Mark Coyle could not have possibly hired a more opposite coach to Tracy Claeys. Seriously. If you could name one coach in all of college football that has the complete opposite appearance, personality, and background to Tracy Claeys, it's PJ Fleck.

Time will tell if that actually wins more games. But making a beeline for someone this opposite his previous coach after a 9-4 season tells me it was mostly that Tracy Claeys never fit what what Mark Coyle sees a head football coach to be. I suspect this was the case for many of us as well, given the uncommon speculation on his job (pre boycott) at the end of a relatively successful first season.

Maybe that's his demeanor, the style of his teams, his background/resume, or even his weight. Probably some mix of of them. Probably not as much wins, losses, assaults, boycotts, or tweets as people would believe.
 

fmlizard said:
Mark Coyle could not have possibly hired a more opposite coach to Tracy Claeys. Seriously. If you could name one coach in all of college football that has the complete opposite appearance, personality, and background to Tracy Claeys, it's PJ Fleck.

Time will tell if that actually wins more games. But making a beeline for someone this opposite his previous coach after a 9-4 season tells me it was mostly that Tracy Claeys never fit what what Mark Coyle sees a head football coach to be. I suspect this was the case for many of us as well, given the uncommon speculation on his job (pre boycott) at the end of a relatively successful first season.

Maybe that's his demeanor, the style of his teams, his background/resume, or even his weight. Probably some mix of of them. Probably not as much wins, losses, assaults, boycotts, or tweets as people would believe.
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Fat joke?

Edit: yes, read the rest of your post
 

Not sure if this is a fair comparison.

Coach Claeys became coach as a function of circumstance, not of serious deliberation.

The better comparison is between Coach Kill and Coach-in-the-Wings Fleck.

Certainly there is some overlap between those two.

Coach Kill preached patience...and to a degree it paid off.

I don't think that Coach Fleck has that card in his deck to use. So, what does he preach?
 


Possibly just a function of who was available and who they thought was the best they could get more than anything.


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#coacheslivesmatter
 


Nobody ever really wanted Clayes as coach. It just happened due to unforeseen circumstances. This was about bringing in someone who could be the face of a winning program. The team peaked this year with Clayes, and we all know that. That's what this is about, finding someone who can take things to the next step
 

I think it was pretty clear that Coyle wanted his own guy. The lack of interest in the program, attendance and the fallout from the EoAA investigation gave Coyle an out. Contrary to many who believed the AD had no plan this hire and in the amount of time it took showed he had a plan the whole time.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Fat reference, not cool dude.
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It's not my post, but I will defend what he said. Rightly or wrongly, one's physical appearance is a significant part of how he/she is perceived. I didn't want Claeys to be fired and didn't think he deserved to be fired, but I think the top poster may be right on the money.

Claeys was a very good defensive coordinator and the quality of play he was able to get from the undervalued defensive players he recruited was admirable. There definitely should be a well paying place for him in college football but I can understand if the powers-to-be preferred a younger, more dashing, and energetic coach to be the face of the football program. The buyout terms of Claeys contract always made him easy to fire and I think they jumped on the circumstances to pull the plug.
 

JZsportswhiz said:
The team peaked this year with Clayes, and we all know that.
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Well, I don't think we'll ever know for sure. I do agree that the administration took advantage of the opportunity presented to make a big splash hire. I'm optimistic that the move likely will work out well in the long run.
 



cjbfbp said:
It's not my post, but I will defend what he said. Rightly or wrongly, one's physical appearance is a significant part of how he/she is perceived. I didn't want Claeys to be fired and didn't think he deserved to be fired, but I think the top poster may be right on the money.

Claeys was a very good defensive coordinator and the quality of play he was able to get from the undervalued defensive players he recruited was admirable. There definitely should be a well paying place for him in college football but I can understand if the powers-to-be preferred a younger, more dashing, and energetic coach to be the face of the football program. The buyout terms of Claeys contract always made him easy to fire and I think they jumped on the circumstances to pull the plug.
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That's a terrible excuse for a fat reference.... grow up.
 

Coyle didn't want Claeys and did everything he could to undermine him along the way so that he could get "his guy" for a coach. The way the suspensions were handled for the 5 accused of sexual assault and the other 5 who were part of the EOAA investigation, by Coyle was his way of sticking it to Claeys so he had justification for the firing. Coyle's press conference saying he wanted to make a change so that the football team could be great on the field, socially and academically was bs. His only reason for making the change was because he didn't like Tracy. Had he just let Tracy go and said that he is doing it because he wants to go in a different direction, I would have had more respect for him and would have understood better. The way this all played out was not right on so many levels. Will always support the Gopher football team, but not the admin.
 

GFBfan said:
Coyle didn't want Claeys and did everything he could to undermine him along the way so that he could get "his guy" for a coach. The way the suspensions were handled for the 5 accused of sexual assault and the other 5 who were part of the EOAA investigation, by Coyle was his way of sticking it to Claeys so he had justification for the firing. Coyle's press conference saying he wanted to make a change so that the football team could be great on the field, socially and academically was bs. His only reason for making the change was because he didn't like Tracy. Had he just let Tracy go and said that he is doing it because he wants to go in a different direction, I would have had more respect for him and would have understood better. The way this all played out was not right on so many levels. Will always support the Gopher football team, but not the admin.
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Claeys was our Bill Cubit, defacto interim whom we would've never hired if not for operating under an interim AD
 

I Want 2 Win said:
Fat joke?

Edit: yes, read the rest of your post
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Not a joke, and didn't necessarily make TC a bad Coach or bad guy. I wanted him kept. But you are very naive if you don't think it played into perceptions of him as a "coordinator" and not the face of our program.
 



JZsportswhiz said:
Nobody ever really wanted Clayes as coach. It just happened due to unforeseen circumstances. This was about bringing in someone who could be the face of a winning program. The team peaked this year with Clayes, and we all know that. That's what this is about, finding someone who can take things to the next step
Click to expand...

Nobody wanted him as coach? We all knew the team peaked this year? Interesting.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
That's a terrible excuse for a fat reference.... grow up.
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Grow up? I'm 60 years old and hold multiple advanced degrees. The top poster wasn't making a joke or mocking anyone. He simply was conjecturing about circumstances of decisions and his conjecture may be an accurate reflection of reality.
 

It's not my post either, but it ignores reality to think that his physical appearance did not contribute in some small (no pun intended) way to why Claeys may not have come across to some as a head coach. I'm not at all saying it was the main reason, or even an important one, or that this reflects well on human nature, but it's out there. If you don't think coaches are aware of this stuff, Charlie Weis underwent a surgical procedure that ended up almost killing him in an attempt to reduce his size because he didn't think he'd get a head coaching chance otherwise. This may be superficial and shallow, but that's the world we live in.
 

fmlizard said:
Not a joke, and didn't necessarily make TC a bad Coach or bad guy. I wanted him kept. But you are very naive if you don't think it played into perceptions of him as a "coordinator" and not the face of our program.
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Yep because in all of college or pro football there has never been a single overweight coach...all of them are workout warriors with 6 pack abs. Yes Claeys was overweight but that is not the reason he was fired and people need to stop trying to make it about his weight.

Claeys does not have the personality of a power 5 head coach, he just doesn't. He was a guy that was thrust into an uncomfortable situation and did the best he could but I will not be shocked one bit if he goes back to being a very successful high level Defensive Coordinator. If he wants to remain a head guy he will need to drop down in level some but I honestly believe he was very happy to just be allowed to coach without having to do all the other stuff that a head coach has to do so I predict he goes back to being a coordinator again.

Nearly every head coach, especially those at the power 5 level craves the spotlight. Claeys clearly did not and always seemed very uncomfortable with it. Coyle wanted his own guy to run the program the same way that pretty much every new AD does. People need to stop trying to make this about Claeys appearance.
 

No one's saying his size was the whole reason. Most things in this world are caused by the combined effect of more factors than you can possibly count. And I agree that his reticent personality was BY FAR the most important factor in any perception problems he had. But if you don't think his appearance also had a very minor role in how he was viewed, I'd have to respectfully disagree.
 


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