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Thoughts on the New Guys

Posted by Hiphopopotamus on December 13th, 2009 under Football

As of right now, we know three of our football coaches: Turner Gill, Chuck Long, and Carl Torbush. And since the boss has been chiding my tardiness on an appropriate response, and I could really use that Christmas bonus, here it goes.

Turner Gill

While my excitement doesn’t quite approach that of Nebraska fans, the Gill hire is very encouraging. For one, he’s about as stand up of a guy as one can find, let alone in the coaching profession. For another, he’s proven himself as an accomplished player, assistant, and head coach. For years – long before I would have ever even entertained the thought that he’d one day be our coach – I had Cornhuskers swearing to me that he was the biggest key to their success all those years. Not only was he a solid recruiter, but more than anything else, the kids loved to play for him and he was the glue that held them together when Osborne would get a little hot and bothered.

Quite simply, Gill is worth the risk. He has in no way proven that he’s the guy capable of taking us to the next level, but he’s also yet to disappoint at anywhere he’s been. He carries himself well and he apparently has garnered a great deal of respect everywhere he’s been and within the coaching profession (pretty impressive to already have coordinators lined up pre-interview). Assuming he can continue to do the same, and can carry those same traits over to the tune of Big XII type recruiting, this hire could end up looking even more successful than it already does.

Chuck Long

Much like Gill, Long enjoyed a ton of success during his collegiate playing days, taking his Iowa Hawkeyes to #1 in the nation and ultimately finishing second behind Bo Jackson in the 1985 Heisman voting (making 2 Heisman finalists on staff, with a third being a very strong possibility). After some time in the pros and an assistant at Iowa, Long followed his old college teammate Bob Stoops to Norman. He began as quarterbacks coach, and led Josh Heupel just as far as he had gone – 2nd place in Heisman voting. After that MNC and Mangino departing for beautiful Lawrence, Long was promoted to offensive coordinator for the Sooners; a position he would hold for four years, before leaving to be the head man at San Diego State.

From a personal standpoint, I’m told Long is a big community guy. And not only that, but his personality apparently translates to him cleaning up on the recruiting trail. Honestly, I have no idea, but this is what I’m told. And hell, he’s in the Collegiate Hall of Fame. He was a Heisman finalist. And he’s had a ton of success, especially as an offensive coordinator. This is a guy who shouldn’t have much trouble getting into living rooms and is well-equipped to be a damn good coordinator as well. But what makes this so hard to figure at this point…none of us have a clue what kind of offense we’ll even be running. After all, Gill called the plays at Buffalo (though I don’t expect him to here) and they ran a little bit of everything up there. Whatever the case, I’m extremely pleased with being able to get Chuck Long to run our offense.

Carl Torbush

Here’s where my enthusiasm wanes a bit. The resume isn’t bad. He had a nice run as Mack Brown’s DC at North Carolina. Given the chance to be the head man when Mack fled for the 40 acres and Torbush couldn’t get it done. He’d later catch on with Franchione, first at Alabama and then A&M. I wouldn’t say he passed those tests with flying colors. Will Muschamp, he is not.

I watched Mississippi State play a few times this year. And actually, they always impressed. But that’s the problem with small sample sizes, because while they performed admirably against Florida and pretty well against Ole Miss, they were wildly inconsistent in their other ten games. Seemed to me like Torbush had them in a 4-3 almost exclusively, relying on a variety of blitzes to generate pressure. To my knowledge, he doesn’t do anything special, and we’ll need to get some athletes in here to help him out if we’re going to compete on that side of the ball. That’s not a slight on Torbush, but rather a fact of the matter. He’s not a Saban-type miracle worker and as we saw at A&M, he’s not a guy that can just wave the wand and expect things to work out. I’m not down on this hire, but it certainly doesn’t have me as excited as either Gill or Long. Cautiously optimistic is about as far as I’m willing to go here, and that’s seeing things through the crimson and blue glasses.

As for the remainder of the staff, it’s anyone’s guess at this point. I was told he’ll only be bringing one or two guys with him from Buffalo. I’ve also been told that he may be hiring Tommy Frazier. I’d also expect him to retain a guy or two from our staff. Beaty and his Texas ties seems like a no-brainer and while other schools are all over Bill Miller, you’d like to see him stick around as well if he’s willing. Then again, I’m not so sure a guy with his qualifications would want to work under Torbush. Bowen doesn’t have the resume of those other two, so he’d clearly have to take a demotion, but maybe he’d be willing if they gave him a look?

One final question will have to be; what of Chris Dawson? I’ve maintained for a while that he’s been as much a key to our recent success as anyone and I’d hate to lose him. I’d like to think Gill will feel the same way and keep him around, but I don’t have a clue one way or the other.

Overall, I’m still just in shock. In shock that Mangino is gone. In shock that Turner Gill is our head coach. And in complete shock that we’ve already got coordinators. I’ve said from the beginning that I didn’t think Mangino needed to be gone, but at the same time, could tell that it might be the best thing for us. Right now, that’s very much still up in the air. I don’t look at Gill as a risky hire, but rather a solid one with (channeling my inner Jay Bilas) tremendous upside potential. Good length too. I like that he’s willing to hire and fire anyone necessary in order to get the job done. After the way this year went down and the way so many players had jumped ship, we needed a change. If nothing else, Gill provides an enormous change and that should be fun.

255 days and counting.

Thoughts?

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54 Responses

  1. Well said. I also think it’s striking that Lew couldn’t possibly have picked a guy any different from Mark Mangino.

    Secondly, if Kale Pick was sad to see Mangino go a week ago, he’s surely pumped now. If he’s got it in him, it seems these guys can make him great.

    As far as adding another legendary QB to the mix, Frazier would be cool, but I’m also thinking Eric Crouch might be about ready to try his hand at coaching. Either one should be able to recruit.

  2. As long as we’re naming every good QB in NU history, Scott Frost is WR coach at Oregon.

    HipHop: “I don’t look at Gill as a risky hire, but rather a solid one with (channeling my inner Jay Bilas) tremendous upside potential. Good length too.”
    …That’s racial profiling.

  3. Any insight into why Torbush was Gill’s choice for DC? Did I miss that they worked together somewhere? Long seems to have the resume to back up his pick, but there must be a reason Gill went with Torbush…

  4. Hiphopopotamus said:

    December 14th, 2009 at 5:36 am

    BMG: Frost was talked to and had planned to come, but had decided to stay at Oregon.

    Ben: I don’t know this, but I would think experience and familiarity with the Big XII were two of the primary reasons.

  5. Old man Ripley bustin’ your hump?

  6. Good stuff Hiphop.

    I look forward to seeing how the rest of the staff shapes up and how much of the recruiting class can be salvaged/improved upon. The decommit QB (Jacory something?) who went to Utah has to be rethinking that move with Gill and Long there. Of course, he probably has never heard of either guy and will have to do some wikiing to get up to speed.

    What kind of QB is Kale Pick? I really know nothing about him. Is he more Turner Gill or Chuck Long?

  7. He’s been all over me lately. Even resorted to name-calling last night.

    At this point, we really don’t know on Pick. He’s definitely more runner than passer, but I’ve heard good things about his throwing and in his minimal action, he did have a good ball and a strong arm. Between him, Webb and Mechem, we’ve got a few different and good options back there.

  8. I’m surprised that Frost decided to stay in Oregon. Although, I can’t blame him, it’s a beautiful place. I’m also kinda surprised that Frazier could be coming down. He didn’t have any success at Doane, and he’s not the best communicator. That being said, if he can coach to half of his ability as a player, we’ll be in darn good shape.

  9. Mister Mike said:

    December 14th, 2009 at 8:26 am

    Rumors that you guys will have Samuels and Downing joining the staff.

  10. Good point about Dawson, Hiphop. I’d hate to see him go. If he’s gone, I feel some of my intensity would go with.

  11. Mike: I’d heard the same thing, simply because the rumor out there was that four of our assistants will have been head coaches at one time. I’m not sure why that’s such a big deal, but both seem like they’d be good guys to have on staff.

    DC: Personally, I’d look at Frazier as more of a recruiter than anything.

  12. HipHop, that’s what I’m afraid of re: Frazier. Ever seen an interview with him? Not exactly awe-inspiring.

  13. I’m sure, that by now, we’ve all seen the FireTurnerGill website. One of the commenter at The Wiz of Odds linked a cached version of the site from 12/6. It was calling for Buffalo to fire Gill because he was too good for them.

    http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:vG8rnyqOL-oJ:fireturnergill.com/Why_Fire_Turner_.html+http://www.fireturnergill.com/FireTurnerGill.html&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

  14. Great stuff, Hip. Going to have the Sooners and Aggies come over and give you their thoughts on Long and Torbush respectively.

  15. I really think this was the way for KU to go, although I know I’m in the minority. Gill is a long term hire, as was Pinkel. I’m not as convinced that the all star cast of coordinators is a great idea. Lots of chefs for a relatively inexperienced head coach to manage.

    Has there been any talk about offensive philosophy? I have to believe you won’t be running the spread any longer…probably about time to get off that train anyway. I have a feeling the spread jumped the shark in September of this year.

  16. I have to say that after that news conference my excitement went from a 6 to a 8.5. Gill is certainly a personality. I imagine it’s pretty hard for recruits to say no to him.

  17. I have to say that after that news conference my excitement went from a 6 to a 8.5. Gill is certainly a personality.

    I only caught a brief clip of this while at the barber shop. It appears Gill plans to do a lot of recruiting.

  18. Yep. His priorities are something like
    1. Beat Missouri
    2. Recruit
    3. Win the North
    4. Recruit
    5. Win the Big 12
    6. Recruit.

    Funny he didn’t mention KState (at least from what I heard). That would feel like a pretty big diss if I was a Silo fan.

  19. I thought a lot of the Turner hire until I saw he’d hired Torbush.

    Torbush? Torbush is paid cash money to coordinate a defense? Did Turner lose his mind on the way to Kansas?

    I am at a loss for words.

  20. GC,

    I’m not too worried about the assistants. While these guys WERE HCs, they are current coordinators. They also are clearly men whom Coach Gill trusts and respects and who respect Coach Gill. If they were really worried about oneupsmanship, I really doubt that either would have told Gill, “When you’re head of a major program, we’ll leave our jobs to work for you. Now I certainly could be seeing the world through Crimson colored glasses, but that seems to me a high level of loyalty and speaks highly of the character of all three.

  21. Huge jump in pay for Turner as well…

    From $300k/year to $2 mil/year. Not bad at all…

    http://www2.kusports.com/news/2009/dec/14/turner-gill-set-make-2-million-annually/

  22. DC, you might be seeing the world through crimson glasses, or might not. Who knows. I agree that they obviously are comfortable being assistants. It is easy to say up front, but what happens when the offense goes all Nebraska on people? How much freedom does Long have? It will be interesting to watch.

    I like (from your perspective) that Gill is such a stand up dude. I think football, way more than bball, requires a strong foundation and years of work. There are no quick fixes. You guys are in a pretty good spot already, but Mangino was the classic burn out guy. Better to make the switch now before things go in the shitter.

    I also hope that Pelini is just such a burnout guy. If nothing else, his lower jaw might fall off, and that would be gross and difficult to recruit through.

  23. Too bad it is such a step down in location…..

  24. Torbush? Torbush is paid cash money to coordinate a defense? Did Turner lose his mind on the way to Kansas?

    A lot of hate towards Torbush. I can understand that from Aggies fans, but he did pretty well with Carolina and Bammers.

  25. GC, I have a feeling Bubble Gum Bo is gonna be there for a while.

  26. In my experience, AtM fans see anything connected to Franchione as the spawn of satan. They were/are so furious with Fran that I’m sure it clouds objectivity to some extent.

  27. I sort of want the Pelineses to stay. I love to hate them, and with Mangino gone, Gill being so goody-goody, and my continued refusal to recognize my horrific self-loathing, I have a void that needs filled.

    Is there any chance that Bo Pelini is anathema to effective offensive philosophy? He seems anathema to talented offensive players. I would love to see them struggle to score for a decade or so.

  28. I think that if they struggle again offensively next year, they’ll get rid of Shawn Watson.

  29. Oh, I agree with that, but I don’t buy that their offensive struggles are due to Shawn Watson. He was just fine with Callahan and Joe Ganz.

    I suspect that the Pelinis are true defensive coaches in the mold of Buddy Ryan. Remember when he punched Kevin Gilbride? Their goal is to not make mistakes, play field position and let the defense win games. Watson will be the fall guy, but I don’t know if it is his fault.

  30. Mister Mike said:

    December 14th, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    @GC

    We have several issues IMO, with our offensive staff, least of which is Watson. Triston is right; some people are trying to make him the fall guy for our lack of offensive production. If we want to begin an offensive makeover, we should start with sacking:

    1.) Cotton (OL coach)
    2.) Gilmore (WR coach)

    Or maybe more like 1a/1b. Getting rid of either would make me happier than a priest in a room full of altar boys.

  31. what is wrong with your WR coach? From what I’ve seen, you might as well not have wide receivers, as you rarely call plays for them and when you do, Lee or Green miss them by a mile. I don’t get why Paul doesn’t touch the ball more. Very uncreative play design.

  32. Mister Mike said:

    December 14th, 2009 at 3:28 pm

    @GC

    LOL. You noticed, eh? Yeah…that’s why I said our problems on offense are much more than Watson’s playcalling. If you got an email, I’ll elaborate more if you’re interested.

  33. Just saw the Gill presser. Seems like a good man with a plan. His #1 priority is recruiting and second priority is beating Missouri. I took that as a slap in the face. Time to drop books.

    Said they were going to run a spread and would occassionaly include a fullback. He just said that to rile Mizzou fans, who for some reason think a fullback is all that stands between us and the national championship.

    I’d love to know what kind of access the media will get to his program. One of my favorite things about Pinkel is that the media comes to all spring practices, all fall camp practices, and he is interviewed every day. At length. The volume of information for the football junky is sublime. Pinkel also doesn’t act like a player’s chances of playing are a state secret like Mangino and the rest of Snyder’s disciples. So, will there be greater media access? What was it like at Buffalo? Did they have media in Buffalo?

  34. Hiphopopotamus said:

    December 14th, 2009 at 5:52 pm

    Phenom: your last paragraph is something I’ve especially wondered about. Mangino had everything on such a lock down that we never had a clue what was going in without having to extort info from the inside. Would be a nice change of pace to see practice every once in a while and actually have a depth chart and/or injury report.

  35. Just a take on Gill- he would have benefited from another couple of years at Buffalo. He had one winning season, and that squad was mostly made up of the previous guy’s players. Buffalo was pretty piss poor this year trying to take the program to the next level after the ’08 season.

    If Lew was going for a guy that isn’t going to lose it on some kid on the sideline and is class-act, he hit a homerun. If Lew was trying to go for a proven winning HC, he missed on that one so far. I think TG could be a good college coach, but he just hasn’t shown much, yet. If TG had another couple of years of competitive teams in the MAC, I’d say he deserved a BCS gig. The ’09 suckage of Buffalo and Gill upgrading jobs just makes no sense, but hey, I’m not cutting the check.

    And you definitely don’t want Tommie Frazier as a coach. He was a D3 coach in Nebraska and was terrible.

  36. And the biggest loser in this deal: Turner Gill’s daughter.

    She moves away to go to college and the ‘rents are now moving down the street and will be the 2nd biggest name in the city behind Self.

    Damn.

  37. Hiphopopotamus said:

    December 14th, 2009 at 6:02 pm

    And yet in only four years, at a MUCH worse program, he won as many MAC titles as Gary Pinkel did in nine years.

    Touché on the daughter though, hadn’t thought of it from that angle.

  38. Would be a nice change of pace to see practice every once in a while and actually have a depth chart and/or injury report

    I take that stuff for granted. We get several outlets filing full practice reports in the spring and fall. As long as the team isn’t scheming for a specific team, the media is there.

  39. Gill has plenty excuses for this year’s performance, including losing his 2 best offensive players to injury. You can probably guess how the depth chart looks at Buffalo.

    Generally this sort of thing isn’t going to trump your record enough to land you a BCS job, but Gill’s ascent has been far from traditional. If it wasn’t for his choice of spouses he would be in his first offseason as the head coach of a top 10 traditional program right now.

    Gill is every bit as qualified as Harbaugh, though those that preferred Tuberville or Fulmer obviously have a gripe.

  40. Hiphopopotamus said:

    December 14th, 2009 at 7:48 pm

    Cherish it phenom, because it can disappear in a hurry.

    Scuttlebutt tonight has Reggie Mitchell returning, presumably to be our RB coach and possibly recruiting coordinator, as that’s a specialty of his. Would be a great hire if true.

  41. NorthDallasSooner said:

    December 14th, 2009 at 8:07 pm

    Long is ok. He’s not very flashy, but he is solid. He will frustrate you, though, with tendency and predictability.

    I doubt he’s the recruiter that Hipho hopes he is, and not because of anything in Norman. San Diego St. has long been a sleeping giant on the West Coast. It has everything you could want, except an on campus stadium, but neither does USC (close) or UCLA. If he failed so badly at SDSU it can only be because he didn’t get any talent in there.

    Torbush is a curious hire.

  42. Would love to get Mitchell back here, I mean the guy coached my favorite KU running back I had the pleasure of seeing in June Henley. Not to mention many Illini fans saying he was their best recruiter and that has not been Illinois problem.

  43. Yep, Mitchell is in charge of recruiting at Illinois (after being recruiting coordinator at Mich St when they had some very nice classes) and though Zook obviously deserves a lot of credit (and blame on-the-field), Illinois has had a lot of great classes with Mitchell “in charge”. I guess Gill wasn’t kidding when he talked about how important he felt recruiting was.

  44. “If it wasn’t for his choice of spouses he would be in his first offseason as the head coach of a top 10 traditional program right now.”

    I know this wasn’t intended to suggest that Turner made a mistake in any way. But if this was an impediment to Auburn hiring him, it’s something that that university and its alumni need to do some soul searching over.

  45. torbush certainly is curious – i am sure he learnt from his time in college station and will come back with a scheme that will suit the offenses on show in the big xii. in no particular order, the circumstances (outside his control) that led to him looking a fool:

    a. inheriting a team with 1, maybe 2 scholarship linebackers;
    b. fixing that with juco’s that didn’t make it in; and
    c. getting our asses handed to us in recruiting by tu, ou, lsu and at times osu.

    and the mistakes he made:

    a. trying to install a playbook that had been built up over 3 years at ‘bama – was too complex;
    b. trying to stop pass first teams with a roster of ovrsized linemen and backers;
    c. prioritising strength and tackling surface over speed in recruiting – not realising there was a problem to fix; and
    d. having massive imbalance in recruiting – 6 db’s one year, 1 the next (for example).

    while not strictly on point – this is the article on leech by michael lewis (moneyball etc) – the background is ttu v’s a+m – the biggest embarassment of the torbush era and a clear indicator of how badly out of his depth / time / comfort zone he was…

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/magazine/04coach.html?_r=1

    best of luck with him

  46. Good read, hiphop.

    The first thing I did when I heard yall hired Torbush was hustle over to our 2010 schedule and bookmarked October 23, 2010 – Texas A&M at Kansas. That should tell you something about the hire. If Aggie fans’ angst and hatred for the Torbushian ways could somehow be channeled into Sherman’s playcalling and our skill position players’ talents we’d hang 80 on that mustached dickhead.

    Turner Gill is a great fit for you guys though. I’ll be at the game come October. I love Lawrence. I was damn close to becoming a Jayhawk when I was 17. Some dudes got me shitfaced at The Crossing when I visited. It was great. Anyway, congrats on Gill and good work on the writing.

  47. NDS: To be honest, I don’t know much about his recruiting. Just that he’s known to be a face int he cmmunity and plays well in living rooms. I easily could have overstated. Although I’m not sure failing to build a team in the Mountain West is enough to fairly judge his recruiting either.

    English – Appreciate all the info and opinion. Those aren’t all easy fixes, but it gives me hope that this time could be different.

    Colorado – Sadly, The Crossing is no more. But give us a holler as the game nears and we’d be glad to entertain.

  48. glamourmuscles said:

    December 15th, 2009 at 6:56 pm

    actually, the whole oread hotel is a facade. it’s actually the new, 9 story tall crossing. serving 3.2 beer only of course

  49. Not entirely true. One of the floors is a Yello Sub.

  50. Big Head do remember that Buffalo was on the other end of the noncon games than BCS schools. They played teams like Pitt, Mizzou, UCONN for the payday. Gill is going to be a good coach/recruiter. Oh and for those of you down on Torbush, he’s a huge upgrade from Bowen. Our team is stronger because he’s here, not Clint.

  51. I wouldn’t say Torbush is necessarily an upgrade over Bowen. I still don’t think we have a clue what he’s capable of, since he never got to run the defense his way or with the same players from one week to the next.

    My bigger confusion is why everyone is so down on Bowen, yet devastated that we’re losing Bill Miller. Miller was co-DC and the LB coach. He seems like a good guy, he’s definitely a good recruiter and he’s got a damn fine resume. But LB was far and away our biggest weakness and he was brought in with the sole purpose of helping Bowen gameplan. If you thought scheming was our problem this year, that’s as much on Miller as it is on Bowen.

  52. Our problems were many. Giving receivers a 10-yard cushion got old in a hurry. How often did we blitz? Not too often that I can think of, instead asking our lineman to create pressure while allowing their offense to run drag routes back and forth until someone got open. This might have been a Mangino thing as well as a co-coordinator thing. Maybe Mangino stepped in and wouldn’t allow an aggressive defense.

    The thing that hurt Miller was that he joined the staff in January. Most recruiting was already done. All that’s left is to sign the papers. And let’s face it, the LB cupboard wasn’t loaded.

  53. Chuck Long isn’t a terribly creative guy, but he can run a very solid base offense. If you want to know what that looks like, it’s essentially I formation for running with single back 3 WR sets for passing. There will be some overlap, but not much. Long has no problem stretching the field vertically, but he’s also not afraid to commit to a power running game. His biggest strength will be recruiting and developing QBs. His biggest weakness will be the fact that his play calling abides by the Peter Principle. He’ll keep using the same plan that worked before until well after it stops working, regardless of opponent.

  54. Thanks NH. So we hired Gary Pinkel as our OC. I’ll take that.

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