Looks like Minnesota is hiring Jerry Kill of Northern Illinois. ESPN - Source: Minnesota hires Jerry Kill Also Colorado has hired Embree ESPN - Colorado hires Jon Embree as coach Denver Post - Jon Embree's contract at Colorado to be a five-year deal, agent says
Updated those two and added a couple of other rumored candidates to the lists. Also worth noting: it looks like OSU's Joe DeForest has interviewed for the ULL job.
Meltdown at Minnesota. The rabble are up in arms. I feel bad for Kill, but this is a TERRIBLE hire for what the U of M needs. [EDIT: Or I should say, what the Gophers fans and alums think they need, which is national cred.] Radio callers sound like they intend bodily harm to Maturi...
It's bad, people are suggesting, and I think they are serious, tarring and feathering Maturi. He's the one that set himself up for it promising he was going to win the press conference with a knock your socks off hire. Now, the reporters are all saying that coaches around the country vouch for Kill, that he knows what he is doing and will win. And the bits of his press conference I heard he sounds like he's got some good stuff. He went a little Bud Wilkinson on the bit saying it wasn't good enough to just lock down recruiting in the TC (which was a little shot at Brewster), but to draw a 500 mile radius around the TC and exhaustively recruit the region. And he made it known that he is defensive minded.. that he likes to put lots of pressure on people, so far that even late in games he's not much of one for "prevent" defenses and would rather continue to get after people. But people wanted more than the "Jerry Kill" name, largely because Maturi told them they were going to go after more than that. In fact they seem willing to accept that some of the top candidates declined to come to the U of M, and that they were going to have to work a little further down the list. However, pointing out that Mike Leach expressed interest in the job so people are asking why in the heck the U didn't take him up on it. Mike would have brought instant energy and noteriety and would have made the U of M a national talking point. Instead, from a national perspective, they got "meh". I'll say this for Maturi, with the hire he was able to ignite an apathetic fan base. Just not in a positive way.
Haha...yeah, when you mentioned that they were up in arms I figured, like you said, well, he set himself up for this. I think Kill is a good coach, but you're not gonna win any press conferences with that announcement. But he knows that general area (has been a head coach in Michigan, southern Illinois and northern Illinois) and, heck, he beat Minnesota last year 34-24, so it's an upgrade in that respect.
Normally I would tell those stupid gophers that their football program has been crap lately and they don't know what they want because they haven't experienced it... but that stadium DID cost $288 million. Eff it... Minny, you only know how to lose lately. Let the athletic department hire the guy they think can win for you. Big names are only available if they've sucked lately or you spend money that you are locked into (see Charlie Weis, Notre Dame and to a lesser degree, Turner Gill, Kansas) whether the results are there or not.
Updated. Calhoun says he's committed to Air Force. His name had surface with a few of these openings (primarily CU) and then came up again with the firing of Denver's head coach.
Don't see Venerables going to Pitt. His family and his wife's are all out in Middle America and they probably would not like the East Coast and PA is the East Coast. Why would Pitt be a better job than Indiana? Big 10 versus Big East -- Big 10 hands down. Who would want to live in Pittsburg when you can live in Norman? Big East is a joke in football anywhere you slice it. Never want to live east of the Mississippi again and I grew up in Ohio. Middle America all the way!
If you have no confidence in Bob Stoops then I agree. But I do have confidence in him. Plus if we go to more of a 3-4 look which is basically what we ran the last 4 games. Wouldn't we want a coach that knows more about that defense?
I bet Venables doesn't take the job. But Pitt is a really solid job and they have enough talent to win that league.
