jersey cubs fan

Pat Fitzgerald is in his 5th year at Northwestern and isn't going anywhere. Rich Rodriguez is in only his 3rd year, but the guy before him was there for a dozen. Virginia has a new guy but the man before him was there for 9. USC has a new guy but the man before him was there for 8 years. Derwood, you were wrong that every team gets a new coach every 3-5 years. Some organizations are in perpetual state of turnover. A lot of them have very stable situations. Also rans like Rutgers and Illinois have coaches with 6 and 10 years in their position. I'm shocked that you're pushing a small comment into a full blown argument! So unlike you! My point was that Bowden/Paterno were the exception, not the rule. Maybe 3-5 years is more like 5-7 years. Who cares? It's not 30+ years anymore. PSU's new coach will last as long as he's winning 8+ games a season and winning bowl games. As soon as there are back-to-back seasons where the coach fails that, boosters/fans will be calling for them to be replaced. PSU will be no different than every other school in that regard. THAT was my point And you're wrong. 5-7 years is very stable for any job in America, and many college football coaches are in place for even longer. It's just a myth that there's all this crazy turnover every year and every coach is always on the hot seat. Hell a lot of the turnover is because guys use a job as a stepping stone anyway. College football is littered with long tenured head coaches. PSU may run through their next guy in a relative hurry, but probably within 2-3 hires they will have another long term guy. He won't go 30 years, but he'll be there for a very long time.

I had no idea that he had 4 other concussions in his career. How many did Steve Young have until he was basically mentally unable to play anymore? Most concussions go unreported. I don't think it's all that noteworthy that there are newspaper articles referring to previous ones. My fear for Cutler's future as the Bears quarterback lies on the weakness of the offensive line, not his history of concussions.

Pat Fitzgerald is in his 5th year at Northwestern and isn't going anywhere. Rich Rodriguez is in only his 3rd year, but the guy before him was there for a dozen. Virginia has a new guy but the man before him was there for 9. USC has a new guy but the man before him was there for 8 years. Derwood, you were wrong that every team gets a new coach every 3-5 years. Some organizations are in perpetual state of turnover. A lot of them have very stable situations. Also rans like Rutgers and Illinois have coaches with 6 and 10 years in their position. Missed another, Bret Bielema is "only" in his fifth year, but he replaced a guy who was there for 16 years.

Except for the fact that "every other school" doesn't get a new coach every 3-5 years. most do. Outside of Paterno and (as of last year) Bowden, who is the longest tenured coach in Div 1-A? Frank Beamer (Va Tech), who was hired in 1987. Only 5 other coaches (out of 120 schools) have been at their position since the 90's. That's 10 years.

Polar Bear?

He may be biding his time but there's no good reason to do so and your last point doesn't hold up. Who are they afraid of losing? This team isn't dripping with great leadership and the most wanted men in the game. Keeping him in 2010 was biding time. Keeping him now means he wants Jim in charge. That's an indictment.

Except for the fact that "every other school" doesn't get a new coach every 3-5 years.

I'm not really talking about whether I agree with the assessment. If they feel they can only salvage his career by moving him to guard, then by all means do it. The point is that is disappointing regardless. Also, the story about not disrupting the line by moving him back to tackle does not hold up to any analysis. You would not be breaking up a steady line, you'd be moving a guy back to where he was supposed to play in the first place. And if there is any thought of moving him back to LT eventually then you are just pre-planning future "disruption".

Well, he's 1 for 1, as Fredi returns to Atlanta. That was the easy one though. I know there are only so many managerial jobs available but I just don't see why anyone would want to take the Pirates job when you know there is virtually no way to succeed there. I could see a young guy or first-timer take the job to build a resume to be considered for better jobs in the future. Riggleman, Wedge, Girardi, Gonzalez, Quade, etc. are now part of the "insiders" that are considered for open positions because of some early success. There are only 30 major league manager positions and probably 60 people who are "qualified" for the job plus another 60 who want to become qualified for the job. There's probably only a handful of guys who have any business turning down that gig. Jim Tracy was an established major league manager who went to Pittsburgh, then moved onto the job in Colorado. It's not just first timers who would have interest.

Dan Pompei compared writing off Chris Williams right now would be akin to writing off Peyton Manning after his 7th game in his rookie season. That is a terrible comparison on many levels. This isn't baseball where guys come up to the majors at various ages and have to be given some leeway at the start. Both of these players came out after finishing college. Only one played right away and started to improve from the start. Williams has been hurt on multiple occasions, has been unable to play the position he was drafted to play at an acceptable level for a variety of reasons and there is no other way to describe the first 2.5 seasons of his career as a disappointment. He doesn't get credit for not playing. He also tries to sell the coaches' story that the reason to play him at guard is to provide the least amount of disruption to the line as possible. That's a bunch of bunk. Moving your starting left tackle back to left tackle isn't disruptive. The line has hardly been humming along as is. Changes have been made mid-game in every game. This isn't about stability and it never was. It seems very obvious the coaches are moving Williams to guard because they are not comfortable with his play at tackle, and that is, without question, very disappointing.

The best part about that is how nobody stops to see what happened to him as he's on the ground. If that really happened yesterday, that's amazing. You can see what look to me like coaches laughing at him. I'm pretty sure they knew what happened.

So basically you're saying that Ricketts is dumb enough to be duped by Hendry's friendly demeanor and the good word of his competitors and underlings? Isn't this guy supposed to be some investment mogul? He's not a mogul, his father is. He's a trust fund baby. Perhaps not Billy Madison, but he's no John Quincy Adams either. I do believe he took a moderately successful business and turned it into a gigantic one. There was also the family business and a second one he started.

Yep...which explains the Williams move. Some ways yes. In other ways, they still moved the supposed franchise LT to LG, and he's almost halfway thru his 3rd year with 5 full games at his drafted position. Yeah, Williams isn't the obvious choice to move to guard. There are other guys whose specific role is to fill into guard positions. It's still odd to me that they would move the supposed franchise LT to guard for any reason.

I think that was a bunch of talk anyway. It's ideal to have the same 5 every game, assuming they are all good. But it's not necessary and probably isn't all that common.

Like I said, I think boosters are a much bigger issue, but if you've got "friends of the program" who your coach can steer the kid to in return for you delivering him to the university for a certain fee, I could see it. Yeah, boosters are going to be more of a school specific issue, and it's probably more of a problem as you said. That's actually paying a kid to come to your school. An agent trying to build a business relationship by giving a guy some dough while he's at school so he'll hire his agency when he declares for the draft is very different.

The point is this isn't schools having agents pay their players for them. It's agents paying soon-to-be pros in an effort to get their business when they do go pro. It doesn't matter what school he's going to. As for the cynicism, I've seen shady things at freaking DII schools. If some of this doesn't happen everywhere, then it's at least pretty damn close.

What are these perceived squeecky clean state schools? Notre Dame? Air Force? I'm not sure anybody with half a brain would be surprised to hear a kid from any school took money from an agent at some point.

When it comes to that specific point, sure. But the overall point in drawing them to the school in the first place and leaving early is an entirely different matter. Either way, kids are leaving school because there is money available, they don't need agents to tell them that.

I don't think it only happens at select schools. The article seems to indicate otherwise. But besides that, the agent has a clear, vested financial interest in getting established talents to leave school as soon as possible. You're saying that the agent culture becomes attached to the program so they get better talent to begin with...there's some merit to that argument but to me, the fact that the agents WANT these guys to leave school is a bigger factor on balance. That's assuming that without their influence those players would otherwise stay in school. I don't buy that.

I agree with this. I also think the only way that this causes any positive change is bigger name agents will have to be caught or confess. I also think that players from schools that are perceived as clean will have to be named for any real change to happen. Still way to easy for fans from schools that "are above this kind of thing" to point at the WSU, USC, and other schools and say that it is an issue with those renegade programs and not with us. This isn't about schools paying guys to play but agents paying soon-to-be pros in order to get their business when they declare, right? I don't think it's really sports specific. so USC shouldn't have been punished for what happened with Reggie Bush? That's not what I said. The story is agents are paying players to get their business when drafted. I don't think it matters what schools are involved from a "how do we change it" standpoint.

Whatever it is, I really hope he has a future at LT.

Um, it is him as well. He's not an agent anymore. You can't tell me that just because he's not an agent anymore, he's free from the court of public opinion. He was an agent, so what people think of him probably wasn't a major concern in his life. And what can public opinion possibly do to him. Last week nobody heard of him, now he's a pseudo celebrity. I'm not sure how he's suffering at all.

I guess that's possible but I'm not sure what benefit there would be. If he's got a sore hammy, he can either play or not. Obviously there's a difference stepping back as a LT pass blocking, but you're still relying heavily on your legs.

I agree with this. I also think the only way that this causes any positive change is bigger name agents will have to be caught or confess. I also think that players from schools that are perceived as clean will have to be named for any real change to happen. Still way to easy for fans from schools that "are above this kind of thing" to point at the WSU, USC, and other schools and say that it is an issue with those renegade programs and not with us. This isn't about schools paying guys to play but agents paying soon-to-be pros in order to get their business when they declare, right? I don't think it's really school specific.