Among other odd personnel situations right now in the broader college football universe, Ohio State has announced the hiring of Texas A&M athletic director Ross Bjork to fill the same position in Columbus. The move is something of a surprise. Even beyond football, outgoing AD Gene Smith ran a highly successful athletic department. The Buckeyes were third in last year’s final Directors’ Cup standings. They’re competitive in nearly every sport they play. Using football recruiting rankings as a proxy, booster support remains high. A lot of people thought this search would end with someone who’d worked at some time under Smith. Why did Ohio State bring in an outsider, and one from a less successful place?
This is a guess, but I wonder if it has to do with that last piece of Ohio State’s success—the booster thing. Bjork did not bring Texas A&M to where Texas A&M wants to be. But he did navigate what appears to be one of the most chaotic booster situations in the country, a red bull–vodka of recruiting resources where the money is abundant but opinions are many. If this is to be the NIL era, it makes some sense to hire someone who tried to steer one of the most high-octane NIL ships in the sea. Did Bjork navigate those waters well? It’s hard to say. On one hand, he just had to raise the money necessary to pay off an historically large Jimbo Fisher buyout. On the other, Texas A&M did get that number 1 class in 2022, and Texas A&M did raise that buyout money. There’s the old trope which says reflection on failure makes for a good story in an interview.
Maybe that isn’t it at all. Maybe Ohio State wants an SEC guy to guide them into this more binary Big Ten vs. SEC era. Maybe Bjork’s relative youth appeals in this time of college sports transition. Maybe Ohio State anticipates a high-risk coaching search next offseason in football and wants someone who understands that Ohio State can, in fact, miss. Maybe there’s fear of unrealistic expectations in Columbus and others told Ohio State no. But a lot of these theories do tie back to the idea that Bjork understands how this dawning world of college sports works. If good hires in college athletics were as simple as hiring the person who’s won the most games, well: Jimbo Fisher probably would have had a lot better tenure at Ross Bjork’s last stop.
Arizona, Tommy Rees, and Other Loose Ends
Arizona moved fast after Jedd Fisch took the offensive staff and left for Seattle, announcing today that they’ve hired Brent Brennan, a former Arizona grad assistant and the recent head coach at San Jose State. It’s a fairly traditional hire, and it must work within Arizona’s financial picture (the university is in a debacle of a situation of its own incompetent creation). With Kalen DeBoer hiring Kane Wommack to run Alabama’s defense, the move leaves San Jose State and South Alabama as the FBS schools with open head coaching jobs. Eyes remain on Michigan, but Sherrone Moore seems like the favorite to take over there if Jim Harbaugh chooses the NFL path. The college portion of the coaching carousel is slowing to a simmer once again.
One character who hasn’t found a home is former Alabama and Notre Dame offensive coordinator Tommy Rees. Rees, reportedly a top candidate for Alabama’s head coach position before the Tide hired DeBoer, is currently apparently without a job. DeBoer brought Ryan Grubb in from Seattle. Ryan Grubb is an offensive coordinator. There hasn’t been any formal announcement (that I’ve seen, at least), but it would be odd to see Rees stick around. The 31-year-old has gone from being among the three final candidates for one of the most storied jobs in the country to being, apparently, unemployed.
There are two other noteworthy offensive coordinator openings right now in the college ranks, at least by my count. One is Iowa, which comes with a lot of upside (you cannot make that offense worse) but would probably come with a pay cut for Rees, who was on tap to make more at Alabama this fall than Iowa defensive coordinator Phil Parker will make even after his recent near-50% raise. Even beyond the contract, Iowa’s lack of top-ten resources would make the job too small a fit for someone of Rees’s pedigree. Other jobs which might come open during the NFL cycle—Kentucky’s been speculating about losing Liam Coen—have the same issue. It’s hard to go from making two million dollars a year to making less than that to do the same job for a lesser program, and that’s even before considering Rees’s buyout, which will have to cover the next two seasons and might be larger by itself than other contracts he could sign.
One school that does have resources and does have an offensive coordinator opening? LSU.
Rees notably turned down Brian Kelly before. When Kelly went to Baton Rouge, Rees stayed at Notre Dame, with the narrative on the decision partially being that Rees liked the idea of getting to run the offense under a defense-focused head coach. Is a reunion possible? I honestly do not know.
So far, there isn’t much buzz about Rees and the NFL, but that makes sense given about a quarter of the league’s head coaching jobs are open. Coordinators move second, and the playoffs are ongoing. But I wonder if Rees is headed for a special assistant role in 2024, and I wonder what that sort of pause does to a career like his. Retirements leave strange wakes.
If You’re Going to Make Exceptions…
Taulia Tagovailoa is reportedly set to enter the NFL draft after the NCAA denied him an additional year of eligibility, and…really?
We’ve been on the side of the NCAA through a lot of eligibility-waiver debates. We like the idea of the NCAA having rules. But if you’re going to make exceptions, how do you not make one for a guy who only burned his redshirt because of an emotional decision his coaches offered him after his brother was carted off with a gruesome injury? Yes, college football players are too old. But that’s because of Covid, not because of redshirts. It’s a weird choice.
What’s With the Head Coach Interview Announcements?
In other things I don’t understand, NFL franchises are putting out social media graphics (like this one and this one) hyping…who they’ve interviewed?
The NFL has a lot of rules about hiring procedures (including the Rooney Rule, which…man, great look to have the Falcons perform a token interview around MLK Day as they try to hire Bill Belichick), but even if disclosing who all you interviewed is one of them, surely making a Twitter graphic isn’t? It’s strange. It’s very strange. It doesn’t seem every candidate is getting a graphic, but at least with the Chargers, Brian Callahan did and then also got this “5 things to know about Brian Callahan” blogpost from the team’s own Junior Writer (official title). The 5 things? I (mostly) quote:
1. The OC in Cincinnati
2. Strong connection with QBs
3. Getting his start
4. Prep star
5. Son of a coach
6. Buy season tickets please
I guess the graphics might help sell the tickets.
Jordan Love and the Rest of Wild Card Weekend
I think I was as surprised as anybody else on just how well the Packers played against the Cowboys. We were already into the house money portion of the season, and then we got Jordan Love dazzling in his playoff debut. What else could you ask for? Others have covered it better, and I know our Packers coverage has centered primarily on Joe Barry for the last month and a half, but one thing that did cross my mind watching the game is how little of the defensive problem appears to be the players. The players seem to do their jobs well, and to do them with effort. It’s just…what they’re told to do? Maybe I don’t understand football and Joe Barry is great at this. (I might not understand football, but I feel secure in my belief that Joe Barry isn’t great at this.)
Thoughts on the other teams who played:
- Are the Cowboys suddenly in the market for Belichick? It wouldn’t be a surprise. I wonder how the balance of 1) inheriting a great roster and 2) having to work under an involved owner shakes out for Belichick, if the possibility becomes possible.
- It’s impossible not to be enormously happy for the Lions, especially with the Rams such a flavorless organization right now. My only input is that I would like broadcasts, in discussing the Matthew Stafford trade, to make clear what percentage of Jameson Williams, Jahmyr Gibbs, and Sam LaPorta came from that deal. The picks acquired were flipped for other picks, but some of the Lions’ own original picks were involved in buying the picks that became those three players. I think it was most of Gibbs and LaPorta which came from Stafford, but only part of Williams? I want the draft pick value chart applied to this.
- Speaking of Stafford, he’s 35 now, right around the top among active QBs. We’ve seen Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers play well in the post-35 years, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. The Rams seem to have gotten through the worst of that no–draft–picks period. Do they still have a window?
- I don’t have much to say about the Chiefs except that the helmet breaking was something else. That was the perfect cold-weather thing to have happen. The game turned into an experiment.
- On the losing end of that experiment, the Dolphins now have the longest playoff win drought. Is that a temporary situation? Tua Tagovailoa is entering the option year of his rookie contract, before which extensions are common. How big will that extension be? How much room will it leave? The ideal, I’d guess, is to have a QB good enough to know you want him but uncertain enough to not require an earthshaking salary. Maybe Tua fits in that window. Maybe Mike McDaniel’s good enough at this that he can get the Dolphins over the hump with his own version of Brock Purdy.
- The Browns are back to being extremely weird. The defense was great until it wasn’t, and it’s hard to imagine the Joe Flacco situation being anything other than lightning in a bottle. They’re probably back to Deshaun Watson and questions. It wasn’t much of an opportunity, but they did miss it.
- Houston is a good place to have a good NFL team, and I personally am ready for that stage in the Texans’ history. Also, if a full bloom does happen, it’ll be nice to finally have a great team again in either South division.
- It sounds like Mike Tomlin’s staying? While the Cowboys firing Mike McCarthy would be probably dumb but not surprising, the Steelers firing Tomlin would be both dumb and a surprise. (I remain unclear on whether the questions were about whether the Steelers could fire Tomlin or whether Tomlin could leave the Steelers. The whole thing was, to fit today’s theme, strange.) Credit to Jerry Jones for making us expect him to do wacky things and therefore react less if he does them. This feels like an Iran metaphor.
- When will the Bills play badly again? Is that coming back? It was such a staple of the first two thirds of the season.
- I personally still really like Baker Mayfield and am happy to see him succeed. It doesn’t feel like anything long-term, but he also gets a Lions team next week that just won its Super Bowl, so maybe he’ll have his Blake Bortles moment and get to the Super Bowl’s doorstep.
- Last: The Eagles. What an organizational meltdown. I would like to read a book on what we just saw. I bet on them to beat the Niners! That game happened last month!
Little Things
- Iowa State’s men’s basketball team took care of business on Saturday, holding another Big 12 opponent under 54 points. (There is a lot of selectivity going on with this sample, but still good!) No-downside trip to BYU tonight. Ken Pomeroy highlighted a few weeks ago how unlikely it was for BYU to continue with their elite three-point defense numbers. I would not mind the Cyclones being the source of the regression.
- Iowa State’s women’s team pulled off a ridiculous comeback on Saturday against Baylor and is now 5–0 in Big 12 play, with Audi Crooks getting national attention. Fun team. Fun situation. A little house money period upcoming, but those are treacherous in college basketball. You can almost always get hurt.
- The Bulls fell back into the hole, not only with the embarrassing Ring of Honor ceremony situation (please do not boo any widows today, friends) but with a 1–2 performance on the weekend. After everything…we are one game past the halfway point and the Bulls are the Eastern Conference’s 9-seed. Like a carpenter’s level.
- The Blackhawks lost to the Stars on Saturday but get the Sharks tonight. Connor Bedard’s skating again, and the front office extended Nick Foligno and Jason Dickinson. Things are happening!
