…the outcome of the Territorial Cup game will more than likely not affect the decision on Todd Graham’s future since it has already been made. The likely scenario here is for Ray Anderson to inform Graham some 24-48 hours from the end of the Arizona contest that ASU will be going in a different direction and hire a new head football coach.
This is the vibe I’ve been getting from multiple sources in the last few days. Just to be clear, I’m not rendering my own personal opinion or trying to push a certain agenda, but rather reporting the information that has been conveyed to me.
If you recall, when I reported back in the spring that a 7-5 record should be enough to save Graham’s job, I also reported that Anderson was looking more at the bar being set at eight regular season wins. I believed that even if ASU didn’t accomplish that, that Anderson would be content with a 7-5 record to be enough to retain Graham. Looking back, I was wrong in that assumption, and barring unforeseen circumstances Anderson will make a coaching change even following a 7-5 regular season record.
I’m not reporting this with the notion that Chip Kelly is going to be the next ASU coach. There will be a time and place to report on ASU’s coaching candidates etc. (I need to gather more information before reporting on this) but I will say that AT THIS POINT my belief is that Kelly WON’T be the next head coach at ASU.
Back to Anderson, it’s no secret that he and Graham didn’t mesh together. Granted, it’s never easy for any head coach to have a pristine relationship with the Athletic Director that didn’t hire him/her. So, your margin of error and the length of your leash will always be smaller and shorter than a coach who was hired by the current Athletic Director. When back to back losing seasons in football took place, the writing has been on the wall.
If you want to state that Anderson is being too harsh firing a 7-5 coach, keep in mind that Dirk Koetter had back-to-back 7-5 regular season records before he got fired. Iy happens.
At the same time, when Graham couldn’t deliver on his public statements that his 2015 squad was the best he had in Tempe, Anderson was greatly irked by that and felt that collectively the athletic department had a lot of egg to wipe from its face, so to speak. I don’t think Anderson was right to voice his comments publicly on the matter, yet that was a clear indication how much of an irreparable issue if you will, that was in Anderson’ eyes. A 5-7 2016 season and a revolving door of assistant coaches, only gave Anderson a stronger sense that when it comes to the football team that things will get worse before they got better.
I hinted that Anderson was being proactive for months now preparing for the possibility that he will have to make a coaching change at the end of the 2017 season. Some told me that a blowout loss to Texas Tech could have caused Anderson to make a change right there, right then, and let’s face it following a 1-2 non-conference record there wasn’t much optimism surrounding the program. Sure, for the most part, the team dug itself out of the hole quite nicely during Pac-12 play, and losses to Stanford and USC were “acceptable” in the grand scheme of things. But this again came down to having a small margin of error and the loss to UCLA wiped that margin away in my opinion. You never want to hinge a coaching career on one game, but that UCLA loss was beyond significant since it prevented reaching that eight-win bar. A win against UCLA a few weeks ago and a win tomorrow versus Arizona would probably give Anderson much more cause to pause, if not abandon any thoughts for a coaching change.
Ralph put it best with his article tonight saying this about Graham:
I almost feel bad for him. The year to year stuff undercuts the message he's trying to instill in the team. I respect him as a man and would rather see him fired than in a constant state of flux. He's got his flaws, but he desperately wants to be the guy that puts ASU in the national conversation, and he wants to coach here for the rest of his life. That's rare, and while I'd love to see him have 2018 to earn that right, it would also seriously damage his legacy if, because of his flaws, they faceplanted again next year.
I wholeheartedly agreed, and stated as such, that I couldn’t see Anderson giving Graham more than a one-year extension anyway. Anderson himself is up for an extension (probably a five-year extension) and he doesn’t strike me as someone who wouldn’t want to make a football coaching hire during that time, especially if he doesn’t see eye to eye with Graham as it is.
Something else we mentioned in the past is that Anderson botched hires in gymnastics, and volleyball, fired Herb Sendek less than a year after giving him an extension, and one of his biggest hires to date, baseball skipper Tracy Smith, has been under severe scrutiny and faces a make or break 2018 season.
In terms of big hires (not to take away from the hires of Zeke Jones in wrestling or Bob Bowman in swimming), the only one Anderson can really boast about is Bobby Hurley. Then again, Hurley wasn’t Anderson’s first choice as he was eyeing Jeff Capel. So that potentially could have been another bad hire.
The point here is that Anderson certainly feels the pressure to make a good hire in football, and retaining a coach who (with a win tomorrow) will average six wins in the last three years, isn’t something Anderson can really boast about nor something he wants on his resume that wouldn’t be followed by a new coaching hire.
So, I detailed the scenario I can see unfolding following tomorrow’s game. Again, I haven’t heard of anything being etched in stone, so I’m rather just predicting what I see as more than likely to transpire over the next couple of days. These situations tend to be extremely fluid, so you don’t want to talk in absolutes. You don’t have to look further than six years ago to validate that theory, and how Kevin Sumlin was an apparent shoe-in for the ASU job, how ASU came THIS CLOSE to hiring June Jones, and ended up hiring Todd Graham who was just one year at Pitt and not really considered a coach on the market looking for a new home.
You’re welcomed to ask any questions on this thread and I will answer them as best as I can.
This is the vibe I’ve been getting from multiple sources in the last few days. Just to be clear, I’m not rendering my own personal opinion or trying to push a certain agenda, but rather reporting the information that has been conveyed to me.
If you recall, when I reported back in the spring that a 7-5 record should be enough to save Graham’s job, I also reported that Anderson was looking more at the bar being set at eight regular season wins. I believed that even if ASU didn’t accomplish that, that Anderson would be content with a 7-5 record to be enough to retain Graham. Looking back, I was wrong in that assumption, and barring unforeseen circumstances Anderson will make a coaching change even following a 7-5 regular season record.
I’m not reporting this with the notion that Chip Kelly is going to be the next ASU coach. There will be a time and place to report on ASU’s coaching candidates etc. (I need to gather more information before reporting on this) but I will say that AT THIS POINT my belief is that Kelly WON’T be the next head coach at ASU.
Back to Anderson, it’s no secret that he and Graham didn’t mesh together. Granted, it’s never easy for any head coach to have a pristine relationship with the Athletic Director that didn’t hire him/her. So, your margin of error and the length of your leash will always be smaller and shorter than a coach who was hired by the current Athletic Director. When back to back losing seasons in football took place, the writing has been on the wall.
If you want to state that Anderson is being too harsh firing a 7-5 coach, keep in mind that Dirk Koetter had back-to-back 7-5 regular season records before he got fired. Iy happens.
At the same time, when Graham couldn’t deliver on his public statements that his 2015 squad was the best he had in Tempe, Anderson was greatly irked by that and felt that collectively the athletic department had a lot of egg to wipe from its face, so to speak. I don’t think Anderson was right to voice his comments publicly on the matter, yet that was a clear indication how much of an irreparable issue if you will, that was in Anderson’ eyes. A 5-7 2016 season and a revolving door of assistant coaches, only gave Anderson a stronger sense that when it comes to the football team that things will get worse before they got better.
I hinted that Anderson was being proactive for months now preparing for the possibility that he will have to make a coaching change at the end of the 2017 season. Some told me that a blowout loss to Texas Tech could have caused Anderson to make a change right there, right then, and let’s face it following a 1-2 non-conference record there wasn’t much optimism surrounding the program. Sure, for the most part, the team dug itself out of the hole quite nicely during Pac-12 play, and losses to Stanford and USC were “acceptable” in the grand scheme of things. But this again came down to having a small margin of error and the loss to UCLA wiped that margin away in my opinion. You never want to hinge a coaching career on one game, but that UCLA loss was beyond significant since it prevented reaching that eight-win bar. A win against UCLA a few weeks ago and a win tomorrow versus Arizona would probably give Anderson much more cause to pause, if not abandon any thoughts for a coaching change.
Ralph put it best with his article tonight saying this about Graham:
I almost feel bad for him. The year to year stuff undercuts the message he's trying to instill in the team. I respect him as a man and would rather see him fired than in a constant state of flux. He's got his flaws, but he desperately wants to be the guy that puts ASU in the national conversation, and he wants to coach here for the rest of his life. That's rare, and while I'd love to see him have 2018 to earn that right, it would also seriously damage his legacy if, because of his flaws, they faceplanted again next year.
I wholeheartedly agreed, and stated as such, that I couldn’t see Anderson giving Graham more than a one-year extension anyway. Anderson himself is up for an extension (probably a five-year extension) and he doesn’t strike me as someone who wouldn’t want to make a football coaching hire during that time, especially if he doesn’t see eye to eye with Graham as it is.
Something else we mentioned in the past is that Anderson botched hires in gymnastics, and volleyball, fired Herb Sendek less than a year after giving him an extension, and one of his biggest hires to date, baseball skipper Tracy Smith, has been under severe scrutiny and faces a make or break 2018 season.
In terms of big hires (not to take away from the hires of Zeke Jones in wrestling or Bob Bowman in swimming), the only one Anderson can really boast about is Bobby Hurley. Then again, Hurley wasn’t Anderson’s first choice as he was eyeing Jeff Capel. So that potentially could have been another bad hire.
The point here is that Anderson certainly feels the pressure to make a good hire in football, and retaining a coach who (with a win tomorrow) will average six wins in the last three years, isn’t something Anderson can really boast about nor something he wants on his resume that wouldn’t be followed by a new coaching hire.
So, I detailed the scenario I can see unfolding following tomorrow’s game. Again, I haven’t heard of anything being etched in stone, so I’m rather just predicting what I see as more than likely to transpire over the next couple of days. These situations tend to be extremely fluid, so you don’t want to talk in absolutes. You don’t have to look further than six years ago to validate that theory, and how Kevin Sumlin was an apparent shoe-in for the ASU job, how ASU came THIS CLOSE to hiring June Jones, and ended up hiring Todd Graham who was just one year at Pitt and not really considered a coach on the market looking for a new home.
You’re welcomed to ask any questions on this thread and I will answer them as best as I can.
