2012 Season Schedule

This was announced several weeks ago but I just realized I had not weighed in on it....

2012 Football Schedule

09/01 - McNeese St
09/08 - Florida
09/15 - @ SMU
09/22 - OPEN
09/29 - Arkansas
10/06 - @ Ole Miss
10/13 - OPEN
10/20 - LSU
10/27 - @ Auburn
11/03 - @ Miss. St.
11/10 - @ Alabama
11/17 - OPEN
11/24 - Mizzou

• We're going to fill two of those open dates with cupcakes, I'm sure.
• The winners of four of the last six national championships are on that list.
  

I'd have to go back to the media guides to find out when the last time we played a conference game in week two was - but we need to get used to it - that is the way of the SEC. And it looks like the Florida Gators will be the first SEC game in school history, and it will be nice to have them at Kyle Field....which is going to be rocking all season long.

My goal is to make one away SEC road trip each season and frankly, this is a tough one to pick. On my bucket list I have road games at 'Bama and Ole Miss BUT I think we're going to knock Auburn out this year....for one reason only....the famous oaks on Toomer's Corner are dying (if you hadn't heard) and I'd like to see them before they die. If not for that Auburn would be much further down on my list.

The other nice little touch I noticed was an AWAY game at SMU. We've played SMU a handful of times since the SWC dissovled but it will be the first time we've played them in University Park in 20 years (10/31/92). Tickets will be scarce because Ford Stadium only holds 32,000. It'll be a nice road game to a stadium I haven't seen but have a nice weekend with the family up in the Big D.

Sumlin Adds a Co-DC

Coach Sumlin has added Marcel Yates to the coaching staff as a Co-Defensive coordinator who will also handle the defensive backs.

Yates comes to us from Boise State where he served a couple of roles. From '03-'05 he was the cornerbacks coach then from '06-'10 he was the defensive backs coach and then last season he served as Defensive Pass Game Coordinator. I would assume that since this is a co-coordinatorship he would be serving a similar role with us which is interesting because I'm not sure we've ever had a co-defensive coordinator but Sumlin showed in his time at UH that he wasn't afraid of the "co-" title.

Under Yates as the Defensive Pass Game Coordinator the Broncos season stats looked like this:

Rush D 110.0 (17)
Pass D 210.9 (43)
 Tot D 320.9 (16)
Scor D  18.7 (12)

I'm not sure what to make of that. But he is known as a stout recruiter which is something that Sumlin has focused strongly on as he put together this staff.

There is one more opening, which appears to be for the LBer coach - we'll have to see how this gets filled....and will it be done before signing day next Wednesday?

Sumlin Hires Mark Snyder as Defensive Coordinator

Mark Snyder

• Marshall c/o '88
• 4-3 base defense
  
  
• 1991-1996 Youngstown St. LB/ST/DC
• 1997-2000 Minnesota DE Coach
  
• 2001-2003 Ohio State LB Coach
• 2004 Ohio State Defensive Coordinator
• 2005-2009 Marshall Head Coach
• 2010-2011 South Florida Defensive Coordinator

Coach Sumlin made the move on Monday to bring Mark Snyder on board as the defensive coordinator. He comes to us straight from South Florida where he was the defensive coordinator for the last two seasons.

I'll be completely honest - when my father-in-law texted me his name the first thing that went through my mind was, "Who?" I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

The next thing that went through my mind was, "Well, I had better find out." So here's a pretty detailed look at the last 3 stops on his resume, which are most relevant.

Snyder reunited with Jim Tressel at Ohio State after working for the Vest during his time at Youngstown State. His first three years in Columbus he was the Linebacker coach with some big names, like Matt Wilhelm and A.J. Hawk under his tutelage. In 2004 he was promoted to defensive coordinator.

Ohio State National Defensive Rankings
        BEFORE        DURING         AFTER
      2002  2003       2004       2005  2006
      ==========    ==========    ==========
Rush D   3     2     124.3 (32)      1    15
Pass D  95    80     201.6 (41)     43    30
 Tot D  23    10     332.0 (30)      5    12
Scor D   2    16      18.3 (19)      5     5

That was not what I wanted to see. In the five years shown there, the one season he was at the helm was the worst. They were still very good, but it was easily the worst season of the five.

I was impressed when I did a quick Google search and saw he was Tressel's DC at tOSU. That's a big, big program and that was right in the middle of their strong mid-2000s run. Holy cow were they good....they won the National Championship in 2002 and then followed that up with four times top 4 finishes over the next five years - but 2004 was their worst finish....at #19.

After 2004 he was hired away by Marshall, his alma mater, to be the head coach.

Marshall
       Rush D      PassD       Total D   Scoring D
     ==========  ==========  ==========  =========
2005 161.8 (75)  178.5 (12)  340.3 (33)  25.9 (60)
2006 139.3 (65)  251.7 (114) 390.9 (101) 29.3 (102)
2007 191.0 (93)  259.8 (100) 450.8 (107) 34.3 (102)
2008 164.4 (85)  253.7 (100) 418.1 (102) 27.7 (72)
2009 134.9 (48)  236.9 (91)  371.8 (66)  24.3 (54)

There are a lot of triple digit national rankings in there....TORBUSH! Let's take a closer look.

Marshall National Defensive Rankings
    BEFORE                 DURING                  AFTER
  2003  2004    2005  2006  2007  2008  2009    2010  2011
  ==========    ============================    ==========
R  57    19      75    65    93    85    48      55    58
P  10    72      12   114   100   100    91      94    96
T  24    32      33   101   107   102    66      71    78
S  47    37      60   102   102    72    54      74    74

What I was hoping to see was that they were really, really bad before he got there and he was improving the program but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Now it is worth pointing out two things that could be playing into this.

• Marshall moved from the MAC to C-USA the year he arrived to Marshall....but then again they were still respectable in his first year/their first year in C-USA.
  
  
• It's an entirely different deal getting to be a coordinator at a powerhouse program where you get blue chips delivered to your doorstep by Jim Tressell than it is having to recruit and play with the kids that you can get to come to a mid-major

Snyder lasted five seasons as the head man at Marshall before he resigned/fired following a 6-6 2009 season and a 21-37 overall record. During his time at Marshall he did face Sumlin (at UH) in 2008 getting the best of the Cougars 37-23.

He landed on his feet at South Florida as their defensive coordinator.

South Florida
       Rush D      PassD       Total D   Scoring D
     ==========  ==========  ==========  =========
2010 125.6 (22)  192.3 (24)  317.9 (17)  20.0 (22)
2011 107.3 (15)  244.0 (84)  351.3 (39)  22.7 (37)

Those numbers are promising. Let's take a look at a snapshot before/during his tenure:

USF National Defensive Rankings
    BEFORE        DURING 
  2008  2009    2010  2011  
  ==========    ==========
R  10    49      22    15
P  37    25      24    84
T  10    24      17    39 
S  24    19      22    37 

I'm not seeing a really significant improvement from the before and during.

Now I don't know who the defensive coordinators he followed at Ohio State, Marshall, or South Florida and maybe they were all really good DCs but I am having a hard time getting excited about someone who didn't seem to improve the last defensive units that he was put/was in charge of.

The last thing I wanted to take a look at was who on earth some of these teams played. I don't know what a typical South Florida schedule looks like....so I looked:

USF 2010
               v. USF       Season Avg.
              Yds Pts   Yds (rk) Pts (rk)
              =======   =================
Stony Brook   253  14    -   --   --  --
Florida       423  38   351 (82)  30 (43)
W.Kentucky    314  12   319 (98)  23 (90)
Fla. Atlantic 208   3   395 (45)  17 (113)
Syracuse      307  13   323 (97)  22 (93)
West Virginia 298  20   373 (67)  25 (78)
Cincinnati    590  30   417 (32)  27 (57)
Rutgers       238  27   295 (114) 21 (101)
Louisville    328  21   369 (71)  26 (63)
Pitt          292  17   367 (72)  26 (67)
Miami         353  20   421 (31)  26 (67)
UCONN         232  19   326 (96)  26 (63)
Clemson       356  26   335 (88)  24 (86)

Now this is more promising. Only Florida, Cincinnati, & Clemson gained more yards against South Florida than their season average....the best three teams they faced. Almost the same thing can be said on the scoring side....just about everyone was held at or below their season averages.

USF 2011
               v. USF       Season Avg.
              Yds Pts    Yds (rk) Pts (rk)
              =======    =================
Notre Dame    508  20    413 (35)  29 (49)
Ball State    225   7    379 (68)  25 (72
Florida A&M   181  17    ---  --   --  --
UTEP          339  24    381 (64)  27 (62)
Pitt          523  44    350 (88)  24 (83)
UCONN         253  16    313 (108) 24 (82)
Cincinnati    501  37    386 (61)  33 (27)
Rutgers       228  20    339 (99)  26 (65)
Syracuse      405  17    348 (90)  24 (84)
Miami (FL)    316   6    378 (70)  27 (63)
Louisville    373  34    333 (103) 22 (98)
West Virginia 364  30    470 (15)  37 (14)

Not quite as impressive with three 500+ yard games but on the scoring side really only Louisville and Pitt really outscored their season average.

Bottom line is that Sumlin needs for this hire to pay off big dividends - the SEC is a defensive conference. I really hope that some of these trends are bucked and this one works out for us.

Welcome to Aggieland Coach Snyder!

Premature Conjecture

Narduzzi is out....on Friday he announced that he was going to stay at Michigan State with a raise from $240K up to $300K.....we allegedly offered offered $750K. Wow.

I have no clue who is next on the list.

• Mark Stoops just got a big raise at FSU to stay.
  
  
• Chris Wilson (Mississippi State's DC) was softly rumored a couple of weeks ago has decided he didn't want to interview anywhere else.
  
  
• Justin Wilcox (who was Sherman's other finalist for DC when he hired DeRuyter) just left Tennessee to join newly hired Mike Leach at Washington and run his defense. I'm not sure if he was even on Sumlin's radar but he was someone we had considered in the past.
  
  
• There are rumors that Brent Venables is on his way out in Norman (to be replaced by Mike Stoops) but I just have a deep rooted disdain for him and, frankly, I don't know if he would come here or if Sumlin would want him.

This hire is incredibly important for Sumlin....in my opinion it will make or break him. We'll have to find out when it happens.

The biggest thing is getting the right guy but we also need to keep in mind that we need a defensive staff together and in place before signing day, which is creeping up on us only 4-5 weeks away. It has already hurt us with the JUCO mid-termers as we lost both of our big DL commits (Damien Jacobs to Florida & Darrington Sentimore to Tennessee).

All our surrounding schools (texas, OU, oSu, TCU, LSU, Arkansas, etc.) are just waiting to cherry pick from our committed kids in this vulnerable state. I know you probably won't forget what happened with Corey Nelson a couple of years ago when we didn't have a staff assembled in time?

Who is Coming With Me?

After a head coaching change the next order of business is bringing in the coordinators and filling out the remainder of the coaching staff. This is, in my opinion, just as important as the head man himself.

Offensively, Sumlin has his own offensive pedigree but I know that no one in Aggieland wants to see another head coach absorbing the OC role again. Sumlin is going to bring a chunk of his offensive staff with him from UH. It's hard to argue when that offense was #1 nationally in both total offense and scoring offense last year - but then again maybe it isn't - because UH didn't play a really rough schedule.

Kliff Kingsbury

• texas tech c/o '01
  
  
• 2008-2009 U.Houston - Offensive Quality Control
• 2010-2011 U.Houston - Co-Offensive Coordinator

Kliff Kingsbury is the man who will be leading the charge offensively. Most of you will remember him from his playing days at texas tech ('98-'02) where he was the first of what seemed like a dozen of Mike Leach's QBs who torched the world. Kingsbury has been the co-coordinator at UH for the past two seasons under Sumlin's tutelage.

On the Leach's coaching staff at tech during Kingsbury's time there was Dana Holgorson (at the time he was the WR coach) but when Holgorson took the OC job at Houston upon Sumlin's arrival in '08 he brought Kingsbury in under the title of "Offensive Quality Control". Holgorson went to oSu in '10 and took their offense from #61 to #1 and then moved onto West Virginia as HC where you probably saw the Mountaneer's drop 70 points and 589 yards on Clemson in the Orange Bowl on Wednesday night.

Basically, Kingsbury has a pretty good pedigree and has worked under some of the greatest offensive minds of this mind blowing offensive era we're in right now (Leach, Holgorson, & Sumlin).

Even still, it's nice to take a look at the numbers....

Houston
   Rush O      Pass O      Total O   Scoring O
 ==========  ==========  ==========  =========
2010  153.3 (61)  327.3 (5)   480.5 (10)  37.7 (13)
2011  155.2 (61)  443.8 (1)   599.0 (1)   50.8 (1)

Houston National Rankings
BEFORE       DURING  
2008  2009   2010  2011
==========  ===========
R   47    83     61    61
P    2     1      5     1
T    2     1     10     1
S   10     2     13     1

Keep in mind that in '10 those numbers are "down" because the Cougars lost both their starting and backup quarterback in week 3.

There are still some questions that need to be asked - I mean, it's not like our offense has been completely dismal (we have finished in the top 7 nationally twice in the last three years):

1. If he was the Co-Coordinator how do we know we got the right one of the two? My thought is that since Sumlin is picking Kingsbury over Jason Phillips he got the guy he wanted.
2. What are we going to change up? Houston and oSu (Holgorson's offense) have been notorious for very fast paced no-huddle air attacks. oSu has had a little bit more of the luxury with a more stable running game so I imagine that we'll see something more along the lines of that, particularly with our strong running backs. It's something that we've tinkered with a tad bit but we have definately been more of a west coast/pro-style offense
3. Who on earth is going to Qb this offense? We have no clue....Showers, Johnny Football, Matt Davis?
4. Is a high flying offense going to hurt our defense? There has to be some balance there to keep the defense rested
5. Is this style of offense going to work against SEC defenses week-in-and-week-out? These are the fastest and most athletic defenses in the nation
6. Did Kingsbury, with his dreamy hair, really hook up with Britney Spears?
   

I don't know the answer to any of those questions but that is what we signed up for with Sumlin.

The other names that we should be getting on the offensive side of the ball are OL coach Clarence McKinney (U.Houston/OL), RB coach B.J. Anderson (U.Houston/RB), WR coach David Beaty (Kansas/co-OC & WR), and it looks like the last offensive spot might be taken by special teams guru/recruiting beast Brian Polian (Stanford).

Pat Narduzzi

• Rhode Island c/o '89
• Runs a 4-3 base defense
  
  
• 1990-1991 Miami-OH Grad Assistant
• 1992 Miami-OH Receivers Coach
• 1993-1997 Rhode Island LB Coach
• 1998-1999 Rhode Island DC
• 2000-2002 Northern Illinois LB Coach
• 2003 Miami-OH DC
• 2004-2006 Cincinnati DC
• 2007-2011 Michigan State DC

This one isn't official yet but all indications point to us stealing Michigan State's DC, Pat Narduzzi. He's been all over working his way up the coaching chain but he played one year of football at Youngstown State where Mark Dantonio was his DC a relationship that was restarted when he rejoined Dantonio to Cincinnati and followed him to Michigan State.

Here's a look at Narduzzi's time at Cinci....

Cincinnati
     Rush D      PassD       Total D   Scoring D
   ==========  ==========  ==========  =========
2004  147.2 (58)  194.2 (26)  341.3 (38)  26.7 (69)
2005  180.4 (90)  221.3 (64)  401.6 (78)  31.4 (96)
2006  107.5 (25)  201.6 (58)  309.2 (31)  19.6 (36)


Cincinnati National Rankings
  BEFORE           DURING           AFTER
2002  2003    2004  2005  2006   2007  2008
==========   =================   ==========
R   43    49      58    90    25     19    19
P   22    22      26    64    58     89    57
T   21    27      38    78    31     50    31
S   43    68      69    96    36     13    25

To be totally honest, it doesn't look like he made much of a difference during his time at Cincy. He definitely improved from year 2 to 3 but nothing that jumps off the page

Michigan State
     Rush D      PassD       Total D   Scoring D
   ==========  ==========  ==========  =========
2007  125.8 (30)  219.7 (44)  345.5 (32)  26.6 (57)
2008  142.5 (67)  213.4 (69)  355.9 (58)  22.1 (41)
2009  113.2 (24)  267.6 (112) 380.9 (73)  26.3 (67)
2010  133.7 (37)  220.1 (60)  353.8 (43)  22.3 (39)
2011  104.3 (12)  168.4 (11)  272.7 (5)   17.46 (9)

Michigan State Big 10 Rankings
  BEFORE                DURING    
2005  2006   2007  2008  2009  2010  2011
==========  =============================
R    7     6      4     7     4     5     1
P    6     9      4     7    11     5     4
T    5     8      5     7     8     6     1  
S    7    10      8     5     7     4     4

Michigan State National Rankings
  BEFORE                DURING    
2005  2006   2007  2008  2009  2010  2011
==========  =============================
R   76    56     30    67    24    37    12
P   85    97     44    69   112    60    11
T   87    88     32    58    73    43     5
S   77   100     57    41    67    39     9

Looking at the last chart you can see that there was definitely a drastic improvement in his first season from the previous year but then they started taking steps backwards. Looking at the second chart I was surprised to see that this year was the first time that Narduzzi's squad finished in the top half of the Big 10 in both scoring and total offense. It really makes me question whether this year was the outlier?

This season Michigan State also finished 9th in the country in scoring defense....but 4th in their conference. I'm not sure how to interpret that. Was the Big 10 just a powerhouse defensive conference or are the offenses just really bad? Taking a quick look at the top scoring offenses in the nation only Wisconsin (#5), Michigan (#22) and Michigan State (#37) are in the top 40.

I'm completely unsure how to feel about Narduzzi. From everything I read this is a homerun hire but looking at the numbers I'm not knocked over.

The rest of the staff will probably be lined out once Narduzzi is finalized.

Ag Football Preview: Northwestern Football History

When it was announced that we were selected by the Mineke Car Care Bowl I was glad only because it is in Houston and it would be the easiest bowl game to ever navigate since I live in Houston.

After playing some big premier opponents in our last few bowl games (LSU, Georgia, Penn State, Cal, Tennessee) I was disappointed to find out that our opponent was Northwestern. I was really hoping that we would land a down Ohio State who finished tied with Northwestern in the Big 10 this season - but their traveling passionate fanbase got them snatched up by the Gator Bowl who matched them up against Florida (pitting newly hired tOSU HC, Urban Meyer's new and old teams against each other).

While the Wildcats are not the sexiest opponent, they are our opponent and I like to take the time to to learn about the history of our bowl opponents as the actual team prepares for them.

Quick hitters:

• Only private school in the B1G
• <8,000 students
• Traditions include a wildcat "growl" over the PA System and hitting a 2x4 with "Trust" written on it
• They wear purple
  
• Ross from Friends and Elaine from Seinfeld both went to school there
• Pretty much a horrible football history

The Wildcats were horrific until 1995 when they went 10-1 in the regular season under HC Gary Barnett, winning the Big 10 title and earning a trip to the Rose Bowl. It was their first winning season since 1971.

They followed up that season in '96 with a 9-3 campaign but fell off once Barnett left for Colorado.

Current Head coach Pat Fitzgerald was a consensus All-American linebacker for the Wildcats in both 1995 & 1996 - he also brought home both the Bednarik Award & Nagurski Trophy in both seasons. He took over as head coach in '06 and has brought the longest stretch of success the program has seen with bowl games in each of the last 4 seasons....remember they had only 6 bowl appearances from 1876-2006.

That's really it. I did some digging and that was all I could come up with. The moral of the story....go better than 6-6 and make a real bowl game against a legit football school.

Who is Next?

Well, a result of making some money at work was that I didn't get a chance to dive into the potential head coaches. Last Saturday the Ags officially named Kevin Sumlin the new head coach.


Sumlin was the first name that surfaced when Sherman was fired but a lot went on over the 9 day stretch but he was certainly not the only one. In my last post I mentioned three other initial candidates, Charlie Strong, Larry Fedora, & Kirby Smart.

Louisville put up a huge roadblock in terms of allowing Strong to interview and it came out that he had a $1m+ buyout in his contract. Fedora's name was hot and he was offered and accepted the North Carolina job mid-week. Smart - I'm not sure what happened there but from everything I was reading he seemed to be the least likely to get tabbed.

One of the reasons that this process drug out as long as it did was because Bill Byrne went after a couple of big fish. Early on, Mark Richt of Georgia was rumored to be interested but I don't know if any sort of official discussions took place. Byrne also interviewed Gary Patterson of TCU but I don't think we wanted to push for him as hard as we would have needed to to get him - he has a pretty cush setup right now at TCU.

Chris Peterson of Boise State was Byrne's wild card. Peterson has been rumored for every big job that has become available in the last 4 years but has never budged. There was apparently some interest with our job but we couldn't get the crazy money together that would have been needed to make it work.

Regardless of who was interviewed, Coach Sumlin is our new man.

This is his second go-round in College Station after serving under R.C. as the WR/TE coach in '01 and then mid-season '02 he was promoted to offensive coordinator and rose along with Reggie.

When R.C. was fired Sumlin moved on to Norman where he stayed from '03-'07, acting as the co-offensive coordinator in his final two seasons there. He was supposedly Coach Sherman's top candidate for OC when Sherman took the job in '08 but was offered the HC gig at Houston and couldn't pass that up for a coordinator position.

2008: 8-5
2009: 10-4
2010: 5-7
2011: 12-1*

At UH, Sumlin built on what Art Briles had started prior to taking off for Baylor. In his second season you might recall in 2009 his Cougs knocking off #5 ranked oSu in Stillwater and the following week knocking off Leach's texas tech squad in Houston putting them in the AP rankings for the first time since the old SWC days in the early-90s.

In 2010, after starting out 2-0, Sumlin lost his both his starting QB, Case Keenum and backup Cotton Turner in their third game of the season and played out the rest of the season with their third string QB. That's a might tough blow to take, having to play with your third string QB for the final 9 games.

In 2011 with Keenum back at the helm the Cougars ran the table going 12-0 with a BCS bid guaranteed before completely crumbling in the C-USA Championship game to Southern Miss....at home. Had the Cougars won that game I think there would be very little grumbling from A&M fans but everyone and their brother watched this game knowing that there was a strong chance he would be taking over our program and we all saw a mirror of what happened to us all season and it took the gloss off the Sumlin bandwagon.

Of course it is ridiculous for one game to make or break your opinion but what it did was put a chink in the armor and made fans take a step back and reassess all the potential candidates.

There are detractors who have questioned a few things, all of which I feel are legitimate:

• He didn't win a CUSA championship in his 4 years at UH
• Can he recruit? He won a lot with Keenum - but Keenum was a holdover from Briles. Seeing it being done at Purdue, A&M, and OU is one thing but overseeing it is another
• How does he address the glaring need for a stout defense in the SEC?
  

I'm not worried about him from an offensive standpoint at all. He put up huge numbers at UH running a fast paced spread offense and he put up huge numbers at OU running a more traditional pro-style offense. My biggest deal was that I wanted a defensive minded head coach - that's the biggest knock against him I have.

UH's National Rankings:
     PRE-Sumlin     WITH Sumlin
      '06 '07     '08 '09 '10 '11
      -------     ---------------
Tot O   7   4       2   1  11   1
Sco O  10  23      10  T1  13   1

      '06 '07     '08 '09 '10 '11
      -------     ---------------
Tot D  72  46     100 111 103  64
Sco D  64  74      91  95  96  41

His defensive coordinator hire is going to have to be a big success for me to get completely on board. The other problem there is that he is not only going to have to hire a defensive coordinator who can succeed but he's going to have to keep him or be able to replace him with someone equal or better - because good DCs leave and become HCs elsewhere.

Along that front, current DC, Tim DeRuyter, just took the HC job at Fresno State and it looks like the rest of our defensive staff will be departing as well (Toth & Dat are both rumored to be joining DeRuyter in Cali). The one mainstay we have to keep will be DL coach Terrell Williams, who is knocking it out of the park on the recruiting trail.

Overall, I'm luke warm on this whole ordeal. I don't like that we're going into a new conference with a new head coach and a new QB and I'm not thrilled that we hired an offensive guy and I really thought that if we were going to fire Sherman right now it was because we were going to go out and make a big splash with a big name, proven guy.

I've heard Sumlin on the radio quite a bit here in Houston and I do really like him - but I'm still not sure if this is a step up or just a step onto a new staircase. I guess we'll have to see how all his coordinator hires goes before I can decide if this is a better situation than what we had.

As they say, only time will tell.

Welcome to Aggieland Coach Sumlin!