Dodd: Hire Terry!
The most attractive college football job in years is available right now.
And it's at West Virginia.
|
|
| Landing a coach the caliber of Jim Grobe would keep WVU humming. (Getty Images) |
Michigan is a great job too, of course. It's not quite the job that Michigan or its fans think it is -- the best job in the Big Ten is and forever will be the one at Ohio State -- but it's among the top 10 or 15 jobs in college football.
But when it comes to winning a national championship, it's behind West Virginia, especially the West Virginia that Rodriguez was kind enough to bequeath to whomever replaces him. CBSSports.com college football expert Dennis Dodd thinks the replacement should be Terry Bowden, which would be like handing the keys to a Lexus to Lindsay Lohan.
This job is too good for Terry Bowden or Tommy Bowden or any Bowden who might like to have it. This job is so good, it deserves the best coach in college football, pound-for-pound category, which of course is Jim Grobe at Wake Forest. And in lieu of that, it deserves an NFL coach itching to make the move to college, assuming the NFL coach is more Pete Carroll than Dave Wannstedt.
That said, the 2008 season will be easy for whichever lucky guy gets this gig. Whoever he is, he would have to be a major failure not to win huge in 2008, which would maintain the momentum already in place -- and create new momentum for himself.
The West Virginia job is sexy in the short term because of the returning talent on offense, most importantly quarterback Pat White, who will surely join Florida's Tim Tebow as the top two Heisman candidates entering next season. White might never throw a pass in the NFL, but he's a sensational dual-threat college quarterback.
In addition to White, the Mountaineers ought to return career 4,000-yard rusher Steve Slaton for his senior season. Slaton was thought to be headed to the NFL after his junior year, but he finished the season so disappointingly that, for purposes of draft stock, he's better off coming back for one more year.
Even if Slaton doesn't come back, the Mountaineers have Noel Devine, who averaged 8.7 yards per carry as a freshman, gaining 519 yards in limited action. Whoever joins White in the backfield -- Slaton, Devine, both -- West Virginia will be loaded on offense, including a line that returns all 10 players on its final two-deep roster. The defense will replace seven starters, but special teams are fine with kicker/punter Pat McAfee back.
So that's 2008. West Virginia also is set up to win big in 2009 -- quarterback Jarrett Brown will be a senior, joined by Devine and receivers Jock Sanders and Brandon Hogan -- which would have the new coach well on his way to making WVU fans forget the gutless Rodriguez, who skipped out on his alma mater by leaving behind a short written note to his bosses.
All of this assumes the school nails this hire. Considering athletic director Ed Pastilong is the same guy who nailed the hiring of Rodriguez in 2000, as well as the hirings of John Beilein and Bob Huggins for men's basketball, I'm guessing he'll do it again.
| |||||||||||||||||||
And he ought to have a wide array of choices. This job is so perfect, I'm thinking of applying myself. The Big East is easily the weakest of the six BCS leagues, yet not so weak that a team can't catapult from the top of the conference all the way to the BCS title game. West Virginia proved that this year by needing only to beat four-touchdown underdog Pittsburgh in its regular-season finale to be ranked No. 1 by the BCS. There is no conference title game, either, to sabotage a championship season.
Recruiting to West Virginia ought to be a piece of cake, thanks to Rodriguez and the BCS coaches nearest him. The Mountaineers are on a 31-5 run since 2005 that should sell itself. As an added bonus, there isn't another BCS school in the state, which means West Virginia should own its homegrown talent.
The best talent around is in nearby Pennsylvania, which has a bad coach at Pittsburgh (Wannstedt) and an old coach at Penn State, Joe Paterno, who turns 81 next week. Throw in the talent in nearby Maryland, where coach Ralph Friedgen is spinning his wheels in his seventh season, and Rodriguez's replacement shouldn't have difficulty luring great area talent to Morgantown.
West Virginia has it all. Super returning talent, friendly recruiting areas, the best stadium in the Big East and one of the zaniest fan bases in the country. When it comes to fan support, West Virginia football is akin to Kentucky basketball; there's nothing these people won't do for their program, whether it's traveling to road games or writing checks to the booster club.
WVU football is so big that Gov. Joe Manchin issued a statement blasting Rodriguez's departure, blaming it on "high-priced agents" after thanking Rodriguez for bringing "positive notoriety to our state," an oxymoron given that all notoriety, by definition, is negative.
But that's mincing words. This is not: In recent years, the only vacancies that come close to West Virginia's for attractiveness were at Florida and LSU in 2004. But those schools lose points because they share the same conference. To win it all at LSU you have to get through Florida, and vice versa.
All West Virginia has to do is beat Pittsburgh. And if Rodriguez had done that on Dec. 1, he never would have left.
He'll regret that he ever did.
