A&M, ISU paying the price
Irony filled Big 12 Media Days on Monday. Texas A&M coach Mike Sherman was followed to the podium by Iowa State’s Paul Rhoads.
Two schools paying the price for goofy decisions.
After the 2002 season, A&M decided R.C. Slocum had coached the Aggies long enough. Slocum in 14 seasons went 123-47-2 with no losing seasons. A&M played solid defense, oft-boring offense and routinely beat Texas and Oklahoma.
In the six years since, A&M is 36-36. The Aggies already have fired Dennis Franchione, who went 32-28 in five forgettable years, and now have turned to Sherman, whose second Aggie squad is picked last in the Big 12 South.
But the Slocum decision appears enlightened compared to Iowa State.
The Cyclones have been to nine bowl games in their history. Five came under Dan McCarney.
McCarney arrived as ISU’s head coach in 1995; he went 13-42 his first five years. And the Cyclones stuck with him. It was one of the great displays of patience ever seen in college football.
And it paid off. Iowa State’s next six seasons included five bowl trips. Iowa State went 9-3 in 2000 and won seven games four of the next five years. But in 2006, Iowa State fell to 4-8 and fired McCarney.
All that goodwill, all that patience, down the drain. I was stunned. If OU had fired Bob Stoops after the bowl loss to Florida, it wouldn’t have been as surprising as Iowa State firing the only coach who established sustained success.
In the Cyclones’ two years under Gene Chizik, they went 3-9 and 2-10. And the prospects under Rhoads don’t seem any brighter.
Two programs. Two disastrous coaching decisions. Two successful coaches fired because they didn’t win enough. Let it be a lesson learned for the rest of the Big 12 and all of college football.
Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel.
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Comments
I would the aggies lose, than keep loser slocum. All he every did as a coach is lose against a major school, or lose his bowl game. I say good riddance to that loser.
I knew that Fran-she-phony was a phony when the Aggies played Pitt that first season. I feel vindicated upon reading this. However, I don’t think anyone in Clogged-Brains Station will listen. Now we have (un)Sherman. We will continue to suffer until Sherman and “Dollar” Bill Byrnes are gone.
Jay Goode
Aggie class of ‘70
Plano, TX
Berry, thank you for the post. RC was a victim of his own success — people got used to having a Wrecking Crew and being ranked every year and thought firing RC would solve everything. I was one of the few people who could not believe we were going fire RC to “go to the next level.” It seemed most people not at A&M thought it was rediculous, but many Aggies thought they were too good for Slocum and they got to prove their point. The issue became personal to people, they actually grew to hate him like an angry mob (see the brilliant post above — yes, forget beating #1 OU and #2 Nebraska his last years and lets focus on all the big games we have won since firing him). What a total disaster. Yea we went to the next level alright, about 3 levels down. Firing RC was not only stupid because it effectively dismantled a program that took years to build up, but it showed that A&M does not value loyalty and character in a coach anymore than the next school. Sherman is on the right track to get us back to where we were in the 90’s, it’s just too bad we had to waste 10 years to go in one big circle.
You could add Nebraska’s firing of Frank Solich, followed by the Bill Calahan debacle, to that list. Granted, the Huskers made a bowl game last year, but the program suffered a dip in quality.