More Coaching Updates

OK, there is some chatter out there about the coaching situation...let's look.

Perhaps most importantly, Ryan of the Blade tracked down a few Falcon verbal commits, and while they are shocked at the move Christopher made, they are in general going to wait until a hire is made to evaluate their decision. As one of the players points out, not all of them had other offers...anyway, I would expect our remaining staff to be working the phones and at least getting them to wait to talk to the new coach. Also note the ever-present premium on continuity for the staff.

On his blog, Ryan also noted that this site, which does not appear to be located in troll-land, says BG may be interested in the Purdue DC. Of course, Greg Christopher came from Purdue. However, I will remind readers that everyone said he was going to hire a Purdue guy to coach men's basketball and he didn't, so that's far from a lock. Of course, he might have turned it down, too.

Next, on the "shame on you" front....

Stewart Mandel, a SI.com reporter who has a good feel for mid majors had this to say.

In the meantime, it's clear that the pressure to attain one of those coveted bids has trickled down the ranks. On Saturday, Bowling Green fired coach Gregg Brandon. All he's done in six years is go 31-17 in conference play and reach three bowl games. Apparently, that's no longer enough for schools like Bowling Green.

Along the same lines, Dave Hackenberg of The Blade said this....

Gregg Brandon became head football coach at Bowling Green at the start of the 2003 season. The Falcons are 44-30 since, including 31-17 in Mid-American Conference play, and none of the league's other 12 teams has matched or bettered those numbers over that time frame. BG also is the only MAC team since '03 to have a winning record in non-league play.

Those are the little snippets you find in a school's weekly game notes prepared for the media. In fact, it was all right there in the BG notes on Friday, although we've taken the liberty of updating the records in light of the Falcons' subsequent 38-10 romp past archrival Toledo.

Not such a big deal was made of all that yesterday in a midafternoon press release sent by BG officials to announce Brandon had been fired.

Very interesting. V-e-r-y interesting.

You know, you can disagree with the sentiments, but these are actual facts. I just think they don't tell the whole story.

Here's the counterpoint.

• First, the University deserves this. They published the stats, after all.
• Second, let me give you an alternate version of those stats....because I think if you want to judge our program, you need to look at the last four seasons, and not the first two, when the program was still riding high from the Urban Meyer system.

For example:

Yes, Brandon was 44-30. (That's a 59% winning rate. Gary Blackney finished at 54%.)

In the four years since the program became his, however:

• BG is 24-24.
• We were 9-12 at home, and 8-9 outside the conference.
• We have the fourth best conference record in the MAC.
• We have the ninth best home winning % in the MAC.
• We won no division titles, unlike CMU, Ball State, Buffalo, Miami, Akron, NIU, and OU.

I will say this. I expected Brandon to be back next year, and I would not have complained. Having said that, there's more here than is shown by looking at total numbers.