TAMUK Coaching Search Update?

[Vulpes88]

Wow, I was totally joking on Briles.

Just my opinion, but I've never understood the point of the search committees. Let the AD do his job.

I don't think I would trust the AD here though

[LionFan]

I don't think I would trust the AD here though

Yea that's not good. If you can't trust the AD to hire coaches, then you've got the wrong AD. Seems like a situation where you just keep following the trail of issues and it keeps going up to higher positions.

[Vulpes88]

Yea that's not good. If you can't trust the AD to hire coaches, then you've got the wrong AD. Seems like a situation where you just keep following the trail of issues and it keeps going up to higher positions.

All to seemingly force a merger.

[LSC Fan]

I'd like to meet this guy and shake his hand.. Where in the heck do I sign up?

[LSC Fan]

Wow, I was totally joking on Briles.

Just my opinion, but I've never understood the point of the search committees. Let the AD do his job.

Everyone once in awhile a blind LionFan finds his nuts... LOL.

You've been vindicated this time. And I agree with search committees and firms. But if you have an AD who is clueless about football culture down here and refuses to adapt, then it's an option. Not much of one, but it's sweet sauce on what otherwise is a crap sandwich.

[Techster88]

Pencils in Their Eyes!



From my perspective - with 37 years of international investment banking experience under my belt, this is half time. We make the adjustments - a complete house cleaning, fumigation, and re-staffing, then move forward with the plan. Even the Chancellor cannot stem the coming tsunami.


Merry Christmas!
Broke Tree Ranch
December 24, 2019

This guy is great. We need him on the board. Not sure he completely gets how much dinero and power Sharp has at his disposal though. As well as the backing of the state and a ton of A&M elites. Still great to thumb your nose at those who you feel aren't doing you a solid.

Merry Christmas to y'all and hoping for the best for everyone!

[LSC Fan]

This guy is great. We need him on the board. Not sure he completely gets how much dinero and power Sharp has at his disposal though. As well as the backing of the state and a ton of A&M elites. Still great to thumb your nose at those who you feel aren't doing you a solid.

Merry Christmas to y'all and hoping for the best for everyone!

Let's just say the guy does have some serious credentials and chit may about to get real. Stock up your popcorn boys and girls......

BTW could you imagine what a 100 million dollar project with a football stadium being a chief component could do for the region.

[javs26]

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[76Javs]

[javs26]

When I first came on here about Calloway, they wanted me gone from the board. No hard feelings, I just want to see the program back to what it used to be.

[LSC Fan]

I get why some chose to give me hell and I don't hold it against them as some of them hold against me for my constant attention to it. Some have closer connections to the university in various capacities and for a very long time too. I get that some want to rally around their friends and others they've built relationships with over the years or even short term. Unfortunately football is a different animal compared to other lines of work where the W/L's are THE performance indicator and you just can't sugar coat things when they become habit. And when what might be out right sabotage or even worse is behind the reasons the W/L's, then what is one supposed to do? Some chose the hear/see/speak no evil approach because what is posted on here would hurt the university and I get that. But this has it's limits and if people don't speak out once nothing changes or it gets worse... you have TAMUK football 2019. I mean, no amount of criticism or having a view to the contrary now is going to more damage to the sunken football program.

I don't really know if much of what was posted in the two Facebook postings are indeed point by point factual. But even it's mostly true in some areas, the fish is rotten to the core. They have both put together a pretty damn good indictment of the decade and some change now of the several administrations and AD's trying to destroy this program and telling us downright falsehoods that things were on the way to being fixed when they were not. Having said this, I get that football is cyclical business and the team you support is not always going to win the conference title. In the average 10 year period, even a power school is going to have a mediocre year or two where the record might a few of games north or south of .500 for a couple of years or you might not even win the conference title during the span. But what has occurred in Kingsville just doesn't happen to power programs unless some serious stuff was going on behind the scenes which seems to now to be getting out thanks to social media and other ways to get around the gate keepers in Kingsville.

Let's review. We went through an NCAA investigation in 1999 which resulted in the some standard punishments being issued and the program took a lump during the first year of Cundiff's tenure. But by year two, we were back in the playoff hunt and continued it with two NCAA semi final appearances and things looked like we were back on track. Then in 2006, we started the season ranked high and the wheels fell off quickly to the point Cundiff announces his resignation the third game of the season. There was word back then that conflict existed between the AD and Cundiff and this might have been the main reason he left. But I firmly recalled back then in an interview he said the school needed to address the facilities for one and there were rumblings back then he was not getting support from the AD. Then comes in Ken Baxter who the AD at the time really wanted for the job as she publicly stated. Then six months later all of the sudden he decides he doesn't want the job and then Coach Bo Atterberry is promoted to the HC. Again, he took his lumps the first year or two, but by year three we were back in the playoffs and year four we looked like at one point we might even make a serious run for semis if the national championship after we knocked off NWMSU on the road to open the season. The following season it looked like we might be a serious contender as we were highly ranked and then we meet up with WTAM at Jerryworld and the whole season goes up in flames and we barely make a 6-5 record and play in a bowl game. Later Coach Bo resigns and without even a serious search being conducted, Calloway is promoted and that was disaster from the get go. Some of the same common denominators were around when Cundif resigned and Ken Baxter was hired and left town were very much involved when Coach Bo suddenly resigned and Calloway was appointed. Again, some of the rumblings at that time were the coaches were having their hands tied with recruiting on top of some of the other issues which were making it hard to attracts quality down here. BTW when Ken Baxter left town, he used the reason his family didn't want to move from Durant and he caught a lot of heat from many of us including myself. In retrospect, I do wonder now if this was THE only reason he left town now that three other men have come and gone from the Head Coach's office.

Then Calloway was relieved of his duties when even the clown who was the AD or Vice President of whatever realized giving up 80 points in one game was a fireable offense. He should have been shown the door as well. Calloway was good guy, but he inherited a mess which was not of his doing. Yep, the seeds of what we now sow were what probably drove Atterberry out of town by his own decision and Calloway was a sitting duck. So let's go to Nov 2014 and so begins a new coaching search and this time everything was going to be setup for this coach to do it right. They hired a search firm and assembled a committee of people to screen through resumes. They raised salaries. We were supposed to have a full 36 scholarships available and the new coach would have much more flexibility to recruit the JUCO and transfer markets. Enter Coach Wilk with a good resume from a school who just won a National Championship. The first year was what could be expected, but we showed some upward promise which made many of us feel we had the right guy. His second year, we were a couple of points shy in a game or two from going to the playoffs. So come year three, things were looking good and we were even mentioned as favorite to win the LSC or at least come in second and gain a playoff birth.... Nope. The season went south it carried over to last and this season. And much like Coach Atterberry's tenure, the air went out of the balloon quickly as if the coaching staffs during both tenures just said "screw it" and went through the motions. I mean the best comparison I can come up with is giving someone two weeks notice and their production goes south as if they just don't care.

What is the common denominator? Coaches Atterberry, Calloway, Wilk were not given the full chest of tools they needed to do their work. Scholarships were cut while enrollment was increasing. Let me repeat this. Scholarships were cut and never restored to competitive levels while enrollment was increasing. Does this make sense? If the enrollment is increasing, so should the scholarship dollars available for all sports because those dollars come from a specific fee. This is on top of the much discussed status of our football facilities which by the way are the laughing stock of the region now and were a topic of one Dave Campbell's Texas Football staff writers Twitter feed a few weeks back as I guess he inquired why Javelina Stadium no longer is hosting high school playoff games. And trust me, he got a bunch of answers and retweets from it. We increased a student fee to build intramural fields and some nice tennis and beach volleyball courts, but did not consider spending one penny on the football infrastructure. We have to now wait for a "athletic master plan" from the new AD and President who is not a football guy when we still have a master plan from 2010 which could dusted off and put into action. And I find it odd all the collapses of three of our more recent head coaches come in year four of five in their tenures when I guess they just give up and they figured out they were not going to get the promised help from the administration.

The sad thing is most of this was totally avoidable. But people in this current administration and past administrations need to be held accountable and that goes for both Kingsville and College Station if coordination is involved. Hopefully the light is starting be shone on a bunch of rats! Right now, I have ZERO confidence with anyone in this administration from the President, the AD and to anyone who is the inner circle decision making part of both offices. The most recent coaching search should tell anyone who was observing we have HUGE issues and they HAVE NOT been resolved. If so, we would not have had the top two finalist withdraw and a few others not even go through the process because they probably know the TAMUK administration is full of it.

Having said all of this, I wish Coach Salinas the best, but I feel for him because it appears he's going to be handed the same crap sandwich the last three or four coaches ate from. This whole process that just ended (or they think has ended) in his hire indeed looks bad and this is probably understating it.

[Wonderinghog]

It got pretty darn hot in here over the last few days I see.

Educational information for sure.

[LSC Fan]

The new coach was formally introduced today at a press conference and it just seemed weird for lack of a better word, dare I say trying to make lemonade out of lemons. The university President was not there, so in my opinion that kind of goes with the above two postings by Alums from Facebook about the President not being a football guy. I wish Salinas all the luck in the world because he's going to need it as football is no longer a priority sport in Kingsville under this administration as it wasn't under the previous one and it's time to accept it and move on. Those who still care about the sunken ship, have at it and maybe just waiting to see what happens will work one day as I was told back in November. Until I see evidence this administration is serious about moving the needle, it's not worth committing on things any more. I'll check my private messages from time to time, but my active posting on this issue and the program in general will be much less.


Also not one word about the facilities master plan or what have you from the AD today and he could have used the presser to give a brief note on it and he didn't. Just beyond comprehension

[javs26]

The new coach was formally introduced today at a press conference and it just seemed weird for lack of a better word, dare I say trying to make lemonade out of lemons. The university President was not there, so in my opinion that kind of goes with the above two postings by Alums from Facebook about the President not being a football guy. I wish Salinas all the luck in the world because he's going to need it as football is no longer a priority sport in Kingsville under this administration as it wasn't under the previous one and it's time to accept it and move on. Those who still care about the sunken ship, have at it and maybe just waiting to see what happens will work one day as I was told back in November. Until I see evidence this administration is serious about moving the needle, it's not worth committing on things any more. I'll check my private messages from time to time, but my active posting on this issue and the program in general will be much less.


Also not one word about the facilities master plan or what have you from the AD today and he could have used the presser to give a brief note on it and he didn't. Just beyond comprehension

I saw the interview and was going to post on it earlier but decided not to. Roach did a very poor job in introducing Salinas. Does Mike Salinas even have a twitter page?

[Wonderinghog]

I saw the interview and was going to post on it earlier but decided not to. Roach did a very poor job in introducing Salinas. Does Mike Salinas even have a twitter page?

It wasn't exactly an exciting introduction for sure and very scripted. Did I hear they had 140 applicants? Sure a large number of them were no where close to being qualified for the job and it's probably not unique for any open coaching job. But we had to settle for a coach with nothing more than a position coach in the college ranks from almost 20 years ago and a recent high school football coach in the Rio Grande Valley which is not exactly a talent pool for high school football in the state. My fear is he's going to load up from players in that area and the Coastal Bend and ignore the usual recruiting spots in the state and we will continue to be overwhelmed in the talent department. If reports are correct the recruiting budgets and scholarships have not been brought up to LSC and D2 maximum levels or even close to it, he might be left with recruiting that area anyway. It's sort of the same thing the last coaching staff had to do as well.

And indeed is not a good optic not to have the President make some comments at the press conference. Or if he was unavailable, a VP or someone in the administration. Like it's been noted, this only reinforces the perception this President and the higher ups do not have the football program's best interest in mind. Normally with a coaching change, I'd have some optimism going forward, but I don't have any of this as of right now.