Sanford Jr. fired

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That's too bad for Mike Jr, probably should hae stayed another couple of years at ND. To reiterate what another post said, following Braun and Petrino's success is a very hard act to follow, I'm sure he learned from it and will get another HC opportunity in t he next 5 yrs. As far as Mike Se, I'm sure he will retire and follow his son to his next coaching job, to be around his grand kids.

I know I have said this in other post, but Mike Sr had some bad luck w/ injuries. Now I am by far not a Mike Sr "ball washer" but 15 and 16 were seasons we were very close to wining another 3 wins/season. Regardless, he would have left after 16 to follow his son. He was an average coach at best.
 

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Im probably over critical of Sanford's job at ISU. I'd say at best, his recruiting was not the kind of long term strategy that Mallory would have gone with for his system.

I will say this. our success and failure since our seasons when Miles got us out of the losing streak have been very close to being the opposite. each year we had a couple things go for or against us that could have completely changed how our season looked at a glance. injury here, fumble there, bad call, QB forgets to pass classes. I mean, look at this season. we reasonably could have beat SDSU and MSU and went 9-2. we also could have lost the games where teams had the ball in a position to beat us. Im hoping we have more beat downs in the future and less nut cutters. Im confident that will happen with our current staff and athletic department/school administration from the top down.
 
niklz62 said:
Im probably over critical of Sanford's job at ISU. I'd say at best, his recruiting was not the kind of long term strategy that Mallory would have gone with for his system.

I will say this. our success and failure since our seasons when Miles got us out of the losing streak have been very close to being the opposite. each year we had a couple things go for or against us that could have completely changed how our season looked at a glance. injury here, fumble there, bad call, QB forgets to pass classes. I mean, look at this season. we reasonably could have beat SDSU and MSU and went 9-2. we also could have lost the games where teams had the ball in a position to beat us. Im hoping we have more beat downs in the future and less nut cutters. Im confident that will happen with our current staff and athletic department/school administration from the top down.
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Well, when you determine the success was done largely without any dominant pieces, it makes you wonder what could happen if Mallory is able to land a couple of those guys. For example, I liken Moss and Jonas to the Archie/Washington LB group. Could you imagine if they had a Ben Obaseki? Several of those Miles defenses had 4-5 guys that could change the game. Even Sanford inherited the Underwood and Sewall-led defense, both of which I considered game breaking types and they had a couple other guys that stood out like #99 (even with his 2 penalty per game average), Lonnell Brown, Calvin Burnett, etc.

This years defense really had two guys and either a bunch of serviceable upperclassmen or young kids getting their ears wet.

Same could be said for the offensive side of the ball, really. The year Perish's group went to the playoffs, they had Shakir Bell to start the season along with Buck Logan, Lemonte Booker and Dmitiri Taylor as backs and Owens, Tonyan, Jamar Brown, Levingston, O'Leary, Harris and A.J. Johnson who all had impact plays during that season. Looking at this year's group, we really had one big receiving threat and then again, serviceable upperclassmen or young kids getting their feet wet.

That is what made this year so impressive in my book. The hope is as Sanford's upperclassmen age out and Mallory is able to replace them, he is able to raise the overall talent base as well as bring in more gamebreaking type of kids. If he does, it will be interesting to see where this goes. The hope is he doesn't become a hot name in FBS circles.
 
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I think Illinois is looking at getting Mallory in the future and wants him to get a couple more years under his belt. they just gave lovie smith a raise and and 2 year extension. this happened while people were wondering if they might fire him.
 
Jason Svoboda said:
Well, when you determine the success was done largely without any dominant pieces, it makes you wonder what could happen if Mallory is able to land a couple of those guys. For example, I liken Moss and Jonas to the Archie/Washington LB group. Could you imagine if they had a Ben Obaseki? Several of those Miles defenses had 4-5 guys that could change the game. Even Sanford inherited the Underwood and Sewall-led defense, both of which I considered game breaking types and they had a couple other guys that stood out like #99 (even with his 2 penalty per game average), Lonnell Brown, Calvin Burnett, etc.

This years defense really had two guys and either a bunch of serviceable upperclassmen or young kids getting their ears wet.

Same could be said for the offensive side of the ball, really. The year Perish's group went to the playoffs, they had Shakir Bell to start the season along with Buck Logan, Lemonte Booker and Dmitiri Taylor as backs and Owens, Tonyan, Jamar Brown, Levingston, O'Leary, Harris and A.J. Johnson who all had impact plays during that season. Looking at this year's group, we really had one big receiving threat and then again, serviceable upperclassmen or young kids getting their feet wet.

That is what made this year so impressive in my book. The hope is as Sanford's upperclassmen age out and Mallory is able to replace them, he is able to raise the overall talent base as well as bring in more gamebreaking type of kids. If he does, it will be interesting to see where this goes. The hope is he doesn't become a hot name in FBS circles.
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Shakir "left" the year before the playoff season.

Also, Mallory is already getting some chatter:


https://herosports.com/college-football/john-bonamego-fired-central-michigan-candidates-ahah

To me, as I've posted before, it just seems a foregone conclusion he'll be the IU coach in 2020.
 

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I really think it's funny that in 2 conversations I can say the exact opposite about Mallory.

1. Great coach.

2. Dont think (insert school) should hire him.

Im only lying to myself in one of those. lol
 
niklz62 said:
I think Illinois is looking at getting Mallory in the future and wants him to get a couple more years under his belt. they just gave lovie smith a raise and and 2 year extension. this happened while people were wondering if they might fire him.
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I agree, he will go to U of I before IU, it's a better job becasue of being in the western division, has ties to Uof I from a coaching perspective plus I don't think IU would want another Mallory becasue of firing his brother 3 yrs ago as DC.
 
#33 said:
I agree, he will go to U of I before IU, it's a better job becasue of being in the western division, has ties to Uof I from a coaching perspective plus I don't think IU would want another Mallory becasue of firing his brother 3 yrs ago as DC.
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Personally, I'd go to Indiana over Illinois if I were him. Better facilities, he has Indiana high school coaches loving him and those kids not being plucked by Notre Dame would likely stay in state for him.

That said, I hope he doesn't get either job and has to win a title here first.
 
Jason Svoboda said:
Personally, I'd go to Indiana over Illinois if I were him. Better facilities, he has Indiana high school coaches loving him and those kids not being plucked by Notre Dame would likely stay in state for him.

That said, I hope he doesn't get either job and has to win a title here first.
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it would be great to do something big here then go somewhere close and do something big there too. He'd be a hero forever
 

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Thought Sanford did a good job recruiting, at least his first year. Some of his guys were big contributors this year.
 
bent20 said:
Thought Sanford did a good job recruiting, at least his first year. Some of his guys were big contributors this year.
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Aside from Jonas, who were big contributors? Also, if I'm not mistaken, Jonas was landed when Bever was still here and the recruiting coordinator. I made mention of the difference from when he was in charge of recruiting before he left and DeBerry took over.

IIRC, both Keys and Moss came in as walk-ons and ended up earning scholarships. Those are your top 3 holdovers that put up big numbers this year and two of them couldn't even get a scholarship out of HS but we offered a ton of JUCO busts every year, most of which didn't make it to campus or didn't even make it through a year. I will give Green some credit this year after being burnt time after time his first three years -- he rebounded very nicely as a senior but still had his moments.

Hendrix would be the only other kid I'd consider a difference maker to include with those above. Who else you thinking about?
 
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Jason Svoboda said:
Aside from Jonas, who were big contributors? Also, if I'm not mistaken, Jonas was landed when Bever was still here and the recruiting coordinator. I made mention of the difference from when he was in charge of recruiting before he left and DeBerry took over.

IIRC, both Keys and Moss came in as walk-ons and ended up earning scholarships. Those are your top 3 holdovers that put up big numbers this year and two of them couldn't even get a scholarship out of HS but we offered a ton of JUCO busts every year, most of which didn't make it to campus or didn't even make it through a year. I will give Green some credit this year after being burnt time after time his first three years -- he rebounded very nicely as a senior but still had his moments.

Hendrix would be the only other kid I'd consider a difference maker to include with those above. Who else you thinking about?
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How about 3/5's of the ol along w/ Soward and Fleschler??? Moala was a nice catch along w/ Powell had been improved after gaining 40lbs from his frosh year. But yes, not much left over
 
#33 said:
How about 3/5's of the ol along w/ Soward and Fleschler??? Moala was a nice catch along w/ Powell had been improved after gaining 40lbs from his frosh year. But yes, not much left over
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Moala is the only one from that group I'd consider a big contributor. Both Lex and Mason have basically been spot duty lineman. Up until this year, Powell has played in like a handful of games. But you adding just four names to the list is a huge problem when you consider they brought in 22-27 guys yearly. So either Sanford and his last couple year's staff was bad at the talent eval process and/or bad at coaching them up.

Basically when you look at all of that, it's easy to see why we quickly faded after the base Miles built eroded and even Miles had recruiting issues -- his staff often cast a very narrow net and was stuck scrambling at the end. He also had scholarship restrictions at the beginning and was not able to recruit outside of the Midwest like Sanford was, either. Mallory is now going into his third class so his base should essentially be there after this next class comes in.
 

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