Per the AZ Republic (paywall), ASU president withdraws support for Herm Edwards after loss to Eastern Michigan.
Herm was the rock the players could rely on as many of their position coaches were out of commission from various scandals in previous years.
Will the Utes be facing an interim HC on Saturday? The Devils have 50 new players this year - as previous players jumped off the SS Edwards - so it’s hard to know how much of a lift all the newbies will get if Herm gets shown the door. I don’t get the sense Herm was a meanie whose demise would be a sign of relief, a point of inspiration.
Won’t shock me if we are facing and interim coach (and assistants) Saturday. The Scummies have needed to clean house for a while. May as well get started now…
So do they chase Urban Meyer like Huskerfan? Something tells me that wouldn’t be a culture change if they do.
He was finally fired because the Pres and AD were going to go down with him if they didn’t boot him. Not sure why I feel any satisfaction from being one of the millions of CFB fans who thought this was such a stupidly disastrous hire as soon as they announced it, but I do. The PAC has enough unique disadvantages without adding HC hires like Herm, Kelly and Sark, etc to the dumpster fire.
I hate being the first team to play an interim coach. It makes too much variability. I’d much rather play the old coach that the players aren’t listening to.
I totally agree. I can think of at least two USC teams that did this the week before Utah played them. Those USC teams were a mess but played inspired ball and beat Utah.
We’ll see who the interim is. Looking at their coaching staff, Herm kept tapping into his NFL connections, Brian Billick is there, and Marvin Lewis. The Asst HC is another (lesser known) NFL guy, Sean Slocum. (Antonio Pierce left after last year.)
Herm got FIFTY new players to join the program this year, so kind of hard to think they all got disillusioned in 3 games, seems more likely they just struggled gelling, or they’re not that great.
The exodus of players is the much bigger issue (including that damn Ricky Pearsall who didn’t help our cause in Gainesville).
Herm’s a players coach, so I don’t get the sense there will be a big eruption of relief that he’s gone, not like when Ed Orgeron stepped in at USC. (That guy has flamed out in multiple places, but he can give a helluva motivational speech, really preaches the family vibe, like Chris Curry pointed out in his interview with Reilly before yesterday’s game.)
I’m leaning toward them struggling to get their act together in time for Saturday, but with a lot of NFL guys on staff, it could be interesting. (Then again, the NFL guys are a big part of why they wandered off the tracks.)
Mac told us last year he was hearing things were really going south in Tempe, it was only a matter of time. Hard to see why Ray Anderson and the President didn’t pull the trigger after last season… hopefully we encounter a smoldering wreck and just get through it with minimal drama or damage.
I remember that the story, vibe, trend, whatever was that Herm was on the way out at some point. I seem to recall a few articles about it, mostly with the President being a straight arrow type of person, and the supposedly the AD too. So the scandals were a black eye, so I don’t see why or how Herm hung on as long as he did.
Hopefully Whit will have the team focused, and ready to put the hurt on Sparky to take the fight out of them early next Saturday.
Aguano seems to have very little exposure to the Edwards-NFL pipeline that got them into trouble, looks like they want a complete rebuild, a totally different direction.
It’s an enormous leap from being a successful HS coach in 2018 to P5 head coach in 2022 - my gut tells me this is truly an interim, he gets a nice bump in his resume, but they mostly just want to get through this season.
Aguano can’t overhaul things in 5 days, they’ll have the same schemes. They might get creative with the playbook - why not? Nothing to lose.
As long as we stay disciplined in our scheme, we should be OK. That’s one thing we don’t see anymore - hero ball. That just doesn’t work at this level, that’s a sign of desperation.