What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

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What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by jjmc85 » Wed Oct 06, 2021 1:35 am

I have had season tickets since I graduated going back to the days of Don Brown (or maybe since I was a freshman with Whipple 1.0 if you count using the UCard) so I don’t exactly consider myself to be anti-football. Sitting at McGuirk watching Toledo run a no huddle offense up up 38 in the fourth, I wondered what can even happen at UMass to make this work. Here are the facts as I see them.

1) Massachusetts and New England are driven by professional sports. College is an after thought for the vast majority of fans in the area.
2) Massachusetts is great for public education in grades K-12. It is not great when it comes to funding public education for higher ed.
3) Massachusetts high school football does not produce a great deal of FBS talent, nor do many New England states. The talent produced that is really good tends to either leave for big time programs or else goes to Boston College.
4) McGuirk is not that great of a stadium. It’s like a poor man’s version of the old Foxboro Stadium and that place was a dump compared to some other places I’ve been to.
5) The alumni concentrated in Eastern MA weren’t willing to pack Gillette for this program.
6) There is no Conference opportunity on the horizon. It is questionable if any football conference would want UMass, and any that might would want basketball and that seems to be a nonstarter for most of the fanbase.
7) There are no bowl tie ins.
8:The last truly successful season the program has had was 2010 when they just missed the FCS playoffs. Or perhaps 2007 when they made the FCS playoffs for the last time.
9) The last 9 years have been terrible. See Curry Hicks Sage’s tweets about the blow out losses under Molnar and Bell. Take away Whipple and the team is 3-41 with an amazing 35 of those 41 losses being by at least two touchdowns.

Taking the 9 above-which I hold to be self evident- the conclusions I draw are that the probability of that the necessary money being thrown into football to fix whatever is broken systematically is quite small. I also think the above facts make it challenging to recruit players.

I understand that many want Coach Bell fired. And hell, maybe he should be fired. Per Sage, the team is 1-20 with 0 of those losses being within two touchdowns. That’s atrocious. But he gets fired and then what? Which of the 9 facts about change? What does the next guy do that Molnar didn’t? Or Whipple didn’t? Or Bell didn’t? What realistic things does a coach do to build a successful program at UMass?

Molnar sucked. Alienated the fan base and constantly belittled the programs history by implying it was “little boy” football to win and compete for FCS championships and Yankee Conference/A-10/CAA championships while simultaneously getting dismantled by Maine. Objectively treated players terribly. Left the program way worse that he inherited it. So maybe the next guy doesn’t do that?

Whipple sure as hell didn’t belittle the program’s 1AA success. Whipple rebuilt relations with alumni. He was the obvious hire at the time- arguable the best head coach in UMass history coming home to fix what was wrong. And he did a decent job getting it started. Games started to be competitive. Wins started coming. As far as I know, none of his former players have gone on podcasts to talk about how insane he was like Molnar’s did, and he didn’t force his starting quarterback to box someone and get concussed in the off-season.

When Whipple left people who follow recruiting more closely than I told me the cupboards were left bare. Bell had to rebuild from the ground up. As far as I know, Bell hasn’t been disrespectful towards the program’s history or treated his players terribly. And unlike Molnar, he came in knowing facts 5-7 and the past success was now a distant memory when he came. It’s a harder job than when Molnar took it for those reasons. What exactly do we realistically expect from a head coach who will realistically come to UMass?

I know this is long but I want to stress one more thing: This isn’t the hockey situation. College hockey has way fewer teams and is a sport where schools that play D2 or D3 in other sports regularly win D1 national championships so the resource factor isn’t as big of an issue. Also, UMass plays in what is undeniably a top two conference in the nation with schools that students and alumni get excited about seeing. Mullins Center is way better than McGuirk. The local recruiting pool is a lot better and has always been willing to play for UMass. Whereas having 4000 fans go to a home game at 70K capacity Gillette for football is downright depressing, having a few hundred fans show up for a road games in hockey East is very impressive and depending on the game and the team it might jump to a few thousand which is now a significant portion of the capacity. How many times have UMass fans taken over opposing rinks in Hockey East-even in the Toot days? You could argue Carvel had similar issues with facts 8 and 9 when he took over, but it’s a lot easier to overcome one or two things than it is to overcome 9, especially when potential fanbase support, recruiting, and conference affiliation are not an issue. No one is calling UMass football a sleeping giant, which for twenty years is what we referred to the hockey program until Carvel woke it up.

If we want to compare UMass football to a hockey program I think the best fit is Alabama-Huntsville. They are really far away from everyone else, there isn’t a lot of local recruiting talent, their facilities aren’t that great, the vast majority of their conference told them they no longer wanted to be affiliated with them and were forced into independence (two different times basically) and they’ve been turned down multiple times when applying to join other conferences. They aren’t playing this year cause they couldn’t find a conference-so I suppose that’s one difference. But they also won a few division 2 titles-I think most recently in ‘98 which is a familiar year but feel free to fact check- but left D2 because the number of teams was dwindling and they jumped to D1 as a life boat. Also seems very familiar. They are technically a public school but don’t have state support as legislators down their have tried multiple times to kill their program in favor of having more funding for Crimson Tide Athletics. That all sounds really familiar to me.

I’ve donated to UAH hockey many times and feel bad for them, but I have no idea how they are ever gonna turn their program around. Carvel is the greatest coach in D1 hockey IMO so I don’t doubt he could be successful at UAH. I do doubt he’s interested in going there. Likewise I think the greatest coach in FBS football could turn this around if they came here, but do we realistically think Saban (or whoever) is gonna come to Amherst anytime soon? If not, what does a average coach do to be successful here? Or maybe below average if that’s all we can afford?

I want football to be successful. I really do. I’m just not sure I know what that path looks like anymore. If Bell is fired but the next person can’t tell us what tangible things they are going to do to overcome facts 1-9 that their predecessors didn’t, then I don’t know that it’s gonna make a difference.
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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by TheInsider » Wed Oct 06, 2021 5:20 am

Step 1 - Even though the coach can't do this... Get a new AD
Step 2 - Invest a little more cash to hire a competent coach
Step 3 - Much of the challenges that you stated are true but people will show up for a winner and with the portal now we can get players. Whip got to 4 wins that a few years could have been 6 or 7 if he cared about defense.

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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by jjmc85 » Wed Oct 06, 2021 8:59 am

TheInsider wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 5:20 am Step 1 - Even though the coach can't do this... Get a new AD
Step 2 - Invest a little more cash to hire a competent coach
Step 3 - Much of the challenges that you stated are true but people will show up for a winner and with the portal now we can get players. Whip got to 4 wins that a few years could have been 6 or 7 if he cared about defense.
Why is Step 1 important? What is the AD doing to prevent football from being successful?

Which competent candidate that turned down the job before/wouldn’t interview would all of a sudden come with a little more cash? And what is a little more?

I agree people will show up for winners. I just don’t get how the program starts winning in the mean time. I don’t think it’s a simple as just caring about defense. Did Molnar just not care about either side of the ball? Does Bell just not care about any phase of the game? Is that why outside of Whipple the program is 3-41 with 2 of those wins being against historically bad Akron teams?

Edit: I also don’t know what “caring about defense” means? I’m not trying to be a jerk I really just don’t understand.
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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by TheInsider » Wed Oct 06, 2021 9:48 am

Caring about defense is putting more time and recruiting resources into that side of the ball. You always hear the phrase "You build a team through the lines". Meaning you make sure those positions are solid first. Whip famously would carry 7 QB's but recruit 1 LB or D-D-lineman. We had a ton of talent on Offense when he was here and it was fun to watch. He just never made the effort to build quality depth on defense. Step 1 is important because I don't trust Bamford to make the right hire. Step 2 is important because yes getting the right head guy is important but you need the money for better quality assistants and things like recruiting budgets.

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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by Quann » Wed Oct 06, 2021 12:21 pm

Do not hire another shitty offensive coordinator, they don't seem to work (i.e. Molnar and Walt). I would love a defensive minded guy at the helm. I just feel like that is always a better way to build a solid team and program for the long haul. I know Whip has always been an OC/QB coach guy but if you build up a good defense first, you can always compete. It's almost impossible when your defense stinks to do anything unless you're running an elite level offense like Chip Kelly's at UNH and Oregon. Walt is not running anything like that here.

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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by Rolling Ridge » Wed Oct 06, 2021 3:44 pm

Quann wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 12:21 pmI would love a defensive minded guy at the helm. I just feel like that is always a better way to build a solid team and program for the long haul.
I think you nailed it. We seem to have gone for "style over substance," and I think a more practical approach would have produced better results and gotten us to a point of sustainable respectability. There are FCS programs that have stouter defenses and field more competitive teams... we may face two of them later this season, and woe be unto us.

The idea that UMass can't recruit students like that is ludicrous. We did it in the past, and had we made the jump with Don Brown, I fully believe it would have gone far more smoothly. I'd add that I don't think Bell's recruiting is really at issue. I think we have talent, just as we did under Molnar and Whipple, but it has been stacked toward the offense, and I'm not sure they've received proper coaching on either side of the ball. I think a defense minded guy, who has a proven track record as a HEAD coach at lower levels of the game would have been a far better fit for us. I continue to try and be supportive of Bell, but after showing some vague signs of life against BC, what little confidence I had is pretty shaken. We'll see what this weekend brings.

I disagree with a couple of points in the OP. I don't accept as fact that college football can't be successful at some level in the Northeast, and I don't accept that New England is driven exclusively by professional sports. I think people would get on board with a competitive team, and we've proven that we can recruit and win at a national level, albeit in FCS. The issue has been coaching, plain and simple, and that may extend down into the assistants if money has been a restriction to bringing in good talent.

One thing I agree with in the OP is that Massachusetts doesn't properly value public higher education. To me, this presents a perfect counter to the idea that football is "wasting taxpayers money." I sincerely doubt that the State is subsidizing the football program in any meaningful way. Even if some State money goes to the program, it's a drop in the bucket, and the State's say in how UMass wants to spend their money should be minimal it their contribution is so low.

This has been a terrible period, no doubt. But I remain convinced that we've had the wrong guys at the coaching helm, and with the right person it could have been, and could be in the future, far better. It may take a different vision at the leadership level in athletics to get us there, but I simply don't believe it's not possible for us to do better than we've done.

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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by DanaDingle3 » Wed Oct 06, 2021 4:35 pm

Interestingly, I think this goes for basketball, too. McCall's an offensive guy. The similarities in the hires of Bell and McCall is very weird. I agree that defense wins, but more importantly, there needs to be institutional changes, not just personnel changes, that shows a commitment to competitive success in football & basketball. We need to demand more of the Trustees, President, and Chancellor.

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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by m626t » Wed Oct 06, 2021 5:38 pm

DanaDingle3 wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 4:35 pm Interestingly, I think this goes for basketball, too. McCall's an offensive guy. The similarities in the hires of Bell and McCall is very weird. I agree that defense wins, but more importantly, there needs to be institutional changes, not just personnel changes, that shows a commitment to competitive success in football & basketball. We need to demand more of the Trustees, President, and Chancellor.
We can demand all we want, but what leverage do we have with the Trustees, President, and Chancellor?
All due respect, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart, I'm gonna pass.

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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by jjmc85 » Wed Oct 06, 2021 5:49 pm

DanaDingle3 wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 4:35 pm Interestingly, I think this goes for basketball, too. McCall's an offensive guy. The similarities in the hires of Bell and McCall is very weird. I agree that defense wins, but more importantly, there needs to be institutional changes, not just personnel changes, that shows a commitment to competitive success in football & basketball. We need to demand more of the Trustees, President, and Chancellor.
Men’s Basketball make all the hockey comparisons you want (within reason…I don’t think we should expect a National Championship in basketball anytime soon). There is no excuse for that team to not have at least made a conference championship game in the last twenty years or however long it’s been. There is no excuse for that program to not regularly go to the NCAAs-at least once every four years or so. I believe the right coach could turn that program around. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect 1996 every season but one tournament appearance this millennium with no tournament wins is unacceptable.

If Football played in the whatever the equivalent of the Men’s Basketball A-10 is with whatever the equivalent of the Mullins Center is for FBS then I think it most of the 9 Facts would either vanish or be obstacles a Coach should be expected to overcome.
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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by dennisdent » Wed Oct 06, 2021 5:58 pm

So many excellent posts!!! I do know this message board is read by the media and others and hopefully they are seeing what the vast majority of us are--that a proud football program needs change, and done sooner then later!

For hockey, look at at freaking AIC, crappy school in a crappy location, that was able to turn around their terrible hockey program with the right coach!

Just look at the quality FCS, D2 and D3 programs in the Northeast to see that college football is important to many people! If UMass could just start winning and playing quality football ,the fans and positive attention will follow, as others have written.

I have been a fan of UMass football since my father took me to my first game against Maine at age five and I have been hooked ever since. So many great memories of watching great UMass football teams, coaches and players. As a student I went into the games when all my buddies would rather keep tailgating (the 80's). I have followed and watched the team all over the world. I am really upset at the state of the program and how poorly a coach Walt Bell is, and even feel sorry for him (but not the money) that he is so out of his league as a FBS head coach.

My keys to a successful UMass Head coach:

1. Experience as a successful head coach at any level. Both Brown and Whip won at all their previous head coaching jobs. Buffalo had it right when they hired the D3 coach from Wisconsin who is a winner (KU may make that hard).

2. Blue collar coach with a white collar brain (see Saban, Carvel,).
Last edited by dennisdent on Wed Oct 06, 2021 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by DanaDingle3 » Wed Oct 06, 2021 5:58 pm

m626t wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 5:38 pm
DanaDingle3 wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 4:35 pm Interestingly, I think this goes for basketball, too. McCall's an offensive guy. The similarities in the hires of Bell and McCall is very weird. I agree that defense wins, but more importantly, there needs to be institutional changes, not just personnel changes, that shows a commitment to competitive success in football & basketball. We need to demand more of the Trustees, President, and Chancellor.
We can demand all we want, but what leverage do we have with the Trustees, President, and Chancellor?
Good question. There's media leverage, political leverage, financial leverage. All those require concerted efforts, I think. We've of course seen social media posts picked up by more prominent media outlets to effect; we've seen non-profits and political organizations influence decisions; we've seen boycotts influence outcomes. I mean, there's a lot we can do, but it'd require some organized efforts.

If not, the people running things seem content with the status quo and getting paid well for it. It's not a hopeless situation, right?

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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by ZooMass84 » Wed Oct 06, 2021 6:52 pm

Quann wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 12:21 pm Do not hire another shitty offensive coordinator, they don't seem to work (i.e. Molnar and Walt). I would love a defensive minded guy at the helm. I just feel like that is always a better way to build a solid team and program for the long haul. I know Whip has always been an OC/QB coach guy but if you build up a good defense first, you can always compete. It's almost impossible when your defense stinks to do anything unless you're running an elite level offense like Chip Kelly's at UNH and Oregon. Walt is not running anything like that here.
Molnar for all his faults was 10 times the coach Bell is. We had 2 or 3 close games and 2 wins in his 24 games.

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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by ZooMass84 » Wed Oct 06, 2021 6:57 pm

dennisdent wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 5:58 pm So many excellent posts!!! I do know this message board is read by the media and others and hopefully they are seeing what the vast majority of us are--that a proud football program needs change, and done sooner then later!

For hockey, look at at freaking AIC, crappy school in a crappy location, that was able to turn around their terrible hockey program with the right coach!

Just look at the quality FCS, D2 and D3 programs in the Northeast to see that college football is important to many people! If UMass could just start winning and playing quality football ,the fans and positive attention will follow, as others have written.

I have been a fan of UMass football since my father took me to my first game against Maine at age five and I have been hooked ever since. So many great memories of watching great UMass football teams, coaches and players. As a student I went into the games when all my buddies would rather keep tailgating (the 80's). I have followed and watched the team all over the world. I am really upset at the state of the program and how poorly a coach Walt Bell is, and even feel sorry for him (but not the money) that he is so out of his league as a FBS head coach.

My keys to a successful UMass Head coach:

1. Experience as a successful head coach at any level. Both Brown and Whip won at all their previous head coaching jobs. Buffalo had it right when they hired the D3 coach from Wisconsin who is a winner (KU may make that hard).

2. Blue collar coach with a white collar brain (see Saban, Carvel,).
$700,000 per year and the perks and get to hire your buddies is a GREAT DEAL!!! We haven’t won a game in over 2 years and where is the outcry? For 700k there are a ton of football coaches who would put Bell to shame. What bothers me most is the administration is OK with a shitty football team.

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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by ZooMass84 » Wed Oct 06, 2021 7:15 pm

jjmc85 wrote: Wed Oct 06, 2021 1:35 am I have had season tickets since I graduated going back to the days of Don Brown (or maybe since I was a freshman with Whipple 1.0 if you count using the UCard) so I don’t exactly consider myself to be anti-football. Sitting at McGuirk watching Toledo run a no huddle offense up up 38 in the fourth, I wondered what can even happen at UMass to make this work. Here are the facts as I see them.

1) Massachusetts and New England are driven by professional sports. College is an after thought for the vast majority of fans in the area.
2) Massachusetts is great for public education in grades K-12. It is not great when it comes to funding public education for higher ed.
3) Massachusetts high school football does not produce a great deal of FBS talent, nor do many New England states. The talent produced that is really good tends to either leave for big time programs or else goes to Boston College.
4) McGuirk is not that great of a stadium. It’s like a poor man’s version of the old Foxboro Stadium and that place was a dump compared to some other places I’ve been to.
5) The alumni concentrated in Eastern MA weren’t willing to pack Gillette for this program.
6) There is no Conference opportunity on the horizon. It is questionable if any football conference would want UMass, and any that might would want basketball and that seems to be a nonstarter for most of the fanbase.
7) There are no bowl tie ins.
8:The last truly successful season the program has had was 2010 when they just missed the FCS playoffs. Or perhaps 2007 when they made the FCS playoffs for the last time.
9) The last 9 years have been terrible. See Curry Hicks Sage’s tweets about the blow out losses under Molnar and Bell. Take away Whipple and the team is 3-41 with an amazing 35 of those 41 losses being by at least two touchdowns.

Taking the 9 above-which I hold to be self evident- the conclusions I draw are that the probability of that the necessary money being thrown into football to fix whatever is broken systematically is quite small. I also think the above facts make it challenging to recruit players.

I understand that many want Coach Bell fired. And hell, maybe he should be fired. Per Sage, the team is 1-20 with 0 of those losses being within two touchdowns. That’s atrocious. But he gets fired and then what? Which of the 9 facts about change? What does the next guy do that Molnar didn’t? Or Whipple didn’t? Or Bell didn’t? What realistic things does a coach do to build a successful program at UMass?

Molnar sucked. Alienated the fan base and constantly belittled the programs history by implying it was “little boy” football to win and compete for FCS championships and Yankee Conference/A-10/CAA championships while simultaneously getting dismantled by Maine. Objectively treated players terribly. Left the program way worse that he inherited it. So maybe the next guy doesn’t do that?

Whipple sure as hell didn’t belittle the program’s 1AA success. Whipple rebuilt relations with alumni. He was the obvious hire at the time- arguable the best head coach in UMass history coming home to fix what was wrong. And he did a decent job getting it started. Games started to be competitive. Wins started coming. As far as I know, none of his former players have gone on podcasts to talk about how insane he was like Molnar’s did, and he didn’t force his starting quarterback to box someone and get concussed in the off-season.

When Whipple left people who follow recruiting more closely than I told me the cupboards were left bare. Bell had to rebuild from the ground up. As far as I know, Bell hasn’t been disrespectful towards the program’s history or treated his players terribly. And unlike Molnar, he came in knowing facts 5-7 and the past success was now a distant memory when he came. It’s a harder job than when Molnar took it for those reasons. What exactly do we realistically expect from a head coach who will realistically come to UMass?

I know this is long but I want to stress one more thing: This isn’t the hockey situation. College hockey has way fewer teams and is a sport where schools that play D2 or D3 in other sports regularly win D1 national championships so the resource factor isn’t as big of an issue. Also, UMass plays in what is undeniably a top two conference in the nation with schools that students and alumni get excited about seeing. Mullins Center is way better than McGuirk. The local recruiting pool is a lot better and has always been willing to play for UMass. Whereas having 4000 fans go to a home game at 70K capacity Gillette for football is downright depressing, having a few hundred fans show up for a road games in hockey East is very impressive and depending on the game and the team it might jump to a few thousand which is now a significant portion of the capacity. How many times have UMass fans taken over opposing rinks in Hockey East-even in the Toot days? You could argue Carvel had similar issues with facts 8 and 9 when he took over, but it’s a lot easier to overcome one or two things than it is to overcome 9, especially when potential fanbase support, recruiting, and conference affiliation are not an issue. No one is calling UMass football a sleeping giant, which for twenty years is what we referred to the hockey program until Carvel woke it up.

If we want to compare UMass football to a hockey program I think the best fit is Alabama-Huntsville. They are really far away from everyone else, there isn’t a lot of local recruiting talent, their facilities aren’t that great, the vast majority of their conference told them they no longer wanted to be affiliated with them and were forced into independence (two different times basically) and they’ve been turned down multiple times when applying to join other conferences. They aren’t playing this year cause they couldn’t find a conference-so I suppose that’s one difference. But they also won a few division 2 titles-I think most recently in ‘98 which is a familiar year but feel free to fact check- but left D2 because the number of teams was dwindling and they jumped to D1 as a life boat. Also seems very familiar. They are technically a public school but don’t have state support as legislators down their have tried multiple times to kill their program in favor of having more funding for Crimson Tide Athletics. That all sounds really familiar to me.

I’ve donated to UAH hockey many times and feel bad for them, but I have no idea how they are ever gonna turn their program around. Carvel is the greatest coach in D1 hockey IMO so I don’t doubt he could be successful at UAH. I do doubt he’s interested in going there. Likewise I think the greatest coach in FBS football could turn this around if they came here, but do we realistically think Saban (or whoever) is gonna come to Amherst anytime soon? If not, what does a average coach do to be successful here? Or maybe below average if that’s all we can afford?

I want football to be successful. I really do. I’m just not sure I know what that path looks like anymore. If Bell is fired but the next person can’t tell us what tangible things they are going to do to overcome facts 1-9 that their predecessors didn’t, then I don’t know that it’s gonna make a difference.
The reason you get rid of Bell is because he’s a loser. He is not a head football coach. He’s had 3 years and there is ZERO progress. There is no difference between his first year and the current year. At $700,000 per year there are a ton of football coaches who can do a better job. It is unlikely he will ever win a football game.

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Re: What Realistic things Does a Head Coach need to do for UMass football to be successful?

Post by jjmc85 » Wed Oct 06, 2021 7:50 pm

^Ok but that’s not the question. What realistic things are we expecting the next person to do as head coach to be succesful?
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