Today in this space, I will deal with a couple of news items that have been out there recently and one major coaching “search” that has been ongoing.
Hawaii joins the Mountain West, officially – This move is no surprise to those who have been following along, but Hawaii is now a football only member of the Mountain West with its other sports programs joining the lightly regarded Big West. That Hawaii would take its programs to the Big West shows how far the WAC has dropped with the departures of Boise St., Fresno St. and Nevada. At this point, the only programs of any value in any sport are the basketball teams at Utah St. and New Mexico St. At Utah St., there is at least a possibility of getting picked up by the Mountain West still as keeping a presence in Utah would be a good thing for that conference. At New Mexico St., the worst case scenario has occurred. They are likely doomed to irrelevance in all sports and shortly too. There is no geographic fit for their teams at this point and the WAC is going to die. For the rest of the league (Louisiana Tech, San Jose St. and Idaho), there at least appear to be options though none of them are good. Idaho should probably drop back to the FCS ranks and rejoin the Big Sky with nearby rivals Eastern Washington, Idaho St., Montana and Montana St. San Jose St. should probably try to do the same considering similar athletic profile schools UC Davis, Cal Poly and Sacramento St. either are or will soon be members of that league. The other option is to drop football entirely and rejoin the Big West, the schools home for many years in the pre-WAC days. Louisiana Tech is a good fit in either the Sun Belt or Conference USA. The Bulldogs likely have the golden ticket to Conference USA they desperately want waiting for them if that league loses a team to the Big East. If not, the Sun Belt beckons.
What happened at Iowa – For those unaware, the school's all-time leading receiver, senior Derrell Johnson-Koulianos was arrested in a major drug ring where it was proven he has been getting around university drug tests for recreational drugs and been living with a convicted felon. In addition, there are no running backs left on the roster as they have all either been suspended, thrown off the team or transferred of their own free will. Considering Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz was under fire not too long ago for being overpaid and not getting results while having his players act up off the field, there couldn't be a worse time than now for his players to start acting up off the field again considering the economy and a team that fell well short of expectations.
What is West Virginia doing – Oklahoma St. offensive coordinator Dana Holgerson has been hired to the same position at West Virginia as the coach-in-waiting to take over the program in 2012. That on its own, while strange (newly hired coaches-in-waiting are subject to the same recruiting restrictions that head coaches are meaning there is one less assistant out on the recruiting trail at various times of the year), isn't the really strange part. The really strange thing is that West Virginia still has a coach and they are forcing him to retire, next year. If they want him out, why not just do it now and tell him he can coach the bowl game as planned? Better yet, why do this at all if you want him back next season? Considering that Pitt appeared set to hire Holgerson to be its head coach, it appears West Virginia wanted him, but also didn't want him at rival Pitt. Whatever. New Mountaineer athletic director Oliver Luck (yes, he is Stanford QB Andrew Luck's father) is taking a big chance here with this setup.
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