South Florida Bulls fire Skip Holtz after third year - ESPN

This is the way college football is going. The culture is geared towards a "win NOW or get out" mentality. It used to be a head coach could count on four years to turn a program around -- a full roster of "your own recruits", but no longer.

While I respect that Bill McCartney knows more about the internals of Colorado football than I'll never know, the real crime here may not be as much the quick hook ( 2 years for Embree versus three for Holtz ) as the fact that -- other than Ty Willingham -- they never appear to get the second chance to coach another program.




from the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/football-bill-mccartney-_n_2203560.html

"I heard the chancellor say it doesn't matter what color Jon Embree is. To me, that offends every person of color out there. It's as if to suggest that everything is done on a fair scale. It's not done on a fair scale. Men of color don't have the same priveleges or same opportunities and they are under greater pressure when they step in. For some reason our culture has dialed up something that causes us to have less confidence in people of color. I'm telling you, this guy can match wits with any white guy out there. This Embree guy is the real deal. He was doing it the right way."

CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard said McCartney was misrepresenting the chancellor. Hilliard said DiStefano never said it doesn't matter what color Embree is.

"The chancellor said we didn't hire Jon Embree because he's African-American and we didn't fire him because he's African-American," Hilliard said.

Willingham seemed to get a raw deal at Notre Dame a few years back. At least he got a chance to redeem himself elsewhere. Many coaches relate how they learned so much, made their mistakes the first time through, that they became much better, more valuable coaches the second go-round.

That may be where the real crime lies. White coaches get on that retread merry-go-round and crowd out opportunities for black coaches. The numbers are SLOWLY getting better for first-time opportunities, but are virtually non-existent for second chances.

And I'm not sure how you  cure that one. Shining the light of day on it helps a bit. May not help Embree, but others down the road. McCartney's endorsement of Embree normally should be enough to help almost any football coach get another gig, but you have to ask yourself how much currency his endorsement has outside of say the Boulder, CO area.

Good luck to Coach Embree. He deserved a better shot to prove himself at Colorado and given McCartney's passionate support seems worthy of finding another place where he can prove himself.

You would think a mid-major type program looking to break through would be a natural landing spot. Or maybe a USF. I hear they may have an opening.

from ESPN.com
South Florida Bulls fire Skip Holtz after third year - ESPN:

"Skip Holtz has been fired after three seasons at South Florida, sources said Sunday.

Holtz was 16-21 at USF, including 5-16 in Big East play. This season, the Bulls, picked second in the Big East's preseason poll, went 3-9 (1-6 in the Big East). It was the worst season in USF's 16-year history.

In its last 16 Big East games under Holtz, USF was 2-14.

Holtz and Jim Leavitt are the only coaches in USF history and both were fired -- but for different reasons."

'via Blog this'