Potential Head Coaches

[Obzerver]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. At the time I had more of a finger on the pulse of football program. Let me premise with this:
In his 3rd and final season at EWU, Shoemaker led the offense to a fast start once again. Through seven games, the Eagles were averaging 54 points a game, over 628 yards a game, and the team was 7–0, but after two straight losses in which the offense was held to nearly half of their season averages, Shoemaker resigned, stating it was a mutual separation that was in the best interest of the team.
With that said, at the time word was Best had stepped in during that 8th game(Weber loss) and changed some of Shoemakers plays and/or formations. That didn't sit well with Shoemaker and him and Best exchanged words bout that very subject. Best the very next game took more involvement in the formational aspect and the play calling and could have led to scoring 20pts vs MSU losing 20-23. More words exchanged and Shoemaker left. Best always thought himself as an OC when they gave him the token position to throw some extra money his way although he wasn't really calling the plays(anyone else remember that in in 2008 when Best came back to EWU) under new coach Beau Baldwin (who was really calling the plays).
That point of contention was semi-common knowledge I thought at the time. Never heard of anything on comments to staff.
I've been a solid Best supporter throughout the years but since the change in the football landscape with getting good positional coaches, portaling, acquiring transfers, NIL $$ it has made it so much more challenging and we are simply not up to the task.

 

[E-Wu Tang Clan]

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. At the time I had more of a finger on the pulse of football program. Let me premise with this:
In his 3rd and final season at EWU, Shoemaker led the offense to a fast start once again. Through seven games, the Eagles were averaging 54 points a game, over 628 yards a game, and the team was 7–0, but after two straight losses in which the offense was held to nearly half of their season averages, Shoemaker resigned, stating it was a mutual separation that was in the best interest of the team.
With that said, at the time word was Best had stepped in during that 8th game(Weber loss) and changed some of Shoemakers plays and/or formations. That didn't sit well with Shoemaker and him and Best exchanged words bout that very subject. Best the very next game took more involvement in the formational aspect and the play calling and could have led to scoring 20pts vs MSU losing 20-23. More words exchanged and Shoemaker left. Best always thought himself as an OC when they gave him the token position to throw some extra money his way although he wasn't really calling the plays(anyone else remember that in in 2008 when Best came back to EWU) under new coach Beau Baldwin (who was really calling the plays).
That point of contention was semi-common knowledge I thought at the time. Never heard of anything on comments to staff.
I've been a solid Best supporter throughout the years but since the change in the football landscape with getting good positional coaches, portaling, acquiring transfers, NIL $$ it has made it so much more challenging and we are simply not up to the task.

Yea I was pretty shocked too. I thought what you're thinking that they just butted heads and Shoemaker had enough and left. The former player I worked with told me there was a conduct issue as well with Shoemaker.

I think it was really hard to know if someone was a good play caller or not with Barriere at QB. Dude, won the Walter Payton Award. We went from 10 wins to 3 after he left. I have no doubt Shoemaker is a better play caller then Best though. Best had Pat McCann take over play calling and OC duties and offered him OC the next season but he left for Fresno State. I just don't think good coaches don't want to work for Best, shit we lost three coaches to Montana last year ffs.

A lot people in the EWU Tailgate facebook group blame NIL, transfer portal, coaches leaving as well for Eastern's fall off and I just don't buy it. Coaches take better jobs, good players transfer, its always happened. It's always been next man up. I don't think it is at all unreasonable to get to 6-7 wins with the resources we have. Every year there are a few games we lose by a touchdown or less, had we won them we would be at 6-7 wins. NIL might stop EWU from winning a national championship or making deep playoff runs but is shouldn't stop us from at least getting to 6 or 7 wins and maybe a first or second round playoff berth. We're not going to get NIL money anyway if we keep being a 4 or 5 win team. No one wants to throw away money on a loser team.

I just see a lot of really shitty decisions from Best. Hiring coordinators with no coordinator experience like Anderson and Bruce. Anderson didn't even play football. He didn't try to improve the defense at all as far as I can tell. That would've been the first thing I did if I was in his shoes. He meddled with a offense that was very much not broken and ignored a defense that was broken. He promotes former players with little to no experience coaching. Honestly I think he does this cause they don't have experience so they don't know better and won't push back against his bad decisions.

 

[1988eagle]

Yea I was pretty shocked too. I thought what you're thinking that they just butted heads and Shoemaker had enough and left. The former player I worked with told me there was a conduct issue as well with Shoemaker.

I think it was really hard to know if someone was a good play caller or not with Barriere at QB. Dude, won the Walter Payton Award. We went from 10 wins to 3 after he left. I have no doubt Shoemaker is a better play caller then Best though. Best had Pat McCann take over play calling and OC duties and offered him OC the next season but he left for Fresno State. I just don't think good coaches don't want to work for Best, shit we lost three coaches to Montana last year ffs.

A lot people in the EWU Tailgate facebook group blame NIL, transfer portal, coaches leaving as well for Eastern's fall off and I just don't buy it. Coaches take better jobs, good players transfer, its always happened. It's always been next man up. I don't think it is at all unreasonable to get to 6-7 wins with the resources we have. Every year there are a few games we lose by a touchdown or less, had we won them we would be at 6-7 wins. NIL might stop EWU from winning a national championship or making deep playoff runs but is shouldn't stop us from at least getting to 6 or 7 wins and maybe a first or second round playoff berth. We're not going to get NIL money anyway if we keep being a 4 or 5 win team. No one wants to throw away money on a loser team.

I just see a lot of really shitty decisions from Best. Hiring coordinators with no coordinator experience like Anderson and Bruce. Anderson didn't even play football. He didn't try to improve the defense at all as far as I can tell. That would've been the first thing I did if I was in his shoes. He meddled with a offense that was very much not broken and ignored a defense that was broken. He promotes former players with little to no experience coaching. Honestly I think he does this cause they don't have experience so they don't know better and won't push back against his bad decisions.

Totally agree. Everything was relative when Beau Baldwin was coaching EWU. He did more with less, even todays landscape the NIL at the FCS level isn't as impactful as the FBS level because there isn't as much money thrown around to the players at the FCS level . ( BTW, that huskies QB is being paid $4,000,000 and he isnt producing, hes a glorified Vernon Adams at best. They should have just let him go to LSU). A good friend of mine coached the current kicking and punting coach UW and the kicker gets a $100,000 per year and he is nothing special.


Your right E-Wu Tang Clan, Coach best has run off some very good caoches and has hired some very bad assistant coaches. My friend's son played on the 2018 team that played for the national championships and he confirmed it. Coach Best has burned alot of bridges and isnt very respected among other coaches. All the momentum we gained from being a nationally recognized program at the FCS level is now gone. Ewu worked so hard to get there and now we are living on our past residuals of the Beau Baldwin era. That sucks to let all that momentum get away, now EWU has to scrap and claw to get that point again.

Poor leadership and poor coaching is a recipe for disaster. We have a tough row ahead for us, there is no quick fix.