Potential Head Coaches

[SochorField]

Every perennially successful team in the Big Sky is a losing streak away from being average these days.

 

[E-Wu Tang Clan]

I beg to differ EWU tang clan, Under Baldwin EWU did more with less resources, less academic reputation . less alumni support etc. He did a superior job and attracted a lot of good assistant coaches along the way. He slapped around the top tier big sky schools while having this disadvantage. very hard to do. His superior coaching overcame a lot of obstacles.

I don't disagree with any of this. But it is a fact that it didn't translate well when he was at an actual FBS school. Even a power 5 school like Cal. Cal is the best public school in the world and has a ton of rich alumni. Yet his offenses always ranked near the bottom of the Pac. I don't know if it was cause of Justin Wilcox or P5 defenses adapting to his schemes or what. But his time at Cal and Arizona State did not go well.

 

[E-Wu Tang Clan]

Baldwin had some unbelievable staffs at Eastern. I really think if he could have found an FBS job and brought most of them with him he would have been fine. The Baldwin Eastern teams gave Pac 12 teams fits in nonconference games. I really don't see why Illinois picked Hauck.

Yea I don't know what happened but his offenses at Cal and ASU sucked. Maybe he would have been better as a head coach at a G5 school.

 

[LDopaPDX]

He does seem like a Baldwin clone. They even kind of look alike. The player I worked with said he left cause of some misconduct it something.

I don't think that's why Shoemaker left Eastern. There was a pretty significant dispute, but I don't think it had anything to do with misconduct on anyone's part. I think we lost the plot by not getting the guy from Central.

The way modern football is, you need to hire a guy from D2 (or similar) that is highly successful and has ties to the area. You gotta get somebody who's able to bring talent with him... maybe 10-15 players who want the opportunity. Eastern drastically needs to onboard some players... there just isn't enough talent capable of winning games on the roster right now.

This is why I don't think Baldwin fits anymore. The baggage he brings along with him is also an issue. I really like Coach Baldwin, but there are just too many risks and too few benefits.

 

[E-Wu Tang Clan]

I don't think that's why Shoemaker left Eastern. There was a pretty significant dispute, but I don't think it had anything to do with misconduct on anyone's part. I think we lost the plot by not getting the guy from Central.

The way modern football is, you need to hire a guy from D2 (or similar) that is highly successful and has ties to the area. You gotta get somebody who's able to bring talent with him... maybe 10-15 players who want the opportunity. Eastern drastically needs to onboard some players... there just isn't enough talent capable of winning games on the roster right now.

This is why I don't think Baldwin fits anymore. The baggage he brings along with him is also an issue. I really like Coach Baldwin, but there are just too many risks and too few benefits.

I worked with Anthany Smith and he said it had something to do with misconduct and he played from 2018 to 2022 while Shoemaker was there. I don't have any reason to not believe him. There was probably some disputes too with Best and play calling philosophies too though.

I think there is plenty of talent just the coaching sucks. Think about it, our OC is in his second year of play calling ever, he didn't even play college football, he was the video coordinator in college. Our DC is in his first year of being a DC and play calling. All the good coaches leave the first chance they get, ex. Eric Sanders, Jaylen Jenkins, Wes Nurse going to Montana of all places. Speaking of Montana, they basically set up Michael Wortham to look like a stud that he is and sent him to the NFL. Meanwhile, all our coaches did for him was kick returns and trick plays.

I ain't being picky. Baldwin wants to come back I'd welcome him with open arms. You have anyone better in mind? I would have said Chris Fisk too but he is at Portland State. Maybe Shoemaker but Idaho has yet to win a game this season. Maybe the Montana State OC I doubt he is bringing many players over though, if any. Troy Taylor if he can stop being an asshole to staff. I'd also go for a defensive minded coach.

 

[LDopaPDX]

I worked with Anthany Smith and he said it had something to do with misconduct and he played from 2018 to 2022 while Shoemaker was there. I don't have any reason to not believe him. There was probably some disputes too with Best and play calling philosophies too though.

I think there is plenty of talent just the coaching sucks. Think about it, our OC is in his second year of play calling ever, he didn't even play college football, he was the video coordinator in college. Our DC is in his first year of being a DC and play calling. All the good coaches leave the first chance they get, ex. Eric Sanders, Jaylen Jenkins, Wes Nurse going to Montana of all places. Speaking of Montana, they basically set up Michael Wortham to look like a stud that he is and sent him to the NFL. Meanwhile, all our coaches did for him was kick returns and trick plays.

I ain't being picky. Baldwin wants to come back I'd welcome him with open arms. You have anyone better in mind? I would have said Chris Fisk too but he is at Portland State. Maybe Shoemaker but Idaho has yet to win a game this season. Maybe the Montana State OC I doubt he is bringing many players over though, if any. Troy Taylor if he can stop being an asshole to staff. I'd also go for a defensive minded coach.

I don't know what's out there. I really don't have any idea what's going on in the Northwest with coaches. And being frank, I think we could pry a guy from Portland State. Maybe I'm thinking bigger than reality.

As for talent, I don't agree. I think Eastern has a handful of guys, but this isn't even close to what our talent was a decade ago. We had enough talent to beat NAU and Cal Poly (and still lost), but there are very few players on our roster that would have been impact players from 2010-2020. How many guys, regardless of their coach, are legit All Big Sky players? We don't have those kind of players that are on the level with the guys at Montana and Montana State anymore.

The other area where I see player problems is in the injury tent. We've always seemed to have more than our fair share of injuries, but holy hell do we get beat up. Not only do we have players missing loads of time with multi-game injuries, we don't have the toughness to play 4 quarters. We fade every week.

It's a disaster on every front.

 

[E-Wu Tang Clan]

Even when we had guys like Chism, we used threw him screen passes out in the flat with no blockers and he got immediately lit up. Imagine turning down a million plus dollars to stay loyal to your school and all they have you doing is catching screen passes and getting lit up like a christmas tree, dude was lucky he didn't get injured.

Injuries happen I guess, Montana State just lost to a winless Idaho in part their starting QB, RB and best WR are all injured.

 

[E-Wu Tang Clan]

Also there are ways to throw to receivers to reduce the risk of injury and as far as I can tell is Bell is doing the opposite. Don't you think it's a coincidence that Bell is constantly scrambling to make something happen, trying to force it into double coverage and the receiver scrambling to get open then getting lit up? Schakel got put in last year and it looked like an elite receiver corp of the Baldwin days. I'm pretty sure I've seen NFL receiver stare down their QB cause they threw to them when there was a DB coming at them full clip and they got laid out.

Doesn't it bother anyone else that our QBs coach, the most important position on the team, is coached by a dude who has never played QB in his life or even coached QBs before last season? If Baldwin did that I wouldn't care because Baldwin himself was a QB and he could help coach, but Best was a olineman.

Also, Bobby Hauck returned to Montana after a stint in the FBS and got them back to playoff status within like a few seasons. He didn't have a team to pull from, he was coaching special teams at San Diego State. Not having a team to pull from is fine if you can use the portal and evaluate talent well, I think Baldwin was rather adept at both, at least offensively.

 

[eaglemachine]

I beg to differ EWU tang clan, Under Baldwin EWU did more with less resources, less academic reputation . less alumni support etc. He did a superior job and attracted a lot of good assistant coaches along the way. He slapped around the top tier big sky schools while having this disadvantage. very hard to do. His superior coaching overcame a lot of obstacles.
Just about every NDSU former football coach has been mediocore at the FBS level, that coach at kansas state and the wyoming coaches come to mind. Your right Jason Eck is pretty much the exception, he's very good.
APP State, Sam Houston state (past big fishes in a small pond) are all struggling at the FBS level. If MSU and Montana ever ventured into the FBS level they would get pummeled. NDSU is now in the FBS but I don't think they can acheive what Boise State has achieved at the FBS level.

As an alumni I am very disgusted with EWU, the past EWU presidents,the current EWU trustees and their lack of vision haves set EWU back again. What a travesty. I don't feel like I should even donate any more money to EWU.

Past Presidents going back to Arevalo have been terrible. He was fantastic. The board is anmixed bag. They do barely enough to show commitment to athletics without rocking the boat too much. Based on the success of 2010-2022 we should have already had stadium improvements done and a successful record.