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If we got Chris Ball would there be excitement in Buffland?

Reaction if we were to hire Chris Ball

  • Sweet hire, as good or better than D Gibbs

    Votes: 7 8.3%

  • Pleasantly surprised and nice upgrade

    Votes: 42 50.0%

  • Ho-hum

    Votes: 19 22.6%

  • Not a fan

    Votes: 1 1.2%

  • Just want this thing over with, period

    Votes: 15 17.9%
  • Total voters
    84

boydbuff

Club Member
So Chris Ball´s name from ASU is being thrown around as a possible candidate. I don´t think his name had ever been brought up in prior conversations regarding possible candidates before yesterday.

I know we have a lot of threads on the DC search (and I started most of them) so sue me if you want. But if there is credibility to the rumors, what do you guys think?

http://www.thesundevils.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=30300&ATCLID=207911638

Chris Ball enters his third season at Arizona State under head coach Todd Graham, and 15th season overall. After serving as defensive passing game coordinator and safeties coach in 2012, Ball was promoted to co-defensive coordinator in 2013.
Under Ball, ASU finished 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] in the conference in passing yards allowed in Pac-12 games (222.3 per game). The secondary posted 42 interceptions in the last two seasons, second in the FBS behind only Houston (44). Five of the interceptions this season was returned for a TD.
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Has also had stints at WSU (as DC), Bama and Pitt among other places.
 
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Would be scene as a definite plan B hire, BUT I could get behind it for various reasons.

Not a sexy hire, but could be a solid one.
 
Sorry to make another thread but the Ball conversation is buried in the other giant thread. Duff indicated somewhat indifference on the hire when I said I would be excited by it. So I realized there are probably pretty significant differences in opinion on Ball (on AB go figure). Anyway, I said I voted for sweet hire.

To be honest I liked Gibbs but wasn´t head over heels with him, and part of it was just because he was an alum which isn´t fair but whatever.
 
mildly happy. Fits the profile they wanted, more or less. Not a Lindgren type upside though.
 
I don't think there would be a lot of excitement per se, but I'd be satisfied. He seems like a very solid candidate without a lot of sex appeal. Metaphorically speaking.
 
Honestly I had never heard of him until his name popped up yesterday, so hard for me to have strong feelings one way or the other. He could be good I suppose.
 
CA/TX Ties
Pac-12 Exp.
Younger coach with D1 Exp.
Room to grow and groom as true DC.
Lots of TO's in his secondary.


I personally would have liked more true DC experience, and more of a splash, but stealing a coach from a Pac-12 South team would be a nice bonus.
 
Ho-hum. Never heard of the guy until now, but I could get behind him, after reading his bio... sticking it to the devils is always a +. I could see him getting to create his own defensive identity after being the "other guy", knows Pac football and offenses, can probably be a decent recruiter and 1st and foremost he does not have a son about to enter college. with MM's experience at being a DC, this could help him grow and learn while creating his own defense.
 
I'll give it a semi-meh. Better than an average meh, but still not excited.

Pros:
-good DB coach apparently, seems to have had success in the passing game area
-seems to recruit decently, more Bay Area ties on the staff
-has coached against a pretty successful spread offense everyday in practice for a couple of years now

Cons:
-was Baer when he was a DC at Wazzu, maybe it was just the Wazzu effect, maybe he just isn't a coordinator
-not really a young up and comer nor an established guy

Mostly I see it like this, is he better than Bob Orlando who, in theory, we could've had? I don't see how that answer is a yes, so I can't really grade this one out with high marks. Could be worse, though. shrug, hope he brings a high level assistant with him and can talk Mac into firing Neinas.
 
stolen from rward on rivals, here are Wazzu's defensive stats during his tenure:

2008 WSU gave up 43.8 per game
2009 38.5
2010 35.8
2011 31.7

Apparently he was only a co-coordinator there, so..

still, can't say I'm blown away by those numbers. We just fired Baer for 39.00 ppg in year 2

Perhaps he learned something by year 4? Perhaps he got more control of the defense in year 4?
 
White_Rabbit said:
I'll give it a semi-meh. Better than an average meh, but still not excited.

Pros:
-good DB coach apparently, seems to have had success in the passing game area
-seems to recruit decently, more Bay Area ties on the staff
-has coached against a pretty successful spread offense everyday in practice for a couple of years now

Cons:
-was Baer when he was a DC at Wazzu, maybe it was just the Wazzu effect, maybe he just isn't a coordinator
-not really a young up and comer nor an established guy

Mostly I see it like this, is he better than Bob Orlando who, in theory, we could've had? I don't see how that answer is a yes, so I can't really grade this one out with high marks. Could be worse, though. shrug, hope he brings a high level assistant with him and can talk Mac into firing Neinas.)
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If he does that many allbuffs posters will crown him the national AC of the year before spring practice even starts.
 
White_Rabbit said:
stolen from rward on rivals, here are Wazzu's defensive stats during his tenure:

2008 WSU gave up 43.8 per game
2009 38.5
2010 35.8
2011 31.7

Apparently he was only a co-coordinator there, so..

still, can't say I'm blown away by those numbers. We just fired Baer for 39.00 ppg in year 2

Perhaps he learned something by year 4? Perhaps he got more control of the defense in year 4?
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The highest he finished in the country was 95th in scoring defense in 2011. Wazzu finished dead last in the Pac-10 from 2008-2010, by at least five points in each of those years. Obviously not all on him, but fair to question if he just a good DB coach and not much else.
 
A change needed to be made from Baer.

Ball wouldn't be a slam dunk hire that anyone should get excited about. He's also not a high-risk hire that people should freak out about.

This one shouldn't generate strong reactions. One of those where we sit back, let them go to work, and see what the results are.
 
Duff Man said:
The highest he finished in the country was 95th in scoring defense in 2011. Wazzu finished dead last in the Pac-10 from 2008-2010, by at least five points in each of those years. Obviously not all on him, but fair to question if he just a good DB coach and not much else.
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I find it ironic that some of you who don't stop hounding on the staff for our failure to recruit better don't take into account that Ball was likely playing with much less talent on his Defense than even CU has had given that WSU is one of the teams that historically has recruited worse than we have.

Why would you go back several years when he was co-DC at a bad program as your primary evidence as opposed to look at his most recent performance with better players? His units at ASU are playing pretty damn well. And we actually have some decent guys in our secondary and our DL too. Of course the LB group is not strong and hopefully if Ball comes we get a strong LB coach who is also a great recruiter.
 
boydbuff said:
I find it ironic that some of you who don't stop hounding on the staff for our failure to recruit better don't take into account that Ball was likely playing with much less talent on his Defense than even CU has had given that WSU is one of the teams that historically has recruited worse than we have.

Why would you go back several years when he was co-DC at a bad program as your primary evidence as opposed to look at his most recent performance with better players? His units at ASU are playing pretty damn well. And we actually have some decent guys in our secondary and our DL too. Of course the LB group is not strong and hopefully if Ball comes we get a strong LB coach who is also a great recruiter.
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I would hold off on the knee jerk defense of this guy until he's actually hired.

Anyways, I don't think your argument is all that persuasive. At all.
 
I cannot answer the question because I know nothing of Chris Ball. Never even heard of him until now.
 
All Duff said is that past performance of defenses Ball was involved with being nothing special yielded a "fair question".

On what planet is that unreasonable?
 
Buffnik said:
All Duff said is that past performance of defenses Ball was involved with being nothing special yielded a "fair question".

On what planet is that unreasonable?
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It is reasonable. But it is not reasonable to selectively choose past performance, especially the one that was prior to his most recent performance, and make conclusions based on that.

His recent performance is pretty damn good. One could take from that many things. Sure it is possible he is not a great DC. But to base it off what he did at a program historically worse than us, when he didn't have full control and probably had worse athletes than we have now on the D, when he has performed quite well in his role more recently at ASU doesn't seem appropriate.

The Broncos just hired Kubiak. Some of that of course is the long history with Elway etc. But I bet they didn't evaluate him primarily on his less than stellar performance as a HC of the Texans, another historically bad team, and not the most recent example of his coaching ability.
 
boydbuff said:
It is reasonable. But it is not reasonable to selectively choose past performance, especially the one that was prior to his most recent performance, and make conclusions based on that.

His recent performance is pretty damn good. One could take from that many things. Sure it is possible he is not a great DC. But to base it off what he did at a program historically worse than us, when he didn't have full control and probably had worse athletes than we have now on the D, when he has performed quite well in his role more recently at ASU doesn't seem appropriate.

The Broncos just hired Kubiak. Some of that of course is the long history with Elway etc. But I bet they didn't evaluate him primarily on his less than stellar performance as a HC of the Texans, another historically bad team, and not the most recent example of his coaching ability.
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Still not getting it.
 
Boyd, I think it is all relevant, including Wazzu. We are bottom quarter talent-wise in the conference, so seems like a reasonable part of his resume to examine. I pretty much think Nik's assessment is spot on. "Sweet hire" and I am the one being called out?
 
Darth Snow said:
Still not getting it.
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Ok. Let's try an analogy.

In the business world. Let's say you worked as a co-sales manager in a poor performing Wal-Mart store (was poor before you got there) from 2007-2010. Your performance showed improvement year over year, but was not special compared with sales at better stores around the country.

You eventually became co-sales manager at a better Wal-Mart from 2011-2014. Your performance was quite good and ranked amongst the best in your region and on some stats, you were #2 in the country.

Now, I am looking to hire a sales manager for my Wal-Mart which has shown recent potential to become a good performing store (and historically was amongst the leading stores in the nation). Would I as the hiring manager for my store, focus on your performance at the 1st store from several years ago, or from your most recent performance?

I am not saying I wouldn't consider your earlier performance but I would weight more heavily your most recent performance. And I certainly wouldn't focus only on your numbers from the 1st store at the expense of your more recent performance. Maybe that is just me.
 
boydbuff said:
Ok. Let's try an analogy.

In the business world. Let's say you worked as a co-sales manager in a poor performing Wal-Mart store (was poor before you got there) from 2007-2010. Your performance showed improvement year over year, but was not special compared with sales at better stores around the country.

You eventually became co-sales manager at a better Wal-Mart from 2011-2014. Your performance was quite good and ranked amongst the best in your region and on some stats, you were #2 in the country.

Now, I am looking to hire a sales manager for my Wal-Mart which has shown recent potential to become a good performing store (and historically was amongst the leading stores in the nation). Would I as the hiring manager for my store, focus on your performance at the 1st store from several years ago, or from your most recent performance?

I am not saying I wouldn't consider your earlier performance but I would weight more heavily your most recent performance. And I certainly wouldn't focus only on your numbers from the 1st store at the expense of your more recent performance. Maybe that is just me.
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Oh, I get your argument. I'm not sure you understand why it isn't all that good. See Duff's post for a big flaw.
 
Duff Man said:
Why make your conclusions solely on ASU, Boyd?
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I am not. He showed improvement year over year at WSU. Nothing exciting by any means though. Wasn't full in control and had bad players (I think easily it could be argued worse players than we have on our D right now).

His more recent performance is impressive. Why ignore his recent performance and only focus on his WSU performance which is not even the most recent. In most professions, recent performance is weighted higher than pervious performance. I would look at both. Nothing exciting about his WSU performance, but his more recent performance at ASU is, IMHO exciting.
 
boydbuff said:
I am not. He showed improvement year over year at WSU. Nothing exciting by any means though. Wasn't full in control and had bad players (I think easily it could be argued worse players than we have on our D right now).

His more recent performance is impressive. Why ignore his recent performance and only focus on his WSU performance which is not even the most recent. In most professions, recent performance is weighted higher than pervious performance. I would look at both. Nothing exciting about his WSU performance, but his more recent performance at ASU is, IMHO exciting.
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You aren't ignoring it, just completely discounting it? You realize that should raise a red flag, right?
 
Darth Snow said:
You aren't ignoring it, just completely discounting it? You realize that should raise a red flag, right?
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It is not OK for me to weigh his recent performance much higher than his past performance, while it is perfectly fine for Duff to 100% ignore recent performance and critique him for his prior performance?

Got it.
 
boydbuff said:
It is not OK for me to weigh his recent performance much higher than his past performance, while it is perfectly fine for Duff to 100% ignore recent performance and critique him for his prior performance?

Got it.
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You still don't get it. He's not. All he said was the performance at WSU is concerning/raised questions. How in the world is that not reasonable? (to quote Buffnik).
 
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