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USC fires Clay Helton

I love the revisionist history on this board. Mike Bohn biggest issue is he always tries to please everybody - hiring Hawkins just because everyone thought he was the hot hire. No one even mentions Butch Jones, a fiasco that embarrassed a major donor so bad he distanced himself from the program.

Bohn was paid big bucks to make tough decisions and failed at every turn. The reason the stadium project never went ahead was Bohn was afraid of upsetting the academic side of CU.

Now he is a USC and will have a chance to prove himself. But the job is kind of a trap (see Texas), the new guy will have to get his players, coaches, and culture in place and that does not happen over night. So when the new coach is struggling in years 3 what do they do? I think several big name coaches will use USC to get a pay raise. I don't think Franklin will be the guy - PSU is a good job in a conference with more money. And usually it is not the first guy mentioned.
 
I’m jealous. If only CU had the wherewithal to fire poor performers and make upgrades.
 
USC has a massive culture problem. If that hasn't been fixed, it really doesn't matter who coaches at USC as you'll see the same results. It's exactly what plagues Texas.

ESPNU radio interviewed an ex USC staffer in the recruiting department under Helton and it was shocking how bad it was there. Helton and his staff were flying Allegiant airlines to go and recruit players. I guess it was a massive joke within their recruiting department. Helton was flat out told to do more with less from the AD and administration. The USC admin wanted Helton to use the USC brand name to recruit and that is all he needed to be successful. They barely put any funds towards this and as we know, that is going to get you very mediocre results. Bohn and Helton are great people. However, they are yes men first, and exactly what the USC admin wants.

I can't imagine the administration has changed much in that sense if Bohn is still the AD. If they land a Stoops/Franklin with this hire then that tells me they are all in about winning again and any barriers have been lifted. Stoops/Franklin knows what it takes and they won't touch the USC job if those barriers are still in place.
 
BlackNGold said:
I love the revisionist history on this board. Mike Bohn biggest issue is he always tries to please everybody - hiring Hawkins just because everyone thought he was the hot hire. No one even mentions Butch Jones, a fiasco that embarrassed a major donor so bad he distanced himself from the program.

Bohn was paid big bucks to make tough decisions and failed at every turn. The reason the stadium project never went ahead was Bohn was afraid of upsetting the academic side of CU.

Now he is a USC and will have a chance to prove himself. But the job is kind of a trap (see Texas), the new guy will have to get his players, coaches, and culture in place and that does not happen over night. So when the new coach is struggling in years 3 what do they do? I think several big name coaches will use USC to get a pay raise. I don't think Franklin will be the guy - PSU is a good job in a conference with more money. And usually it is not the first guy mentioned.
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I don't know what happened regarding a major donor? Could you provide a quick synopsis? I wasn't on the board and I wouldn't have really had any way to know what happened.
 
BlackNGold said:
I love the revisionist history on this board. Mike Bohn biggest issue is he always tries to please everybody - hiring Hawkins just because everyone thought he was the hot hire. No one even mentions Butch Jones, a fiasco that embarrassed a major donor so bad he distanced himself from the program.

Bohn was paid big bucks to make tough decisions and failed at every turn. The reason the stadium project never went ahead was Bohn was afraid of upsetting the academic side of CU.

Now he is a USC and will have a chance to prove himself. But the job is kind of a trap (see Texas), the new guy will have to get his players, coaches, and culture in place and that does not happen over night. So when the new coach is struggling in years 3 what do they do? I think several big name coaches will use USC to get a pay raise. I don't think Franklin will be the guy - PSU is a good job in a conference with more money. And usually it is not the first guy mentioned.
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This post has a lot of unverifiable sentiments in it (Bohn was afraid, Bohn always tries to please everyone, big time donor was embarrassed). I'm glad you are here to testify about how some individuals, whom I am going to assume you don't have a personal relationship with, felt a 10-15 years ago.

Also, the right hire will not take USC 3 years to be competitive. They still have more talent than anyone else in the P12 South, and everyone in the Pac 12 North sans Oregon. The right guy will likely have USC in the Pac 12 championship game in 2022 and hopefully right there with Oregon in the CFP conversation in 2023.
 
The Alabaster Yak said:
This post has a lot of unverifiable sentiments in it (Bohn was afraid, Bohn always tries to please everyone, big time donor was embarrassed). I'm glad you are here to testify about how some individuals, whom I am going to assume you don't have a personal relationship with, felt a 10-15 years ago.

Also, the right hire will not take USC 3 years to be competitive. They still have more talent than anyone else in the P12 South, and everyone in the Pac 12 North sans Oregon. The right guy will likely have USC in the Pac 12 championship game in 2022 and hopefully right there with Oregon in the CFP conversation in 2023.
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I agree with your sentiment on talent and USC, and really the overall weakness of the South, such that it is there for the taking with the right hire. The only way that isn't the case is if someone comes in with a drastically different system and tries to force it rather than play to the talent they have on the roster.

As for the top part of your post, I can tell you that a lot of it is verifiable. I used to be very involved with CU, I am still on a first-name basis with several coaches and was with Bohn when he was here. Bohn was a pleaser who wanted everybody to be happy and focused too much on that rather than results at CU. One example Bohn's office used to leak things to the boards to keep people running them close to him, but never really understood they didn't give a rip about Mike and would turn on him in an instant (which they did after Embree was fired). He had trouble with the potentially largest contributors to the program and spent too much time selling guys in the middle.

The jones fiasco only cemented that, he'd sold it as a done deal, finally pulled some of the quieter but larger donors out of the woodwork, and attached their names to the deal only to have it blow up. I don't know that they've pulled back their financial support at all (they all still sit courtside in Coors) but they weren't amused, and Bohn's somewhat out of the blue firing was due in large part to that.
 
absinthe said:
I agree with your sentiment on talent and USC, and really the overall weakness of the South, such that it is there for the taking with the right hire. The only way that isn't the case is if someone comes in with a drastically different system and tries to force it rather than play to the talent they have on the roster.

As for the top part of your post, I can tell you that a lot of it is verifiable. I used to be very involved with CU, I am still on a first-name basis with several coaches and was with Bohn when he was here. Bohn was a pleaser who wanted everybody to be happy and focused too much on that rather than results at CU. One example Bohn's office used to leak things to the boards to keep people running them close to him, but never really understood they didn't give a rip about Mike and would turn on him in an instant (which they did after Embree was fired). He had trouble with the potentially largest contributors to the program and spent too much time selling guys in the middle.

The jones fiasco only cemented that, he'd sold it as a done deal, finally pulled some of the quieter but larger donors out of the woodwork, and attached their names to the deal only to have it blow up. I don't know that they've pulled back their financial support at all (they all still sit courtside in Coors) but they weren't amused, and Bohn's somewhat out of the blue firing was due in large part to that.
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Fair enough.
 
Big Jim said:
At the time of the hire Dick Tharp told people that Bohn was hiring the wrong guy, that Peterson was the guy to hire. Tharp's son was a QB on the BSU team at the time. The decision to hire Hawkins was a classic case of hiring a name without doing proper due diligence as to why he was successful.
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And he had pretty much decided on hawkins before he fired barnett, and didnt even to fake a coaching search.
 
Did the Neinas firm orchestrate the Hawkins hiring? Bohn used them for everything.
 
Buffnik said:
Did the Neinas firm orchestrate the Hawkins hiring? Bohn used them for everything.
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I don't think so, I recall after GB was cut loose, team Bohn headed right to Boise and toted Peterson's garbage to the curb. Neinas was used to get MikMac.

EDIT: GB was fired 12/5/05 and DII was announced 12/17/05. It seems they had their target before GB was fired like @BuffsRising said above.
 
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I don't know where the thread went and I'm too lazy to look for it, but one of the all-time "what ifs" that is way up there is what if Petersen was hired instead of DH (or in addition to). I'm not sure I know what would have happened, but it had to have been better than DH, and likely no Embree.
 
patebuff said:
USC has a massive culture problem. If that hasn't been fixed, it really doesn't matter who coaches at USC as you'll see the same results. It's exactly what plagues Texas.

ESPNU radio interviewed an ex USC staffer in the recruiting department under Helton and it was shocking how bad it was there. Helton and his staff were flying Allegiant airlines to go and recruit players. I guess it was a massive joke within their recruiting department. Helton was flat out told to do more with less from the AD and administration. The USC admin wanted Helton to use the USC brand name to recruit and that is all he needed to be successful. They barely put any funds towards this and as we know, that is going to get you very mediocre results. Bohn and Helton are great people. However, they are yes men first, and exactly what the USC admin wants.

I can't imagine the administration has changed much in that sense if Bohn is still the AD. If they land a Stoops/Franklin with this hire then that tells me they are all in about winning again and any barriers have been lifted. Stoops/Franklin knows what it takes and they won't touch the USC job if those barriers are still in place.
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sounds a lot like my job. sadly.
 
patebuff said:
USC has a massive culture problem. If that hasn't been fixed, it really doesn't matter who coaches at USC as you'll see the same results. It's exactly what plagues Texas.

ESPNU radio interviewed an ex USC staffer in the recruiting department under Helton and it was shocking how bad it was there. Helton and his staff were flying Allegiant airlines to go and recruit players. I guess it was a massive joke within their recruiting department. Helton was flat out told to do more with less from the AD and administration. The USC admin wanted Helton to use the USC brand name to recruit and that is all he needed to be successful. They barely put any funds towards this and as we know, that is going to get you very mediocre results. Bohn and Helton are great people. However, they are yes men first, and exactly what the USC admin wants.

I can't imagine the administration has changed much in that sense if Bohn is still the AD. If they land a Stoops/Franklin with this hire then that tells me they are all in about winning again and any barriers have been lifted. Stoops/Franklin knows what it takes and they won't touch the USC job if those barriers are still in place.
Click to expand...

That's why I think their hire is going to be somebody like Del Rio. Another yes man who they know will be happy to have that job.
 
14er said:
George Solich was going to throw a lot of money at football if food cart was hired. I think.
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If the AD got a dollar for every time Solich was rumored to give big money, CU'd have better facilities than Alabama.

edit: not a shot at Solich, just at internet rumors always pegging big dollars to him.
 
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