Dear Mr. Football: Can a Pac-12 coach survive a 10-game losing streak?
A: Over 42 seasons, the only coach to lose 10 games in succession (or more) and not get fired was Washington State’s Mike Price.
His Cougars lost 12 straight between 1998 and 1999, but there’s an asterisk attached to Price’s retention.
He coached the Cougars to the Rose Bowl in 1997. It still seems remarkable. Given such equity, the Cougars did not fire Price after his 0-12 skid and were rewarded when, even more remarkably, Price coached WSU to the Rose Bowl again in 2002.
Price then jetted off to be head coach at Alabama, which didn’t work out. He was fired before he ever coached the Crimson Tide. Ultimately, Price became the coach at UTEP, where he ended his coaching career on an 0-8 streak.
In my opinion, Price is one of the five leading football coaches in the Pac-12’s last 40 years, joining Washington’s Don James, UCLA’s Terry Donahue, USC’s Pete Carroll and Arizona’s Dick Tomey.
It’s not always about wins and losses, sometimes, as Price and Tomey proved, it’s about making the most of the hand you are dealt.
Dear Mr. Football: How many members are in the league’s 10-game losing streak club?
A: Kevin Sumlin becomes the Pac-12’s eighth coach to lose 10 straight. Here’s the list and what happened to those coaches:
- 0-15, Jerry Pettibone, Oregon State, 1995-96: Fired in 1996. Became an assistant athletic director at Oklahoma before retiring.
- 0-14, Tyrone Willingham, Washington, 2007-08. Fired in 2008. Became a member of the College Football Playoff board.
- 0-14, Joe Avezzano, Oregon State, 1981-82. Fired in 1984. Became the offensive line coach at Texas A&M and later an NFL assistant coach for 16 years.
- 0-13, Tommy Holmoe, Cal, 2000-01. Fired in 2001. Became a fundraiser at BYU and is now the school’s athletic director.
- 0-12, Price. Retired after going 0-7 as UTEP’s interim coach in 2017.
- 0-10, Paul Wulff, Washington State, 2009-10. Fired in 2010. Is the offensive line coach at Cal Poly.
- 0-10, Gary Anderson, Oregon State, 2015-16. Quit in midseason 2016. Was fired this year after an 0-2 start at Utah State.
- 0-10, Sumlin.
Dear Mr. Football: What could Arizona learn from Colorado coach Karl Dorrell?
A: Over the last eight years, the Wildcats embarrassingly blew it by not hiring former Wildcats Joe Salave’a (Oregon’s associate head coach) and Antonio Pierce (ASU’s associate head coach) and by not promoting Chuck Cecil to a full-time coaching position; he is a defensive analyst.
Dorrell, however, made sure that his new staff at CU included Mr. Buffalo, Brian Cabral, the Buffaloes’ 1976 team captain and part of that year’s Big Eight championship team.
Cabral has been a CU assistant coach for 294 games, but was not retained by short-time head coach Mike MacIntyre in 2013. MacIntyre was fired in 2017 and is now an assistant coach at Memphis.
Cabral’s title on the Buffaloes football staff is “Character Coach.” CU athletic director Rick George thinks so highly of Cabral and his ability to relate to Buffaloes football players that he has made Cabral available to all 17 sports at Colorado. Indeed, Cabral has helped to mentor Tad Boyle’s CU basketball players.
Dear Mr. Football: Has Arizona had an assistant coach to match Cabral’s longevity?
A: Former UA quarterback Marc Lunsford coached 209 games for the Wildcats from 1983-2000. Defensive coach Duane Akina — who also served a year as offensive coordinator in 1993 — coached 163 games at Arizona from 1987-2000, and defensive coordinator Sharkey Price, 1964-76, coached the Wildcats for 137 games.
But even the terms of Cabral and Lunsford pale in comparison to former UA defensive coach and 2003 interim head coach Mike Hankwitz, who is the most prolific coaching link between Arizona and CU.
Northwestern defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz, center, stands behind a Northwestern banner held up on the sidelines as he sends in signals during the first quarter an NCAA college football game against Penn State in State College, Pa., Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Hankwitz not only coached two terms at both Arizona and CU, he was also the interim head coach at both schools. Try to match that.
Hankwitz, now 73 and the defensive coordinator at Northwestern, is believed to be the longest-tenured active assistant coach in college football. Now in his 51st season, he has coached 607 games — which included a 1973-76 stint on Jim Young’s Arizona staff and the 2003 collapse under John Mackovic. When Mackovic was fired in midseason, Hankwitz was the UA’s head coach for seven games. He was CU’s interim head coach for one game in 2005.
Between his terms at Arizona and Colorado, Hankwitz has coached all over the map: Kansas, Texas A&M, Wisconsin, Western Michigan and Sumlin’s alma mater, Purdue.
Dear Mr. Football: Who is likely to be the best player on the field Saturday at Arizona Stadium?
A: Colorado senior linebacker Nate Landman is probably the top linebacker in the Pac-12 and a strong possibility to become a first-team All-American. He made a combined 250 tackles over the last two seasons, which is rare territory: In the Pac-12 years, Arizona’s only players to exceed 250 tackles in two seasons were linebackers Ricky Hunley, Byron Evans and Marcus Bell.
FILE — In this Oct. 5, 2019, file photo, Colorado’s Nate Landman directs teammates in the first half of an NCAA college football game in Boulder, Colo. Senior inside linebacker Landman will again be one of the team’s leader. He has been voted Colorado’s defensive MVP for the past two seasons. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)
Here’s the kicker about Landman: No team had a better inside link to recruit him than Arizona.
His coach at Monte Vista High School in Danville, California, was Craig Bergman, a UA legacy if ever there has been one. Bergman was a quarterback under both Larry Smith and Dick Tomey, and then part of Lute Olson’s basketball team — a “Gumby” on the bench with Sean Rooks and Harvey Mason — in the 1988 Final Four season.
Rich Rodriguez’s staff did try to recruit Landman, but couldn’t put it together. Shocker, huh?
Dear Mr. Football: Has Sean Harris returned to play football for Arizona?
A: It’s uncanny how much the son of Sean and Cha-Ron Harris — both prominent UA athletes of the 1990s — resembles his father in uniform.
Jalen Harris, who wears his father’s old number, 49 — which can best be seen on Arizona’s famous 1993 Sports Illustrated cover — gained 50 pounds from 2019 to this season and even has a walk/jog that resembles that of his father, an All-Pac-10 linebacker in 1993 and 1994.
Saturday’s game was supposed to be a reunion between Sean and Cha-Ron’s youngest son, Jason, a freshman linebacker at Colorado. But Jason, a four-star recruit from Gilbert Highley High School, is not expected to play Saturday as he learns the CU system and prepares for 2021. He has not made a tackle for CU this season.
Someday soon, Sean and Jalen Harris are apt to be considered the leading father-son duo in UA football history.
The two most notable father-son duos to play football at Arizona were Hilliard “Junior” Crum, a UA basketball-football whiz of the late ’40s, and his son, defensive lineman Bob Crum, 1970-72, an All-WAC player who played for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1974. And then along came Larry McKee, Class of 1972, drafted by the Cleveland Browns before becoming a prominent high school football coach at Sabino and Pueblo, and his son Scott McKee, Class of 2002, who has gone on to be a successful head coach at both Pueblo and Sahuaro.
Jalen Harris has improved notably this season, making 15 tackles in three games. If he continues to make his presence felt, Arizona could beat the Buffaloes in a close game. I’m putting my faith in Harris.
Arizona 27, Colorado 23.
