ASU president Michael Crow last week told reporters in Phoenix: “Losing records over more than one year in any sports are unacceptable. … We’re excited about this (football) season, but losing seasons at our level of performance expectation are unacceptable.”
Two things: Crow has become the George Steinbrenner of Power 5 conference sports. He is impatient and demanding and willing to speak his mind.
But this is nothing new. The reality of coaching a revenue sport in a Power 5 conference, especially football, is that patience and diplomacy vanished long ago.
Arizona parted ways with its best-ever football coach, Dick Tomey, after he went 6-6 and 5-6 in 1999-2000. USC fired once-sainted John Robinson after he went 6-6 and 6-5 in 1996-97.
Once a coach has been given his break-in years, rebuilding a bad situation, two years has been the customary limit of extended failure. A half-century ago, Arizona fired football coach Jim LaRue, who had gone 29-20-1 in his first five years. He was considered a miracle worker.
But LaRue then went 3-7 and 3-7 and was fired after the 1966 season.
The only difference now is that Crow is one of the few administrators willing to put a coach on notice publicly.
