Kevin Sumlin never bought into Tucson or the modest but treasured legacy of Wildcat football. About all he did was cash out.
Every time I’d watch him pose indifferently on the sideline during a crushing loss, or speak impassively during a press conference, it would make me think of a Jimmy Buffet song.
Nibblin’ on sponge cake;
Watchin’ the sun bake. ….
He did a lot of nibblin’ and watchin’ but not nearly enough coaching.
Hiring him was the kind of mistake that often ends the career of an athletic director, especially given that Arizona paid six figures to overpromoted search firm operative Glenn Sugiyama to “lead them” to Sumlin.
But those are stories for another day. For now, all that matters is that Arizona AD Dave Heeke hits his mulligan shot flush and the Wildcats can dig out from under a mess so profound that it might take the new coach until 2025 to hit .500 and start to win again.
And that’s if Heeke hires the right guy.
There are two musts on this chapter of Starting Over: (1) a coach with Wildcat blood must be involved; (2) he must be a meat-and-potatoes guy.
It’s not too late to get this right. Sonny Dykes? Yes. Joe Salave’a? Absolutely. You don’t have to shop at the Ritz to find a winning football coach. Twenty-two years after he played at Washington State, the Cougars got two-time Rose Bowl coach Mike Price out of little ol’ Weber State.
No one outside of Pullman, Washington, noticed. Price had gone 46-44 at Weber State. Yet he became one of the five leading football coaches in modern league history, specializing in meat, potatoes and home cooking.
Much like WSU, you’ve got to WANT to coach at Arizona and appreciate the neighborhood.
Wearing his light blue work shirt, Nevada coach Jay Norvell, right, stretches and warms up alongside his players during a practice ahead of the 2018 Arizona Bowl. Norvell could be a candidate for Arizona’s vacancy.
A day or two before the 2018 Arizona Bowl, Nevada Wolf Pack coach Jay Norvell staged a press conference at a downtown Tucson hotel. I didn’t even know how to spell his name. Norvelle? Norvel?
But as soon as Norvell walked into the room, it worked. He worked. He wore a gas station attendant’s shirt with his name on a patch above the pocket. This was not an overpaid coach with a “system” surrounded by his “chief of staff,” protecting him from fans and outsiders.
After spending parts of two days around Norvell, I shook my head. Sugiyama did not “discover” or deliver Jay Norvell, a hidden gem in college coaching.
The son of a former Wisconsin lineman, Norvell went to Iowa when Hayden Fry began one of the most historic rebuilding jobs in college football history. He played on Fry’s first Rose Bowl team, 1982, and then was a linebacker for the Chicago Bears.
But because Norvell wasn’t a marquee name, he was forever obscured behind big-name “system” guys when he coached at Oklahoma, UCLA, Texas, Nebraska and for the Raiders and Colts in the NFL.
Nevada found him on the ASU staff, serving as passing game coordinator. He was labeled as a career assistant. But over the last three seasons Nevada has gone 22-13, a significant improvement on the school’s 37-39 record over the previous six years.
I’m not saying Arizona should hire Jay Norvell, but if not, someone like him.
Someone like David Fipp, a former Arizona walk-on, a safety, a man from the UA’s rich defensive backs link to San Diego, a Dick Tomey protégé who followed Chuck Cecil, Jeff Hammerschmidt, Allen Durden and Brandon Sanders from San Diego to the UA starting lineup.
Fipp is Jay Norvell with Wildcat lineage. Fipp was Tomey’s defensive coordinator at San Jose State when the Spartans won nine games in 2007. He learned from the top defensive coordinator in Arizona history, Rich Ellerson, coaching for him at Cal Poly. And then he took a leap to the NFL, spending 12 years with the Dolphins and Eagles, the last eight as Philadelphia’s special teams coordinator.
I’m not saying Arizona should hire Davd Fipp, but if not, someone like him. Someone from the blue-collar squad.
The most overblown gospel of hiring a coach is that you must “win the press conference.” Baloney. Sumlin won the press conference because you had seen him on TV and knew he coached a Heisman Trophy winner. UCLA won the press conference when it hired Chip Kelly. How’s that going?
The best ADs are those who don’t spin a search around winning a press conference.
ASU beat Arizona in the 2017 Territorial Cup and a day later fired head coach Todd Graham, a man who had gone 46-32 at the school. Sun Devils AD Ray Anderson explained that he had higher expectations. But when he hired Herm Edwards off an ESPN stage, the Sun Devils lost a press conference like few others, ever.
Anderson didn’t get sucked in by a search firm or a system guy. He identified a winner, pursued him and put him on a different stage. Arizona is 0-3 against Edwards, and it’s a big part of the reason the Wildcats are again searching for a new coach.
In January 1987, Arizona offered its football coaching job to Ohio State’s Earle Bruce, Baylor’s Grant Teaff and Boston College’s Jack Bicknell. All rebuffed AD Cedric Dempsey’s interest.
A few days later, Dick Tomey was introduced as Arizona’s football coach. He was the fourth choice. Maybe he didn’t lose the press conference, but it was no more than a tie.
He brought his meat and potatoes with him.
