let the kids be kids. kiffin saw college football like an NFL coach and was all over the players on every detail (dooleyesque). i was listening to the USC postgame show ont he way home and the announcer said he talked to kiffin once and kiffin said emotion has nothing to do with wins and losses. with that attitude it's not a surpise his micromanaging got to the players.
I won't pretend to have any insight into the attitudes of USC players, but Kiffin didn't have that problem when he was in Knoxville.
from accounts i've heard he changed his mentality quite a bit last season. when he was trying to keep things going instead of getting losser he got more controling and anal and as the losing continued he got even more so that way. his mentor, cal's former coach, did exactly the same thing. i think he was presented with a situation he didn't know how to deal with so he decided to get a handle on it he needed to get more hands on.
I was just thinking the same. Never will I forget him tackling Crompton at the end of the Vandy game.
he certianly wouldn't be the first coach who players liked for a bit and then started to dislike once the losing started. reports from the meeting haden had with the team after he got fired was that multiple players had wide smiles on their faces.
Not saying this changes anything, and I'm sure most of you guys have already seen this, but since I didn't see it posted: Link
http://www.coachingsearch.com/artic...hing-search-I-know-two-things-about-Pat-Haden “I think he (Pat Haden) does want to stand alone, but here are two things I do know about him. He’s hypersensitive to whatever the athletes tell him in every sport there and they’re going to support Ed Orgeron. The other thing is, there’s now a couple of big donors that want Ed Orgeron. I’m not saying they’re going to decide it’s him, but Pat Haden is going to have to stand up to these people if he hires somebody else.”
Orgeron knows what the score is. Being the beloved #2 guy at USC is the best job he's ever going to get. All this talk about wanting to be the head coach is just noise to keep the team playing their asses off. He'll be fine settling back into the role he's suited for.
I actually agree. if he's going to be named head coach it will be in the days following a ucla victory (which is no guarantee anyway). any day that follows after that victory it will be more and more unlikely that it happens. (=
he doesn't seem like a college coach to me. carroll is really the only example of a former nfl coach who wasn't a former college coach being successful and that's because of his personality.
he's going to get heavy pressure to keep orgeron. in my experience the top coaches don't like to have thier staffs dictated to them. though you;d be pretty dumb to not keep him giving his recruiting prowess.