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bsp;Tyrone Willingham Shows Why Affirmative Action Does Not Work In Football
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10 comments Last one added 8 months ago — Leave a Comment
dave cisar 9 months ago
Coach TW, isnt a good coach?
What about what he did at Stanford? What he did at Notre Dame is starting to look like he did a lot with little, and he ;eft the cupboard pretty full for Charlie Weis.
Ive seen TW do football clinics, he is a vry knowledgeable, enthusiastic, competent, and confident coach. He is a man of integrity and a darn fine football coach. UW will be fine with him if they stay the course adn let him develop the program.
http://winningyouthfootballl.com
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David Littlefield 8 months ago
Way off base dave.....Willingham won at ND in the first year because of Davie's defense, he couldn't win with his guys. CW won with the few guys (Quinn, Shark, Zibby, Carlson, etc) that TW was able to recruit because of the 1st year success. The lack of recruiting crippled the team last year and now it is back on the rise due exclusively to the recruiting of CW.
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Chris S 9 months ago
What he did at Stanford? Cupbard full? Get your facts straight.
The Rose Bowl Myth:
Yes, Stanford made it to The Rose Bowl, however, it was equivalent to the 2004 Big East where Pitt went 8-4 and made it to the Fiesta Bowl and the talk around the country for a month and a half was if the Big East should even have an automatic bid because the conference was so bad. It was not like they navigated the Pac-10 of today or even the Pac-10 of 2001 which was drastically different. Stanford got to The Rose Bowl when the Pac-10 was beyond mediocre, Stanford avoided Oregon that year, the league was pre Pete Carroll, they opened up the season with a 69-17 loss at Texas and lost at home to San Jose State, it is not exactly barn burning.
The Notre Dame Myth:
10 wins at Notre Dame in his first year, 10 wins largely because of a Bob Davie built defense. The double standard is glaring; Charlie Weis is did it with Ty Willingham's players, but Ty Willingham did it on his own, not with Bob Davie’s players; right? Coach Willingham brought his west coast offense to Notre Dame and did not score an offensive touchdown until game 4.
As far cupboard being full, it is a matter of public record, yet never mentioned, that Coach Willingham had to be informed who Brady Quinn was, let alone that he wanted to come to Notre Dame. Yes, his best friend, Chindem Ndukwe was invited to ND’s campus only because his brother had played for Notre Dame a few years earlier and Mr. Ndukwe gave a tape the Coach Willingham saying, “You have to see this kid, he holds big offers, but wants to come here.” Brady Quinn was a 4 star prospect from Dublin, Ohio, with offers from Ohio State and Michigan. He lived just within a half hours of Ohio State Campus, but never received a look until the Ndukwe’s visited campus.
He told Jeff Samardjzia that he should focus on Baseball.
He did not offer Tom Zbikowski until after he saw him in the All American game and when he went to Zbikowski house, he ran out of his house and to the sidewalk to commit before Coach Willingham could ever get a word out, he just wanted to go to Notre Dame, it did not really matter who the coach was.
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Chris S 9 months ago
The Washington was a Mess Myth:
According to Rivals.com the three classes preceding Coach Willingham at Washington were ranked, 19,23 and 19 AVG: 20, the Willingham recruited classes at Notre Dame, 24, 12, 32; AVG 23. The argument can be made that Coach Willingham walked into a better situation a UW then he created for himself at ND and has done little to improve the situation. Since coming to UW Coach Willingham has recruited the 35th, 36th, and 24th ranked recruiting class AVG: 32.
The 2008 Washington Schedule Refocused:
Early on the excuse makers were out in force, “it is a crucial year for UW but look at their schedule.” People chalked up losses to Oregon, BYU and Oklahoma, but not home loss to a .500 Stanford team and a blowout loss at Arizona. Yes we all know that UW got screwed on the excessive celebration call at the end of the BYU game, but it made the extra point equivalent to a 32 yard FG and it was blocked! Not missed, BLOCKED! That is a lack of execution on special teams and that falls on the coaching staffs’ ability to re focus the team.
The Washington Debacle:
He has recruited poorly, banned boosters from practice. Washington has a great football tradition, one would think that a coach would want to embrace that tradition. Steve Emtman is arguably the best player in school history, and he has only been allowed 1 sideline pass per season. Another former 5 year player requested a sideline pass for the UW/ASU game, he was rebuked by the UW coaching staff, but was welcomed by the ASU staff. The opposing coach granted a sideline pass. In the NFL off season, two former Huskies wanted to come work out at UW; they were told, “NO”
That’s just not smart. Either is being the face of African American college football coaches in the country and not having an African American coordinator. Football is just like any other business, you have to work your way up, most head coaches are hired from a coordinator position. Coach Willingham has a white offensive coordinator and after firing his white defensive coordinator last year, he hired Donatell, another white defensive coordinator. In fact of the 9 assistants Coach Willingham employs, only two are African American.
Talk about leadership by example.
Ironicly, Notre Dame has an African American Defensive and Offensive coordinator, and 4 African American coaches on the 9 person assistant staff.
Lastly in the 4 years since the UW/ND coaching changes, ND has 7 wins against that Pac-10, UW has 6. If UW loses 4 more games this year, Coach Willingham will tie Coach Paul Bear Bryant for career losses; Coach Bryant coached for 38 years, this is Coach Willingham’s 14th year as a head coach.
Sounds like a guy I would want to hire.
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Franco Fernando 8 months ago
Very insightful article. I lost all respect for Ty Willingham after he "insinuated" that race had to do with his getting fired at Notre Dame. He tries to play "the better man" but all he is, is a hypocritical racist. A black man who plays the race card as he did against Notre Dame should be ashamed. He's like Louis Farrakhan saying "only the white man is capable of being racist"
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Tony Bishop 8 months ago
Although I agree that Willingham doesn't help the cause of "Affirmative Action", to say that it doesn't work is asinine.
This is a double-edged sword. Guys who don't succeed (Willingham, Croom, etc.) will always cause people to say that affirmative action doesn't work, while guys like Mike Singletary and Mike Tomlin won't get credit for proving that it DOES work. Why? Because "those guys would have become coaches anyway". They probably would have, but don't you think Tomlin got looked at because Art Rooney had to?
I don't pretend to know why owners/university administrators interview anybody, and I think its ignorant to make comments like this article otherwise.
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J. Michael Morris 8 months ago
In your poll you have Bronco Mendenhall as an option. Washington would be a big step down from Brigham Young and he would never take it.
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dave uranga 8 months ago
i don't think you are being fair to Sylvester. Bronco is not leaving the "Y" for Washington. I am praying for Norm Chow. He is overdue. T.W. made his mark at Stanford. Not sure unqualified speaks to him though.
For the record, I think T.W. got the Notre Dame job on merit, not affirmitive action. Washington job as well. He just did not work out. Equating T.W. with affirmitive action is pouring salt on an open wound. My opinion
dave
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Dhaval Patel 8 months ago
What Sly Croom has done at MSU is much better than what it was before, yes in terms of wins and losses the other Bulldogs are not much better, but he has instilled some character and discipline to a program that had been driven into the ground, by some other coaches.
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GatorJon 8 months ago
I wasn't aware there was "affirmative action" in college football.
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