Diaco just finished his third season. As firings go, this was considered pretty quick.
I was thinking ND would try to get Moorhead. I think Moorhead would prefer a P5 school and ultimately wants to be somewhere with a high profile. I think his stay at Penn State is a stepping stone much like that of Bill O'Brien when he left the Patriots to coach Penn State for two years before getting the Texans job.
I think P5 schools looking to make a splash are taking bigger risks in relative newcomers/rising stars because they can pay them less than someone fully established at another program, you scoop them before someone else does and deal with them leaving later down the road (better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all), they can't do any worse than what you already have, and there's usually some positive press/buzz generated by hiring such a guy which can only help. Can it get any worse for ND at this point? There have been some controversial things that have happened under Brian Kelly's watch that combined with this season's record would make firing easy, and ND being a football first school is ripe for such a reactionary personnel change because they're ND and they can. I thought this during the season watching ND's season go down the drain. Of course given that ND had a bunch of close losses, perhaps that eases the sting (if I were a fan it wouldn't), but maybe they aren't as desperate to turn it around as I assume the AD would be. I always assumed Penn State was a temporary stop for Moorhead, and it was merely a question of which P5 job he would take and when. I've read on some of the Penn State boards (unsubstantiated) that Moorhead used the team's trip to West Lafayette to interview for the Purdue job, so the guy was already itching (or at the very least open to consideration) to move on after just half a season. I think he knows he's good, just has to bide his time, and will have his pick of jobs and the money to go with it as they will no doubt open up after bowl season.
the next coach ? rumor is Randy is back
I would be OK with him as an assistant but not as head coach. He has a low ceiling. Ending the season with a 8-4 record and going to the Poinsettia Bowl or the Independence Bowl year after year isn't what fans want from their football team.
Maybe, but this is UCONN. We aren't ever going to contend for a NC - football programs don't just come up out of nowhere. Show me a program with as small a stadium in as small a market who's consistently done better than 8-4 and the Poinsettia bowl...
He did, then he gave his players, the ones that got him his "dream job", a figurative finger when he left town without telling them why. He couldn't fly home with the team and explain that he was leaving. No, he flew right to Maryland from the Fiesta Bowl. It was a crappy way to treat the team.
