Congratulations to Buffalo

[silverscreenselect]

Buffalo knocked off previously unbeaten Ball State 42-24 to win the MAC championship last night.

Buffalo had won the second fewest games of any Division I team (next to Duke) over the previous nine seasons in which they had been a Division I school, but managed to cap off their first Bowl season with a huge upset.

Ironically, this marks the 50th anniversary of what would have been Buffalo's first bowl season. In 1958, Buffalo's team went 9-1 and won the Lambert Cup, given to the best Eastern small college (what is essentially Division I-AA today). They were invited to play in the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando against Florida State. However, the Orlando high schools (who owned the rights to the Tangerine Bowl stadium) had a policy which prohibited integrated teams from playing there and Buffalo was told its black players would be ineligible for the game. The team turned down the invitation rather than play without its three black players.

This season doesn't make up for what happened to those players then, but at least it's a start. Buffalo's current head coach, Turner Gill, the former Nebraska star, is one of only three remaining black I-A head coaches (three others were either fired or resigned during this last season).

[Weyoun]

A lot of Auburn people are high on Gill. I just hope our idiotic administration gives him a shot.

[ne1410s]

weyoun:

A lot of Auburn people are high on Gill. I just hope our idiotic administration gives him a shot.

I always admired Gill as a player(even though he did play for the Cornshuckers) and as a person.

[Appa23]

A lot of Auburn people are high on Gill. I just hope our idiotic administration gives him a shot.

I would hope that Gill would not even think about taking the Auburn job. Way too much much pressure to win-at-all-costs and too much external meddling, from a view outside of the program.

The fact that Auburn fired Tuberville after one bad season, after years of good-to-great seasons, including one undefeated season where the Tigers very well may have been the best team, should cause several good coaches to not pursue the job.

I have heard scuttlebutt that Mike Leach might be interested, which is why he decided not to pursue the Washington job any more.

[Weyoun]

A lot of Auburn people are high on Gill. I just hope our idiotic administration gives him a shot.

I would hope that Gill would not even think about taking the Auburn job. Way too much much pressure to win-at-all-costs and too much external meddling, from a view outside of the program.

The fact that Auburn fired Tuberville after one bad season, after years of good-to-great seasons, including one undefeated season where the Tigers very well may have been the best team, should cause several good coaches to not pursue the job.

I have heard scuttlebutt that Mike Leach might be interested, which is why he decided not to pursue the Washington job any more.

Tuberville's heart was no longer in the job. Since the undefeated season, our wins in conferences have gone down every year. Recruting has dried up, and at press conferences he seemed listless. The outlook next year looks even worse. He has had personal issues off the field that have contributed to this, unfortunately, but he's also paid $3 million a year to work around those issues, or at least delegate to people more responsible than the ones on his staff.

Behind the scenes, Tuberville was asked to let go of several members of the offensive staff (a staff that just implemented one of the worst offenses in the country, if not the worse.) He refused, in part because he is a very loyal guy. But some of that staff really needed to go, as some of that staff helped to sabotage the work of the OC hired in the off-season. That pretty much derailed any chance that the team had. And frankly, given that the kids involved busted their butts out there, that whole sage struck me as a pretty damned selfish, for all the coaches involved.

So, no, I don't have any problem with Tuberville being let go, and I don't think it reflects "winning at all costs." He had ten good years, but it was time for a change.