Just Keep Spinning, Just Keep Spinning

Good morning and welcome to 4th & Forever, Rand & Tate’s College Football Newsletter. We’re a mere 193 days away from the next football game kicking off in Dublin, Ireland when Florida State plays Georgia Tech and no we aren’t counting the USFXL/AAF or whatever the hell The Rock calls his semi-pro football league these days. Pitchers & catchers report this week (Go Cubs & Braves) while the college baseball season starts on Friday which will hopefully keep Rand from going through a lack of college football-induced seasonal depression if Wake lives up to their preseason #1 ranking. In this edition we’re talking about the eternally spinning coaching carousel, UCLA’s accounting department, and discuss whether Wake basketball can break a 27-year-old streak. Spoiler: probably not! So without further ado, let’s get to it!

Coaching Carousel: Round 5 Million

Just like Will Ferrell in Elf when he’s stuck in the revolving doors, the coaching carousel refuses to stop spinning. Who knew that the Packers defensive coordinator position would lead to coaching changes in Westwood, Columbus, and Chestnut Hill? As we discussed last week, Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley decided freezing his ass off in Green Bay would be better than Boston as the Packers hired him to be the DC. In turn, Boston College hired Bill O’Brien to be their new head coach. O’Brien spent last season as the Patriots' OC but after Mac Jones set the game of football back 50 years, Belichick and the staff were canned. Ohio State hired O’Brien just last month to be their new OC after Ryan Day decided to relinquish playcalling duties. Smart move by Day because it’s mindboggling the best wide receiver college football has seen since Calvin Johnson went 0-fer against Michigan. 

O’Brien is a polarizing figure because of his NFL tenure. Remember when the Texans took a 24-0 lead on the Chiefs in the 2020 playoffs only to squander it in less than a quarter and lose 51-31? Yeah, Billy O was the coach. Before that, he was Penn State’s head coach after the NCAA handed down their penalties resulting from the Sandusky scandal. Those penalties are considered the harshest in NCAA history since SMU was given the death penalty in 1987. Hamstrung with a four-year postseason ban and loss of 40 scholarships over four years, O’Brien led the Nittany Lions to an 8-4 record and rightfully earned the Big 10 and National Coach of the Year award in 2012. After his Texans stint, O’Brien joined Saban’s coaching rehabilitation program and was Bama’s OC for the Bryce Young years. Boston College is a really hard place to win but the Boston native should be able to inject some life into a program that desperately needs it. Occasional bowl games will cut it with the fans and boosters, but expectations might be irrationally raised now that the ACC is division-less and the Eagles don’t have to play Clemson and Florida State every year. We’re legally obligated to also mention Halfey never beat Wake Forest and they’re 1-4 against the Deacs since 2017.

The Buckeyes moved quickly to replace O’Brien and landed on UCLA head coach Chip Kelly. Yes, a sitting head coach at a Power 5 school left to become a coordinator in his own conference. To our knowledge, this is the first move of its kind and shows the gap between these two programs. Like Arizona, UCLA’s athletic department is in financial hell and they can’t blame an accounting error or COVID. In 2019 they lost $19 million and it’s only gone up since then. Last year they posted a $36.6 million deficit which pales in comparison to the $62.5 million in 2021. Do they teach finance classes out west or do these ADs just smoke weed and skateboard? Off the field, UCLA is a nightmare and it wasn’t much better on the field. Chip was decent during his tenure in Westwood going 35-34 in six years, but he has and always will be held to the impossibly high standard of his Oregon days. UCLA couldn’t afford his $8 million buyout to fire him at the end of this year but lucky for them Ohio State owes the school $1.5 million for hiring him. As of writing, UCLA has not chosen their next coach but it might be decided by the time you read this. Former Stanford head coach David Shaw is a rumored frontrunner, but we’re interested to see if they can go snag D’Anton Lynn who was UCLA’s defensive coordinator last year before he left for…USC. Jedd Fisch would’ve been a perfect hire for the Bruins and likely would’ve taken it but he’s already got his new gig in Seattle replacing DeBoer.

O’Brien wasn’t the only newly hired OC who decided to take another job before unpacking at his previous one. Last week, Bama’s new and now former OC Ryan Grubb decided to stay in Seattle and become the new Seahawks OC. Grubb came to Bama from Washington with Kalen DeBoer and is considered a rising star in the industry. We wrote about these rumors two weeks ago and the timing here is interesting. Per NCAA rules, if a head coach leaves, players on that team have 30 days to enter the transfer portal and can sign elsewhere. That’s why DB Caleb Down$ and QB Julian $ayin are playing in Columbu$ next year. It’s also why Alabama, and now UCLA, moved so quickly on their head coaching hires so the new guy can try to retain as much of the current roster as possible. Anyways, Nick Saban retired on January 10th. 30 days after would be February 9th which is not coincidentally the day Grubb accepted the Seahawks job and the transfer window closed for Bama players. Next time someone complains that players are afforded too much freedom and power with NIL and/or the transfer portal, please direct them to the nearest inanimate object so they can voice their opinions adequately. 

Quick Hitters

Speaking of Nick Saban, if you thought that Type A maniac would go sit at his lakehouse and smoke cigars for the next 20 years never to be heard from again, you’ve got him all wrong. Saban will be front and center on the ESPN College GameDay desk next year and likely as long as he wants to after that. In the past when ESPN broadcasted the Coaches Film Room during the National Championship, the few times Saban was on it, he was insightful, humorous, and gifted. It’ll be interesting to see him picking SEC games and his analysis of each team, including Alabama, but with McAfee’s contract up in the air and Corso’s reign - god bless him but please hang it up - coming to an end, we’re interested to see if he immediately gets thrust into a very prominent role on the show. 

I, Rand, am an eternal pessimist because it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy and there’s not a team that I embody that mentality more than in Wake basketball. We are by no means ‘back’ and I don’t think we will be until we win at least one NCAA tournament game and the First Four does not count. However, the past week and a half for the Deacs have been a hell of a lot of fun. Last weekend they beat Syracuse by 29 and then followed that up with another 29-point drubbing of Georgia Tech in Atlanta. I was honored to be able to personally witness the Yellow Jackets have 5 points and shoot 4% from the field with 4 minutes to go in the first half. In Raleigh last month, the Deacs blew a second half lead, Wolfpack G DJ Horne flipped a double bird to the refs, and an officiating fiasco at the end marked another brutal road collapse for the Deacs. We got our revenge on Saturday in the Joel, where we haven’t lost all year, but now need to figure out how to win on the road against quality teams. Tonight, the Deacs head to Cameron and play Duke before going to Charlottesville on Saturday afternoon. Quick pop quiz: who are the only two players in ACC history to have perfect 4-0 records in Cameron Indoor? 

The answer is Tim Duncan & Tyler Hansborough. Alright, another pop quiz: when was the last time Wake won in Cameron Indoor? That’d be January 11, 1997, or roughly one month before I was on planet Earth. The Deacs have two prime opportunities to solidify their spot in the NCAA Tournament instead of perpetually being on the bubble, but this is Wake Forest basketball we’re talking about after all. Regardless, Go Deacs. 

Hope you have a great day and we will talk to you again soon.

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Rand Fisher & Tate Smillie met a few years ago through their good buddy Dave Peljovich who went to college with Rand and high school with Tate. Tate went to Georgia and has spent the last two years collecting championship rings while traveling to watch the Dawgs. Rand went to known CFB powerhouse Wake Forest and currently pays rent in Atlanta but is rarely found there with all the work & CFB travel he does.