Coaching Carousel Craziness & FSU Remains Very Silly

Good morning and welcome to 4th & Forever, Rand & Tate’s College Football Newsletter. One of the biggest moments in the history of the sport happened last week with Nick Saban’s retirement, and we’ve already seen some significant ripple effects in the aftermath of the news. So without further ado, let’s get to it!

Alabama Gets Their Guy

In the wake of Nick Saban’s retirement last Wednesday evening, Athletic Director Greg Byrne promised a quick search, and within 72 hours, he delivered by hiring a coach who was in the National Championship game just one week ago in Washington’s Kalen DeBoer. While it seems like Alabama may have struck out on its first couple of choices in Oregon’s Dan Lanning and Texas’ Steve Sarkisian, there are far worse options than DeBoer, who has an all time record as a head coach of 104-12. We aren’t very good at match, but we think that’s pretty damn good. DeBoer is thought of amongst coaches as somewhat of an offensive genius, and the numbers back that up - he has scored points at an insane rate literally everywhere he has been - and he’ll be bringing his offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, who Alabama tried to hire last year, with him. To put it simply, we don’t think Alabama will have any problem with scoring points under DeBoer.

But there are still questions about DeBoer’s fit in Tuscaloosa. 4th & Forever’s official stance is that some sort of a lack of regional or cultural “fit” as a negative for a coach is far overblown - I mean, Nick Saban was hired from Michigan State by LSU and won a national championship in his third year - but it is true that DeBoer has never coached south of the state of Illinois. The expectations that Saban has set in Tuscaloosa are not just related to winning football games. The expectation is that Alabama will win recruiting battles year after year, and will always have one of the most talented rosters in the sport. Not only will DeBoer have to create relationships with high school coaches and players in a region of the country that he is completely unfamiliar with, but he’ll need to find a way to balance a coaching staff with guys he has worked with and believes in, with guys he’s never worked with and doesn’t know but have experience recruiting in the SEC. DeBoer has also never spent more than two seasons at a school since he left Southern Illinois in 2013. With all of the success he has had, we have not yet seen DeBoer build and sustain success for a long period of time at any program, let alone a program that will expect as much as Alabama will. DeBoer already lost a key battle to Georgia, losing DB coach Travaris Robinson, one of the sport’s best recruiters, to the Dawgs. Freshman All American safety Caleb Downs may be headed out the door this week as well, after top receiver Isaiah Bond and starting tight end Amari Niblack hit the portal over the weekend.

DeBoer did make a big hire for that defensive coordinator opening, snagging South Alabama head coach Kane Wommack, arguably Tate’s favorite coach in college football, to fill the role. For all of those recruiting reasons we discussed, hiring a great defensive mind who has spent years coaching in the state of Alabama seems like it could be a massive pull for this program. Wommack has seen tremendous success leading a young South Alabama program in the very tough Sun Belt, he is young and is known to connect well with players, and has plenty of SEC experience having played at Arkansas and coached at Ole Miss. We love this move.

Our overall read is that this is a good hire for Alabama, but it will take a lot of work for the level of success that Nick Saban turned into expectations, to be sustained. It’s unfair to expect anything close to Saban’s six national titles, but the expectation will be that Alabama remains at the top of the SEC, is essentially always in the 12-team playoff, recruits at a top-3 level every year, and wins national championships. That’s hard for anybody to do, but DeBoer has won literally everywhere he’s been and will have the Alabama offense, at the very least, rockin’ and rollin’. It goes without saying, but we are very intrigued to see how this works out.

Washington’s Whirlwind

On the Washington end, man… what a tough week. The National Championship game last Monday couldn’t have gone much worse as Michigan cruised to a pretty easy victory, and then Husky nation started experiencing a mass exodus in more ways than one. Heisman runner up Michael Penix Jr., receivers Rome Odunze, Ja’Lynn Polk, and Jalen McMillan, running back Dillon Johnson and defender Bralen Trice have all declared for the NFL draft, and then DeBoer left for Alabama. Yeesh. Even Will Rogers, who transferred to Washington exactly one month ago and was expected to take over at QB next year, re-entered the portal once DeBoer bolted for TTown. Washington is not exactly a program that’s set up to sustain this amount of losses, so things might be rough in the Huskies’ first year in the Big Ten.

But Washington has already made their next hire, and it’s one we really like. Jedd Fisch was announced as the next UDub head coach over the weekend, and considering the incredible turnaround he’s pulled at Arizona over the past few seasons, Washington may not be in such a bad place. Fisch has an insane resume, having worked all over the country and all over the NFL with some of the NFL’s top coaches, and he even had Arizona in some people’s way-too-early top 10 lists for 2024, which is truly remarkable. It’ll be interesting to see if Fisch can bring over some of the talent he amassed in Tucson via the portal, primarily freshman phenom QB Noah Fifita, who seemed primed to be a Heisman candidate next season. Either way, we’re pretty sure that the hire of Jedd Fisch will keep Washington from completely falling apart. It was a truly rough week for the UDub faithful, but all is not yet lost.

Ugh, Florida State Again

At this rate, we might have to include a weekly Florida State section in this newsletter to abut the Wake Forest & Georgia sections. The problem is we actually enjoy writing about WFU & UGA and can assure you the FSU content is not on purpose. Florida State refuses to stay out of the news cycle like the girl who won homecoming queen in high school and won’t let you forget it at every reunion. We get it Sarah, you peaked 30 years ago and need self assurance that we still admire and think about you. The ‘Sarah’ you know in your life is no different than Florida State. 

Last week, Florida State came into the NCAA’s crosshairs for recruiting violations which resulted in OC Alex Atkins being suspended for the first three games of next year. Atkins facilitated a meeting between a transfer portal prospect (Georgia OL Amarius Mims) and the NIL collective Rising Spear. As a reminder, there’s a big fat gray area in which collectives operate since they are not allowed to be directly associated with a school. It’ll be interesting to see if the NCAA has more schools on their radar because what FSU did is happening everywhere. If not and FSU was wrong place wrong time and simply got an example made out of them, we’re still going to point and laugh. FSU might get the last laugh though because in addition to bringing in QB DJU from Clemson/Oregon State, they’ve raided Alabama’s locker room by bringing in five Bama transfers since Saban left. More importantly though, they locked down head coach Mike Norvell to a contract extension that’ll be for at least $10 million annually. Norvell was widely considered one of Bama’s targets to replace Saban. Norvell is now one of the highest paid coaches in the country which is incredibly ironic considering FSU is currently suing the ACC to get out of the Grant of Rights. The basic idea behind the lawsuit is FSU isn’t making as much money as SEC & Big 10 schools because of the ACC’s TV contract with ESPN (true) and the financial disparity will significantly hamper FSU’s ability to compete on the field (so far, false). Earth to the hypocrites in Tallahassee, your coach did not leave for Tuscaloosa, Alabama players are transferring in droves to FSU, and you just paid your coach the same amount of money Nick Saban was getting. What’s the issue again? It’s been three days since FSU’s been in the news cycle so tune in Thursday to find out how they make themselves the main character this week.

Quick Hitters

There are now two FBS head coaching vacancies at Arizona and South Alabama. On social media, Arizona players are lobbying for DC Johnny Nansen to get the job but the smart money is on San Jose State head coach and Zona alum Brent Brennan. Brennan was passed over in favor of Jedd Fisch the last time this job was open. Regardless of who the next coach is, their first and most important priority will be convincing freshman phenom QB Noah Fifita to stick around or else the Arizona program could go from Big 12 favorite to bottom feeder next year. South Al on the other hand knew they couldn’t hold on to Wommack forever but the timing is tough for the Jaguars. Wommack was a young coordinator and his blueprint is replicable in Mobile. Go throw the bag at former Bama OC Tommy Rees who is currently looking for a job. 

It’s been 78 days since it was announced Iowa’s offense coordinator and nepo baby Brian Ferentz would not be returning. Do you know what has not happened since Halloween? A replacement named. It’s mid January, the transfer portal window opened & closed, national early signing day passed, national signing day is a few weeks away and spring ball closely follows. We’re not college football coaches but we think it might be a good idea to have a freaking offense coordinator in place for those seemingly important events. Maybe coach Kirk is too busy caucusing for himself or watching Caitlin Clark, but his dictatorial rule over the Iowa football program should be investigated for gross negligence. 

In the transfer portal world, the biggest news of the new year so far is Miami successfully out-recruiting the NFL Draft to land Washington State transfer QB Cam Ward. Ward announced on January 1st he’d be entering the draft, but it appears Miami was able to come up with a sweet-enough NIL deal to keep Ward in college for one more season. This is a massive get for Miami, who was starting to look desperate for a QB, the most glaring hole on the team. Miami has the most talented returning roster in the ACC next season and will now have the best QB in the league as well. It may be silly to expect too much of a Miami team in the year 2024, but this roster is primed for a big season. Huge for the Canes.

How about the Tulane Green Wave? After two remarkable seasons led to head coach Willie Fritz moving to a bigger job at Houston, Tulane made one of our favorite hires of the offseason by landing Troy’s Jon Sumrall, one of the sport’s best young coaches, and Tulane is now making a huge splash in the transfer portal. Tulane already landed Ty Thompson, a former blue chip recruit who backed up Bo Nix at Oregon for the past couple of seasons, and they’re now giving him some incredible weapons to throw to. The Wave landed Shazz Preston, a former 5-star receiver who was at Alabama but had not played much, and late Monday night they snagged Mario Williams, another 5-star receiver from USC who has already had some success in his career so far. It was only natural to expect a step back once Fritz left, but Tulane is making some big time moves to stay ahead of the curve in the AAC. We love to see it.

In what should be surprising to no one, we are obligated to report Jim Harbaugh interviewed with the Los Angeles Chargers earlier this week. Harbaugh has been at Michigan since 2015 but it’s long been expected he’d eventually make it back to the NFL. He’s openly hunted for NFL opportunities after both of the past two seasons, and it now seems more likely than ever that an NFL team will bite. Harbaugh is a unique and frankly kinda weird guy that not everybody loves working with, but getting Michigan to the mountaintop is just another feather in the hat, further proof that as odd as he may be, he’s one of the best coaches in the game of football. We wouldn’t be shocked if he returned to Michigan next season, but we’d be surprised. We expect to see a Jim Harbaugh/Justin Herbert pairing in the very near future.

In August of last year, Ohio State AD Gene Smith announced he’d be retiring this coming summer. The Ohio State AD position is one of the most prominent, powerful, and important chairs in the nation and his successor will likely get to make a decision on Ryan Day’s future if Ohio State continues to underperform by not beating Michigan and finishing the season 11-2. Oh, the humanity! Reports surfaced yesterday that the Buckeyes are targeting current Texas A&M AD Ross Bjork. Bjork thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room at all times when in reality he’s the dumbass who hired, extended, and then fired Jimbo Fisher for a paltry fee of $76 million. If Bjork gets the job and fires Day, he will swing for the fences with the hire and try to win the press conference instead of doing the smart thing and hiring Mike Vrabel or promoting OC Brian Hartline.

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

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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.