forums

Official The OC Candidates Thread 2.0

Status
Not open for further replies.
TheOriginalCane said:
It's sad that so much Gattis information was (basically) available, but was missed. Another aspect that Alonzo is good at and can help with.

I'd never claim to know all that much about FIU football, but when you hear about Mario trying to hire Guidry at FIU right before Mario got fired, it makes all of the pieces of the puzzle come together quickly. Mario (at least in his mind) had vetted Guidry over 10 years ago, so I can understand the connection.

I know Mario has vetted (on-field, not off-field) several OC candidates, and it's time to move forward.
Click to expand...
Move foward??....C'mon man...this is beyond ridiculous already.
 
Advertisement
MPCane17 said:
Welllllll……. Lol
Click to expand...

im-sorry-do-i-know-you.gif
 
Advertisement
Do we know the hold up is candle or is this all message board gossip crap? I find it very hard to believe Mario is just sitting by the phone waiting for candle to call .
 
AUcane said:
This is what's maddening about the Gattis hire. The guy's toxicity was known in coaching circles. How or why it was ignored by Mario boggles the mind. But, if Mario's exhaustive vetting process was as thorough as we believe it, I start to question the purpose of it in the first place and the fact that Mario being the sole decider of a coordinator is not the best idea. Thankfully, I think this is where Alonzo can help. I don't believe Alonzo was in place before the Gattis hire, though.
Click to expand...
My understanding on how we got to Gattis, which I was told in about April-May, was we waited out Dorsey's decision to be sure he was getting an NFL gig out of respect. We had Candle in our back pocket (who wanted to stay through signing day out of respect for Toledo anyway) and then he got cold feet slightly before the Dorsey situation played out fully. There was 1 other candidate we were going to pivot to if/when Dorsey got an NFL job, which I don't know who it was for sure.. but 75% sure it was Liam Coen (who left for the rams in mid-February anyway).

But as all of this was playing out, so was the Harbaugh and NFL situation when it looked like he was going to leave. That situation rubbed Gattis the wrong way in itself, plus as they were planning Harbaugh's successor, just in case, because Michigan was in the dark, he learned of his standing within the program and that he wasn't next in line and really wasn't highly thought of internally. He reached out to Mario and basically said if it's gonna happen it has to be ASAP and Michigan can't know - I think that is what got him through the door without Mario having a chance to uncover it.

Won't say Mario panicked and hired him but he saw the accolades and jumped the gun without vetting him as he does with others
 
JayCane20 said:
My understanding on how we got to Gattis, which I was told in about April-May, was we waited out Dorsey's decision to be sure he was getting an NFL gig out of respect. We had Candle in our back pocket (who wanted to stay through signing day out of respect for Toledo anyway) and then he got cold feet slightly before the Dorsey situation played out fully. There was 1 other candidate we were going to pivot to if/when Dorsey got an NFL job, which I don't know who it was for sure.. but 75% sure it was Liam Coen (who left for the rams in mid-February anyway).

But as all of this was playing out, so was the Harbaugh and NFL situation when it looked like he was going to leave. That situation rubbed Gattis the wrong way in itself, plus as they were planning Harbaugh's successor, just in case, because Michigan was in the dark, he learned of his standing within the program and that he wasn't next in line and really wasn't highly thought of internally. He reached out to Mario and basically said if it's gonna happen it has to be ASAP and Michigan can't know - I think that is what got him through the door without Mario having a chance to uncover it.

Won't say Mario panicked and hired him but he saw the accolades and jumped the gun without vetting him as he does with others
Click to expand...
Well then he panicked...I'll say it for you...Lol
 
Advertisement
AUcane said:
This is what's maddening about the Gattis hire. The guy's toxicity was known in coaching circles. How or why it was ignored by Mario boggles the mind. But, if Mario's exhaustive vetting process was as thorough as we believe it, I start to question the purpose of it in the first place and the fact that Mario being the sole decider of a coordinator is not the best idea. Thankfully, I think this is where Alonzo can help. I don't believe Alonzo was in place before the Gattis hire, though.
Click to expand...


Couple of things.

I don't think it was ignored by Mario. I think it wasn't known. Mario tends to trust his own impressions/instinct more than anyone else's. I don't think he sought out any kind of "personality-based" input on Gattis, and I think he values his own impressions based on interviews/conversations, etc. For comparative purposes, I have asked a number of people close to UM's program why Mario was so surprised by the way the returning players bailed on what he was asking from them. And I think it's simple, when a guy is very convincing in a one-on-one conversation with Mario, he tends to believe that the person will do what the person is promising.

I think that Mario projects that other people will treat challenges and opportunities as he does. But as we saw, there were a bunch of soft returning players that didn't do what they told Mario they would do, and I think it's not a huge leap to comprehend that Gattis spun a load of bullcrap about what happened at other jobs, and Mario was convinced. Clearly, that kind of "failing upwards" with a good interview has worked for Gattis more than once.

As for Mario's "exhaustive vetting process", I've said this before, whether people have picked up on it or not. Mario's long interviews have focused on the on-field stuff (schemes), the "ability to teach your system to players", and a stated commitment to recruit like a demon. WHETHER THE CANDIDATE ACTUALLY BELIEVES ALL THAT, or is just saying what the interviewer wants to hear, is a different subject. When it comes to things like "getting along well with others" and "doing what you actually promise to do", I think that Mario is the functional equivalent of Major Applewhite at Houston, and Mario's job candidates are the functional equivalent of D'Onofrio's horrible letter promising to do great things at Houston. Saying you want to be great and doing what it takes to be great are two different things.

And that's where Mario needs to have "evaluating job candidates" taken out of his portfolio. I've talked about Alonzo doing that part of the job, not because I just have an opinion, but based on very specific traits that Alonzo has that Mario does not have.

I still think that Mario can succeed. But if he has proven nothing else, he has definitely shown that he can IDENTIFY TALENT in coaches, but that he also has a terribly insular and paranoid approach to conducting interviews with coaching candidates and making decisions on said coaching candidates.
 
Last edited:
At work thinking today and felt u know what, after what happened with Gattis and others i can understand why Cristobal is being really taking time with this. If he hires another dud, he is not gonna get the leeway he got with this season. This one has to stick. He did well with the DC, this one is more important. It cant be about fluff, it has to show up on the field. I just be on twitter hoping for the announcement, kinda certain im not getting any info here as to where its heading.
 
Advertisement
SWFLHurricane said:
Well then he panicked...I'll say it for you...Lol
Click to expand...
I've been told it wasn't a panicked move. He just fvcked up. He was trying to move in silence and thought it was right. He also saw it as an opportunity to get Frank Ponce in as QB coach, which he was excited about. Jumped the gun because it looked like the stars aligned.

I won't say panicked because he still had Coen and that lead was warm and ready to go. Obviously wouldn't have worked out the second McVay brought him back we probably ended back on Gattis anyway.
 
Advertisement
HurricanePhilly said:
And he was thorough before this...and now is even more gun shy to not let it happen again. He knows this hire could slow the whole process of putting this program back on track
Click to expand...
Makes a lot of sense tbh. But it’s been roughly three months since it was known Gattis wasn’t coming back. Vetting should be done by now.
 
It would seem tough for Mario to have vetted Gattis without word getting out that Gattis was looking around. That isn't keeping it secret from Michigan. Maybe the moral of the story is to vet and if we can't vet then don't hire the guy.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Advertisement
Back
Top