OT: And many on here wanted UTEP to hire this coach?
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Article says they’re 5-0 and have outscored their opponents 233-85 this year. So yeah, I wish he were coaching here instead of Dimel.
Skip was made for mid majors and no doubt in my mind would have put UTEP on greener pastures. What he has done at La Tech is amazing. La Tech has the lowest budget in CUSA, located out in the middle of fum buck Egypt do not even have the facilities as compared to most mid majors let alone UTEP, but yet they contend for the division almost every year. .
NumbStull should have hired Willie Fritz instead of Kugler. He was very interested and actually applied.
I agree, but I remember fans wanted terrible Kugler as if he was some kind of football genius. Since he played for Coach stull on the 88 team some treated it like the greatest hire in school history. On top of that since he was one of Stull's old players it may have made it the obvious choice to him
Wow, I don't remember that. At least not on these boards. I remember when they hired him it was like "Where the hell did this hire come from?". People immediately screamed nepotism hire.
I personally want every crappy coach we get to succeed. But it was pretty obvious the first game he coached that Kugler was out of his element. The game was a mess and he wasn't doing any coaching. The announcers kept saying Kugler believes in letting the coordinators do the coaching and Kugler manages the coordinators like in the NFL. I had immediate heartburn after I heard that.
Willie fritz was the lone finalist with Kugler. Sam played for the FCS championship that year. The game I believe was on January 7th. Fritz wouldnt go though the final interview until after the championship game. That was a deal breaker for Stull who wanted the new coach to hit the ground for recruiting. I think Kugler was the favorite to get the job anyway but we'll never know.
Hiring a UTEP alumnus isn't nepotism. I was hopeful he would turn out like Pat Fitzgerald for Northwestern, an ex-player who is fiercely loyal to the program. He (Fitz) was being groomed to be the future coach, but he was forced into the role way sooner than expected with coach Randy Walker's untimely death (for those of you who remember, Randy Walker's last game was the 2005 Sun Bowl), so Fitz was, I seem to remember, either the youngest or second-youngest head coach in the country when he took the job. But he grew into the position.
I never saw any growth in grumpy, stubborn Kugler. I really wanted that hire to work out, because if you have a good coach who loves the program and isn't flirting with other jobs, it's great. But Kugler was not a good coach. I did like that Kugler turned around our graduation rates; that's a good accomplishment and is the main reason I wanted to give him a chance, but that 2017 team was so bad.
I’m not even surprised. That given the option between a coach that has won 140 games and made two straight ncaa championships or a position coach that has never been a coordinator, we would go with the latter choice.
With decision makers like that in charge we fully deserve to be the worst program in the nation.
With decision makers like that in charge we fully deserve to be the worst program in the nation.
Alot of people thought Kugler was going to be a clone of another big 10 coach Kirk Ferentz. Kirk was a career offensive line coach before he got the head job at Iowa to replace a legend Hayden Fry.
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That sounds like a fairy tale story. That’s good that you’ll had a happy ending.
Even if Kugler had been successful I don’t think he would have remained faithful to the university. He probably runs off with the first P5 job offer.
KROD's Steve K. deserves a lot of the blame for Sean Kugler. I'm a frequent listener to his show and I remember he was actively lobbying for Kugler on his show.
Most of us were, most were not. I was for his hire. When he got the gig the media and UTEP were blasting Charlie Bailey quotes all over I started getting a funny cringe feeling. Showers and Jones made his offense palatable and he did make a bowl in year two. Year three and four were his undoing and the other part injuries (but many injuries brought in from "live fire" fall camp).
Imagine hiring Kugler instead of Fritz. 20/20 but f*ck us!
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