Turn the Page...

As I mentioned briefly this morning, Eastern Michigan Head Football Coach Jeff Genyk was fired this morning. I promised you more info, insight, and closure, so here you go...

Eastern Michigan has long been considered an underachieving athletic program, especially on the football field. Always a team with some good players but never able to really put it all together. Things were supposed to change when Genyk got the job in 2004. The record on the field didn't change. The stands didn't fill up. The glory of the 1987 Championship team (yes, it's been 21 seasons since a MAC Football title) didn't return. Things on the field just kind of stayed the same. However, there was one main accomplishment you can attribute to the Genyk reign in Ypsilanti. The culture of EMU Football changed. Genyk took over a program that was a joke off the field and turned it into something respectable. I could go into APR points and all that nonsense but instead I will put it into better, more understandable terms. Genyk took over a drug team with a football problem and turned it into something the university could be proud of off the field. Instead of recruiting thugs from junior colleges, Genyk and his staff recruited good kids who could play football and wouldn't embarrass the program off the field. They've done such a good job of this that I can go through the entire roster and not find a true bad kid in the bunch and you have to credit the man for that. Not only did he recruit good kids but he recruited great support. He organized the Eastern Gridiron Group (an idea stolen from his days at Northwestern, a great idea) that features well to do alumni and their friends who did a great job of raising money for the program, something that just didn't happen before at Eastern. To say that Jeff Genyk left the program better than it was when he got here would be a gigantic understatement. It's because of that, that you can call his reign at Eastern a success.

There's your obituary. Now to turn the page...

Where do we go from here? Well, now we have to bring in another stand up guy who can translate a group of "good kids" into a successful football team. Former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr has been called on to be an unpaid adviser to Eastern for the hiring process so I would have to say that the next head coach at Eastern will have some Washtenaw county ties. By that I mean it's gonna be someone who coached at or against Michigan and knows Coach Carr.

One name that comes to mind is Louisville Defensive Coordinator Ron English. If I am making the hire, I go after English with everything I have. The only problem is, who would leave a big time program like Louisville who plays in front of 50,000 fans a game in the Big East on ESPN every other week, for a program like Eastern that routinely plays in front of about 5,000 on a GREAT day (we play Central on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and I'm expecting MAYBE 500 people to be there) and sometimes accidentally finds themselves on TV. I'm hoping that Ron English would like to be a head coach and would take a pay cut (probably, I can't back that up) and take on the task of turning this program into something that people would actually like to come and watch. English is for sure my first choice but I'm not on the hiring committee.

Another name of course would be Grand Valley State Head Coach Chuck Martin. Martin reportedly really wanted the Northern Illinois job last year after Joe Novak retired from his post but obviously didn't get it. This of course means that Martin wants to move up and move on from his horribly successful GVSU team, which will probably win ANOTHER National Championship in a couple of weeks. Martin inherited a great team after Brian Kelly left for Central and was getting a serious look from the CMU administration when Kelly bolted for Cincy a couple of years ago. Martin would be a good choice because he has been a defensive coordinator and is now in charge of the high octane offensive attack at GVSU, so he's called the plays on both sides of the ball with great success. I don't know about his ability to turn a struggling program around, because he hasn't really had to. However, his championship pedigree alone would be enough for me.

With English being the longshot but best choice, I would also consider taking a long look at Ball State offensive coordinator Stan Parrish who himself has been a successful head coach in the past after reviving the Marshall program a few years after the tragedy. And if you look at Ball State and what they've done on offense for the past couple years, you would see that he knows what he's doing and knows how to turn a program around. Ball State was a laughing stock not four years ago, now they're the toast of the MAC and undefeated this season. Parrish would be a good choice.

There are people on the internets (namely the mlive.com forum, which I read but never post on) who have been clamoring for the hiring of Wayne State Head Coach Paul Winters. Although I really appreciate what he's done at Wayne State, I can't help but think he would be the wrong hire for this situation. He's won the GLIAC coach of the year 2 out of the past 3 seasons and was a running backs coach and offensive coordinator at Akron from 1994-2003. He's taken a dead program at Wayne State and turned them into a very competitive team in arguably the best D II conference in America so he knows how to rebuild. I can't put my finger on it, but I just don't see him as being the answer at EMU.

Fred Jackson, the running backs coach at Michigan has been with Carr for years and since Coach Carr is an advisor to this process, you would have to think that Coach Jackson would at least get a look. Jackson is known for being an outstanding recruiter but I can't tell you if being a great recruiter translates into being a great head coach.

Tyrone Willingham...yeah right, not gonna happen.

One last sleeper pick I have to bring up would have to be Jay Paterno. Yes, THAT Paterno. Jay has to know that when the legend that is his father Joe Paterno retires, he's not going to get the Penn State job. He's been mentioned on a few rumor sites as being interested in the Toledo job so why not just kind of re-route him 50 miles or so north to Ypsilanti? Why would he fit here? I don't know, in fact he might not fit at all but with a name like Paterno...he's gotta know something about the game? I mean, even the Bowden boys took over struggling programs and turned them around, maybe Paterno could do the same thing. I highly doubt he even looks once at EMU but still, you never know.

I've heard from sources near the program that this is going to be a quick search and that the EMU athletic department, teamed with Coach Carr, has a short list of candidates already. I of course will keep everyone updated as much as I can.

It's a sad day, but it's also a good day. The Genyk chapter is over, it's time to turn the page to the next one.

By the way...Central Michigan comes to Ypsilanti on Friday at noon. Tickets are free. In fact, I don't even think there's gonna be people at the gates. Bring your booze and wear warm clothes.