With so many keyboard warriors who know so much about running an athletic department, why do we even need an AD?

Just let the keyboard warriors handle it since the job is so easy…

TexAgs23 said:

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dcg4403 said:

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I sure hope this assessment of the strategy is correct.

Seems to be he is running in a zig zag.

If I am an AD, I am very good at contengency planning and being ahead of the curve. Clearly this is not our AD. He is far more reactionary and this puts us at a disadvantage. Plain and simple.

Throwing everything at a single HC candidate is STUPID from any business perspective. Nice serial approach to doing things. NOT.

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Do people really still say, "NOT"?

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gdubinsotex said:

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EVERYONE knew Buzz was leaving. Trev should have had this lined up. It sure looks like he got caught unprepared

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Everyone knew Buzz WANTED to leave. That's not the same thing.

gdubinsotex said:

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EVERYONE knew Buzz was leaving. Trev should have had this lined up. It sure looks like he got caught unprepared

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Not really, everyone THOUGHT he was leaving. So explain to me how Trev is supposed to have hired a replacement when there was a chance Buzz doesn't leave.

It's funny, the number of people on this site that constantly complain about Jimbo's contract and then Buzz's contract want Trev to make any deal possible as fast as possible to meet some deadline set in their heads.

We sure like jumping from one frying pan to another.

BQ_90 said:

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gdubinsotex said:

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EVERYONE knew Buzz was leaving. Trev should have had this lined up. It sure looks like he got caught unprepared

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Not really, everyone THOUGHT he was leaving. So explain to me how Trev is supposed to have hired a replacement when there was a chance Buzz doesn't leave.

It's funny, the number of people on this site that constantly complain about Jimbo's contract and then Buzz's contract want Trev to make any deal possible as fast as possible to meet some deadline set in their heads.

We sure like jumping from one frying pan to another.

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He isn't supposed to have hired a replacement, but he is supposed to have a living list of appropriate candidates who might be willing to consider the job. For all we know, he had such a list and is working through it. That the first couple didn't work, doesn't mean he isn't doing his job well.

then again, maybe he was caught flat footed and that is why it is taking so long. Whatever, none of the keyboard jockeys on Texags know the real situation.

I was thinking about this last night. we always hear when a coach "turns us down," but i wonder how often the AD decides after sitting down for an interview/meeting they decide so move a different direction.

NyAggie said:

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TjgtAg08 said:

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NyAggie said:

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Why can Maryland have a guy lined up when they know their coach is leaving but we can't do the same?

We should have had someone lined up already in case beard said no

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Because the guy they got Buzz Williams. If you want us to have Porter Moser ready to go, we can, but nobody wants that.

Maryland didn't get a big name. They got a guy who wanted to move and has a crazy amount of question marks.

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True, but buzz is better than moser

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Yes, I'd much rather have Buzz than Moser (although its probably not as wide of a gap as we would make it), but they are kind of the same "level" of coach. Thats the level of coach in the situation they are in that you can get in 48 hours ... we could have a Porter Moser or Buzz Williams type guy hired tomorrow if we wanted to, but we don't.

Sounds like we went first after the big fish, and now we are looking for that up-and-coming guy who might pop big but is risky. Honestly, I'd rather go that direction than a guy like Moser or Jans or Forbes or even Lutz. Lets at least be creative and show we are trying to move the program forward.

I don't think it's fair to lump Lutz in with Jans/Moser/Forbes. Those are coaches with multi-year high-major track records.

I think Lutz is in a category by himself really compared to everyone else we're talking about.

bobinator said:

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I don't think it's fair to lump Lutz in with Jans/Moser/Forbes. Those are coaches with multi-year high-major track records.

I think Lutz is in a category by himself really compared to everyone else we're talking about.

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Thats fair, and thats true. And I'll admit I know nothing about OSU's season this year other than they were picked 14th in the Big 12 and that about where they finished. Feels like if Lutz is the guy, it should have been last year, or it should be in another year or 2 to see if he can actually have success at the high level, because they were not good this year at all.

They had a nice win against Iowa State at home, but didn't win a single road game in conference. If he was somehow the guy, I think I'd have as many questions as to why as I would about Moser/Forbes ... different questions, but just as many.

But to be fair to Lutz, Todd Golden finished sub-.500 in his first year at Florida and its worked out pretty dang well, but I'm not sure I would have been jazzed about hiring Golden from Florida at that time as well.

I think the question on Lutz is whether we like him more than the other options to such a degree that we're willing to spend the extra money. You're talking a huge difference in up front costs of pulling the acting coach from Oklahoma State in the first year of a contract versus taking a coach from High Point or Samford.

I think he's a better option, but if all of these guys are risky picks anyway, how much more loaded do the dice need to be for it to be worth an extra $5M or whatever.

I have a feeling we're on a budget with this coaching hire. Just a hunch...I have no insider information. But if we do end up paying more than we originally intended to pay, it could cause ripple effects to other A&M coaches.

Earley might get another year or two because we don't want to pay the $1.8MM buyout at the end of this season.

Maybe that's how Joni Taylor and Coach G kept their jobs...too expensive to fire them.

Plus, Pat Henry isn't going to coach track forever...he is much closer to the end of his career than the beginning.

And...as always...we have no idea how Coach Elko is going to pan out. Maybe great, maybe not...too early to tell.

Oh...and we're about to get a new system chancellor and the university president position seems to be a constant revolving door these days.

Regardless, there are a lot of things in play here. It's not as easy as just calling up a dude, backing up a Brinks truck, and getting him to come to College Station. I don't envy the job Albers has to do and the waters he has to navigate in the years to come. If he can herd a bunch of dysfunctional cats, he may go down in history as the best AD ever in all of college sports history.

Luke The Drifter said:

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I have a feeling we're on a budget with this coaching hire. Just a hunch...I have no insider information. But if we do end up paying more than we originally intended to pay, it could cause ripple effects to other A&M coaches.

Earley might get another year or two because we don't want to pay the $1.8MM buyout at the end of this season.

Maybe that's how Joni Taylor and Coach G kept their jobs...too expensive to fire them.

Plus, Pat Henry isn't going to coach track forever...he is much closer to the end of his career than the beginning.

And...as always...we have no idea how Coach Elko is going to pan out. Maybe great, maybe not...too early to tell.

Oh...and we're about to get a new system chancellor and the university president position seems to be a constant revolving door these days.

Regardless, there are a lot of things in play here. It's not as easy as just calling up a dude, backing up a Brinks truck, and getting him to come to College Station. I don't envy the job Albers has to do and the waters he has to navigate in the years to come. If he can herd a bunch of dysfunctional cats, he may go down in history as the best AD ever in all of college sports history.

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We may be a bit tight on money but if Earley wins less than 10 in conference and doesn't even make a regional I can't imagine he's back over a $1.8 mil buyout. There are enough big money Ags behind the baseball program that they won't put us in that hole.

Unfortunately I don't know much about BMA's basketball involvement but basketball is a revenue producer, so its an investment. We can't afford to go cheap. Trev knows this and I can't imagine paying less than $4 mil or so - like we were paying Buzz for this hire. Unless its an up and comer we are sold on and we can get for less.

if that was the case Beard never would have been in the discussion.

Maybe Trev is actually doing a search instead of panicking and throwing stupid money at another coach just to meet the fans timeline.

Good thread. I actually think most on this thread are hovering around the same core conclusions just coming at them in different ways.

As of right now, we have a program that is devoid of a direction. I think that was the case even with Buzz, TBH. I think the size of the school, location being in the south (Texas) and the money backing all athletics up is enticing for this new group of NIL kids. Things are still shaking out right now, so its still in flux. But we can, and will at times, pay up. However, the biggest misnomer we have as an AD (group not Trev) is that we actually think we can money whip ourselves to success. We are nouveau riche, throwing around money like the Beverly Hillbillies. Look no further than the last 10 years over at Kyle.

That said, we can't just throw money at the basketball problem. I actually do think we are a bit of a wasteland in basketball. We don't have history, we have not had 'that' moment, and it get harder in this NIL era. It's ironic that we actually HAVE money, but we either can't, won't use it on basketball. So the search for coaches is constrained to these factors:

1. Big names, with souring reputations (Beard, Mack) Yes, the alumni ponied up (allegedly) for Beard. My big fear is that these same alumni that offered $70m for Beard only did so to thumb up their nose at Texas. I suspect they wouldn't do it for Pitino/Cal/others. I don't know that, but it seems reasonable based on history. But in the end, these guys are likely better off in their current gigs. No reason to think that Beard will be less successful in Oxford. Mack was interesting, bc I have to believe we 'could' have been an upgrade.

2. Stellar mid majors we ultimately will probably hire one of these, but if you think about it, this isn't the best place for these guys. The biggest reason is that we only support you AFTER you have proven yourself and won. We don't travel well (for any sports ironically), we don't attend games at Reed early and often, we don't take the facility seriously and we are not big payers in NIL (of course until the kid gets good and wants to leave). If you are a relatively no name mid major guy, you have to know that the infrastructure is there to support you coming into that position and being successful. It takes a true unicorn to take this on and say he will do it grass roots.

The infrastructure is what is wrong with this situation. I mean honestly I am not sure what a prospective coach is coming to BCS to do during the interview process. They tour Reed, eat with Trev (and WendyB presumably) and talk money. They might even talk to some other coaches on campus, but not sure that is really helping. If we seriously wanted to compete for a top tier guy and wanted to win big time in basketball (or other sports), we would tell coaches to come here to let us put on the proposal. That proposal would be 1. Tour Reed and show either plans for that upgrade starting immediately or a new arena (preferably in the middle of campus), 2. An outside marketing firm pitching their local and regional strategy to filling up the arena, getting jerseys purchased, the in-game experience, 3. Top of the line NIL packaging (preferably with lifetime incentives for winning championships, something different than just pay up front), getting kids on advertisers around town and Houston, Austin, Dallas/Ft. Worth, San Antonio to feature these kids), 4. Purchase/Build the head coach's home (seriously). It's a timely task, but should be part of the experience. House, Country Club memberships at Miramar, Traditions and maybe one in Houston and Dallas), 5. Plan to get students believing in and connected to the coach. Don't expect the coach to build those relationships. Give him the plan of action for him and his players. Change the seating in Reed to accommodate students and get them closer and push all chips in on getting attendance to be sellouts from the start of the coaching tenure, not when the results are in. In other words, think much, much bigger. Actually provide the plan FOR the coach, rather than asking the coach for the plan.

All that said, I think the search as currently architected is not that bad if we have talked with Beard, Mack, maybe McCasland. We are now moving to option #2. Remains to be seen how successful we will be.

Yeah I think it's more about just being smart with the money. If you know you're getting a proven commodity, then going big makes sense. Beard is a proven commodity.

But once those are out the window, then it's about investment versus risk and upside.

I also kinda think that after Buzz and BK we're at the point where we'd rather just go nuts and see what happens. Like it feels like we're in a spot where we either want this thing to be a rocket ship to Mars or to blow up on the launchpad so we can start over.

That's not the case with our football and baseball programs, but I think it is for basketball right now.

I'm pretty skeptical of Trev Alberts. Given this situation, I think we need an Athletic CEO, not a former football AD. I just don't think our ADs think near big enough to awaken the tiger. It sounds stupid, but I would consider hiring someone like Jeff Luhnow to be our next AD. Someone that has truly managed a large scale organization, not just the coaches. I'd also consider hiring someone with significant sports agency and legal experience to manage our NIL. I think we run around throwing $100s at kids and not wrapping this up in a true contractual package. We have the money ironically to be very different than others out there, but we are stuck in the traditional ways of winning. We need a visionary.

He's had one coaching search here in an extremely bizarre situation.

Can we at least let this one play all the way out before we decide the guy sucks?

Since Byrne our AD's have the shelf life of a NFL RB. We need some stability if at all possible.

Thanks OP. I texted Trev, he's been trying to figure it out but wasn't sure what to do next.

bobinator said:

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I also think people have to realize that timing is different for us than it was for some other programs.

Like CDC probably never wanted to hire Rodney Terry to start with and has more or less had Sean Miller in his back pocket for three years. They knew they were going to fire him two months ago probably, and probably has the agents and whoever working out the details.

By contrast, we did not know for sure that Buzz was leaving. We knew he was going to try, but he still had to find someone to take him. So we don't even know for sure that our job is going to come open, so we can't be negotiating the details with potential coaches. We can put out feelers, which is apparently exactly what we did, and that's why we thought we might have a chance at Beard and had to run that down.

So in our case, we could have had some kind of grand vision for what our ideal coaching search looks like, but we couldn't put it into action until the first domino fell, which was Buzz actually leaving.

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The last paragraph is literally what our AD does. He can absolutely get a plan started early considering communication with Buzz had been zero for multiple days. The schloss thing, yep I get it. He left and Trev had to try to keep the talent here. With this, he should have seen this coming and if he didn't, he's completely inept.

Luke The Drifter said:

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Also - whether you want to admit it or not - coaches aren't clamoring and beating down our door to come here. Despite our success over the past 20-ish years, A&M is still looked upon as a basketball wasteland. We are not a destination job. At A&M, one of two things will happen. One, you stink it up and you get fired. Or two, you do really well and get hired away by a bigger, better program. We have 100+ years of history and data to back this up...those are the only two options. Call it loser's mentality or whatever. I call it truth.

Also, do not expect us to get a coach from a major program to come here. History shows we'll get our coaches who have had a little success at some mid-major or non-power school and hope they pan out here.

Kermit Davis - Idaho
Tony Barone - Creighton...this was well before Creighton was what they are today
Melvin Watkins - UNC-Charlotte
Billy Gillispie - UTEP
Mark Turgeon - Wichita State
Billy Kennedy - Murray State
Buzz Williams - Virginia Tech

So to honestly think we'll poach someone from Ole Miss, Texas Tech, or other big money school is...quite frankly...ridiculous.

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All of this.

I don't know why many of you couldn't wait for Buzz to leave. It's going to be a setback for us. Welcome to the party.

But what indication is there at all that he didn't see this coming? He still had to wait for it to actually happen, which was event outside of his control.

bobinator said:

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He's had one coaching search here in an extremely bizarre situation.

Can we at least let this one play all the way out before we decide the guy sucks?

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Yep. Y'all need to get a grip.

Charlie Murphy said:

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Not a Trev defender by any means but this board clamored for Beard and by all reports, Trev tried to bring him. Its now been two days since he said no, not sure why we are badgering Trev for not doing his job.

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So rumor is Beard contacted us prior to Buzz leaving, hence once the offer was made we thought it was a done deal.

TjgtAg08 said:

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NyAggie said:

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TjgtAg08 said:

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NyAggie said:

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Why can Maryland have a guy lined up when they know their coach is leaving but we can't do the same?

We should have had someone lined up already in case beard said no

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Because the guy they got Buzz Williams. If you want us to have Porter Moser ready to go, we can, but nobody wants that.

Maryland didn't get a big name. They got a guy who wanted to move and has a crazy amount of question marks.

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True, but buzz is better than moser

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Yes, I'd much rather have Buzz than Moser (although its probably not as wide of a gap as we would make it), but they are kind of the same "level" of coach. Thats the level of coach in the situation they are in that you can get in 48 hours ... we could have a Porter Moser or Buzz Williams type guy hired tomorrow if we wanted to, but we don't.

Sounds like we went first after the big fish, and now we are looking for that up-and-coming guy who might pop big but is risky. Honestly, I'd rather go that direction than a guy like Moser or Jans or Forbes or even Lutz. Lets at least be creative and show we are trying to move the program forward.

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Completely agree

bobinator said:

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I think the question on Lutz is whether we like him more than the other options to such a degree that we're willing to spend the extra money. You're talking a huge difference in up front costs of pulling the acting coach from Oklahoma State in the first year of a contract versus taking a coach from High Point or Samford.

I think he's a better option, but if all of these guys are risky picks anyway, how much more loaded do the dice need to be for it to be worth an extra $5M or whatever.

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Billy said he doesnt think we go in the lutz direction because he has like a 7 million dollar buyout

GO GET A COACH
don't look desperate
THROW MONEY AT HIM
don't over spend
GET A WINNER
make sure he's a cultural match
HURRY
don't rush

Maybe he thinks Huss and Lutz suck as options… and he's trying not to leave behind a bad legacy here at A&M. Not sure why yall love those 2 guys so much.

bobinator said:

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gdubinsotex said:

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EVERYONE knew Buzz was leaving. Trev should have had this lined up. It sure looks like he got caught unprepared

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Everyone knew Buzz WANTED to leave. That's not the same thing.

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Ok, that seems picky but I will concede your point. My point is, whether Trev knew he was leaving or just suspected it, he should have been prepared and he should be moving with some urgency. He took another big shot on a coach that he couldn't close and now maybe he's gonna hire a nobody by Tuesday. The Trev era has sucked so far.

Certainly, but my point is that A&M needs an AD that does more than hire coaches and make sure the football team is locked in. We need a professional sports GM, IMO, to get our entire AD out of neutral.

bobinator said:

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He's had one coaching search here in an extremely bizarre situation.

Can we at least let this one play all the way out before we decide the guy sucks?

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Can we not suck and see that things are handled well? Nope.

If his plan was Beard, and all indications he could gather were that Beard was going to accept, then how much more planning could he have done?

Spot on… Sadly you probably do better than our AD.