Is it not possible, even likely, that Braun was told quite specifically that this is an interim gig and he's expected to return to the DC position in 2024, and furthermore that he's okay with it? Where is this idea coming from that Braun is going to throw a fit and leave if NU doesn't hand him the permanent job? That strikes me as awfully hubristic for someone who had 0 lifetime experience at the FBS level before this season, and someone who, to this point, has won 1 more game than he was expected to.
If Northwestern hires Braun how disappointed would you be?
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The answer to that question is 100% yes.
It is the only other certainty besides taxes.
"Look, I know we have been dating and we made out a bit and totally you are SUCH a nice guy and incredible and all, but I don't see a future....wait no....look, hang on, you are a GREAT guy okay, but, I don't know, there is this other guy....but, hey, it can all be cool...we can be totally like best friends! I will call you ALL the time you just won't be my guy any more. But you are SO great.:"
LOL, the joke is on you. You've got the analogy completely wrong. Braun isn't the new girlfriend, he is the 50 year old nanny the husband hires to take care of the children after his first wife dies unexpectedly. While she may harbor hopes of becoming the new Mrs., deep down she knows she has no shot because while she is taking care of the kids the husband is out looking for his new hot wife.
Seriously?? PWB, not one of your better efforts right there.
1) Fitz was on Walk's staff since 2001, so had five full years as an assistant in D1/Big Ten.
2) Everybody in America who's aware of college football knew that Fitz was in line to take over as head coach at NU in the not too distant future.
3) Fitz inherited a pretty solid program thanks to Walk. Braun has taken over a program that used to be pretty solid...
Of course Braun COULD be the next GB or Dan Campbell or Lance Leipold, or even Fitz before the last few years. But I don't see it, and I really have a hard time seeing him lifting NU out of the deep hole we've dug ourselves into.
I know that, and you know that, but there are some here that don't - based on some of the salaries the big hitters of the board have tossed out.
This particular husband has a long history of not landing -- or even trying to land -- a new hot wife. His pattern, historically, is much closer to "path of least resistance".
Funny about the nanny but not accurate.
I will use my radio industry as a comparison. The industry has collapsed in terms of being a "sexy" line of work because of the internet, Satelite radio (Sirius), every second person in the world having a podcast. But 20 years ago one of my mentors who liked to wax long and tall when he had some Johnny Walker in his system said the following which I think is true for coach Braun. People want to work in radio (this is 20 years ago) so they will whatever, work in the mail room or something to get a weekend slot. But once you get the weekend slot you don't want to work in the mailroom anymore. And then you get a full time gig - overnights - midnight to six - there, and you don't agree to work weekends anymore. And then you get nights and no way will you agree to overnights anymore. Then days and no way you agree to nights. Finally you start doing the morning show and then maybe even become the PD or even the General Manager and in some cases (if you are smart) you finance something and buy the joint. Once you own, you never want to work for anyone again unless you sell for a gazillion and its a few year deal until retirement.
Point being Braun now has his own parking spot (well, so I presume anyway) he probably gets some of the HC perks like the Country Club membership, he probably does not have time in the day to take all the reporters calls he gets. No way if he still gets a few more wins does he agree to plop back down to coordinator studying tapes at 3am in some dark football room. I suppose it could happen but I just don't see it. He would be insulted that his office and parking spot was given to someone else. "I should have gotten that job". Of course I could be wrong, but I feel it's head coach for him or he splits. The only way he stays, as I said before, is if there is some very well paid "Head Coach Designate" position for him under some 60 year old who you would hire just to stabilize. Holtz comes to mind, maybe a Bob Stoops type. Stoops agreed to coach in the USFL, I bet he would do a Big Ten gig for five years and hand it off. Holtz with his offensive know how (watch his tapes from the USFL, his guys scored a lot) would be cool. The Holtz idea is really a good one (five years and then a hand off).
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You're describing a situation where you're given a permanent gig and then it's taken away. Braun's situation is more like if you're working overnights, the evening host quits, and you're assigned to fill in temporarily on evenings until they find a permanent host. Yeah, they might pick you, but if they don't, are you going to quit the station entirely? Oh, and it's your first-ever gig in a big market.
Nobody at this level is going to hire Braun to be their head coach after this season. If he leaves NU, the best he can hope for is getting a coordinator job at this level. And he already has that job here, so... why quit?
Why would anyone want Fitz back at this point? Braun has shown more competence this season than Fitz had shown during the previous 2! Plus the fact he(Fitz) would probably retain Bajakian and Anderson. The guy is smug as hell and wouldn't want to be upstaged by a superior coach. Sounds harsh I know, but a HC that wants to win, would bring in top talent, not just some people he knows.
Perhaps not, but it is not unprecedented for an interim coach to stay. See Luke Fickell
Yes Fickell made the move from staff to interim HC back to staff, but that situation is hardly analogous.
1) Fickell wasn’t even originally supposed to be interim head coach for a full season; it was originally just for the first 5 games for which Tressel was suspended, the morphed into a full-season deal when Tressel resigned
2) Fickell clearly had longstanding ties to OSU; in addition to playing there, he had spent a grand total of 2 years elsewhere at that stage of his career, having GA’d at Akron
3) Fickell had been co-DC for 6 years before becoming interim coach, so he was much more “going back to his old job” rather than taking a demotion
4) Urban Meyer was hired as full time HC at OSU, making it an absolute no-brainer that Fickell would slide back down to his DC role under a HC who had won multiple national championships in the last 5 years.
Unless we hire Urban Meyer. That would be an Urban Shocker
Nothing is going to change at NU. Schill will continue to use Gragg as a human shield. No quality head coaches will want to come to NU unless they’re being hired by a new AD they’re confident will be around to support them. The best we can expect is Braun continuing as HC and having him bring in an innovative OC. Plus, no one knows where NU will be playing for the next two years, which means the home crowd of 22,000 this year will sink to about 15,000 during construction. I think we’ll be lucky to have Braun.
But if a new HC is hired, would he have the coordinator job? New HC would want to have his guy. Not saying he cannot decide that Braun is his guy, just saying that he does not have to
This is true, yeah, the new coach could dump him. Though Braun will have more leverage than an average coordinator to keep his job under a new HC since the newest recruits will be tied to him.
I'd be very happy as long as he brings in a new OC.
If I wAs Braun, I would take ANY P5 DC job, to get away from Gragg’s shit show.
The ball is in Gragg's court. iMO he has to have a HC in place by 1 December. To delay is inviting catastrophe for any hope of timely rebuilding . We don't know anything. Has a search been initiated ànd also, what is Gragg's relationship with Braun and what ,if any, promises were made to get him to become the face of the scandal mired s***t show.? Gragg pulled a rabbit from his hat by getting the new baseball coach from Michigan can he perform a similar feat for FB?
The Schill show concerns me a lot more than Gragg.
The Schill is putting people in terrible positions and then just walking away like he had nothing to do with it.
Gragg screwed up with Collins, but he is not to blame in the Fitzgerald fiasco.
I think Gragg is not to blame for the initial debacle. That is mainly on Schill. However, Gragg has done pretty much everything wrong since. He certainly fails miserably in communication both internally and externally. He deserves to go for baseball alone, but you know that. Empty suit that literally brings no value.
Who would have thought, a power 5 AD that needs to communicate.....your no value point is spot on. What does this guy bring to the table.....crickets....
I'll go back to the original post and the question to provide my answer:
No, I would not be disappointed if Braun was hired as the HC. In fact, I would be very happy, as I think we would be getting a young, promising HC who checks most of the boxes in what I would look for. (I think I posted my list on a separate thread on The Rock.)
And in terms of your premise, I disagree: I do not think that hiring Braun would show that the administration is not serious about athletics. If anything, hiring Braun would show that the administration is considering the players' perspectives - based on the team's comments throughout this season, I am fairly certain he would be their choice to be HC going forward. This would be an improvement, as far as I am concerned, in the administration's consideration of the players' needs. Especially when it comes to Gragg - he doesn't appear to care about the players at all. (As an aside, I don't think going after an established name to be our HC would indicate anything about the administration being serious about athletics.)
Whether Braun is "qualified to run a Big Ten program" is a matter of opinion. My opinion is that experience is somewhat over-valued and potential is under-valued in terms of coach hiring decisions, both at the NCAA and the pro levels. This is how someone like JON was able to have the career he had, even though he was pretty much a failure at each team. Teams get tunnel vision and only want to hire conventional candidates. I would much rather that NU think outside of the box.
The biggest knock on Braun's resume to be HC is probably the recruiting aspect, but I would argue that the facts that he retained a good number of players after Fitz's firing and has been successful so far in recruiting for the 2024 class shows that he has potential in this regard. The parents, like the players, seem to be a fan. I would argue that this projects well for the "living room conversations" that are critical in recruiting.
I think Braun's handling of press conferences is stellar. His impact on the defense has been clear. I think if he were elevated to HC, one of his priorities (in addition to recruiting) would be to fix the offense by replacing Bajakian with a young, innovative OC. Overall, I think Braun's potential and ceiling are high, so he is my front candidate for the HC job.
Having said all that, I don't think he should be hired by default. A national search should be conducted. He should be interviewed along with other candidates and given a fair chance. (Going through the proper process to find our HC would actually be what would make the administration look somewhat serious about athletics.) If a clearly superior candidate than Braun is identified, so be it. But no, I would definitely not be disappointed if he were chosen.
(I just don't have a lot of faith in the administration to make the right decision and to do it through the right process.)
The hiring of Braun neither proves or disproves that NU is serious about athletics. What they do with Gragg will be the tell tale sign regarding seriousness.
If the Cats beat the Chickenhawks and the rest of the games are competitive, I'd say that it would be difficult to find a better coaching candidate willing to come to Evanston (as they're likely looking at more high profile jobs).
It's imperative, however, for Gragg (or whoever is AD) to ask Braun what steps he will take to fix the O (and specifically, the O-line).
It's imperative, however, for Gragg (or whoever is AD) to ask Braun what steps he will take to fix the O (and specifically, the O-line).
I’m still not convinced. He’s don’t a great job, but I just don’t see enough on his resume to warrant the job. Winning a couple of close games with Fitz players doesn’t do it for me.
Can we at least agree that it beats losing a lot of blowouts with Fitz players?
Interesting that you say that when Fitz's modus operandi was to win games by a slim margin, and Braun is accomplishing that despite the talent level being at a nadir.
Despite a relatively small sample size, already can tell that Braun has a better FB IQ than Fitz and makes fewer bone-headed decisions.
Also, Braun being able to account for 1/2 of the X's and O's is a big, big plus.
Much easier to only need to hire a good (or at least competent) coordinator for one side of the ball.
IU football has been back to its usual place ever since they lost their 2 talented coordinators (both HCs now).
Even Clemson hasn't been the same ever since Dabo lost his 2 long time assistants.
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I mean… at some point doing “the job” (or at least the on-field part) is a pretty big part of earning the job.
Braun must become our next HC. Not only does he deserve it after today but for the sake of sustaining the program from here and on. My only wish is for him to bring in a capable OC. And why is Gragg still here?
Yes he was. He showed his face as soon as the game ended when he came onto the field to congratulate Braun.
I agree. I would not be upset if Braun was hired as the full time head coach. He's a born leader, humble yet respected by his players, and seems to be a fast learner. Especially if he wins 2 of the remaining 4 games, he deserves the job. And yes, please replace Bajakian and Anderson.
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