ASU Sun Devils Seek Herm Edwards Replacement but Is It a Good Job?

Speaker 1: [00:00:12] So one of the bigger stories out of college football is another coach's fired, gone. He was on the hot seat for years and I think it was mostly because he built up such expectations for a program that really shouldn't have much expectations. Arizona State. Arizona State is open position right now on college football. Herm Edwards, former NFL head coach. Herm Edwards is gone. What were your thoughts on the decision to let Edwards go? Do you think it was the right call for them? [00:00:36][24.0]
Speaker 2: [00:00:37] Yeah, it was definitely the right call. There was a scenario they were going to terminate his contract with Coors back in 2002 or early 2022 because of an NCAA investigation into Herm Edwards, where during the COVID dead period of quarantines, he was inviting recruits to Arizona State. And basically, just like saying, to hell with the NCAA rules, and there wasn't going to be a decision on that until next year. So it wasn't like something that went on on any. [00:01:06][29.4]
Speaker 1: [00:01:06] No, COVID doesn't exist in Phenix. [00:01:08][1.5]
Speaker 2: [00:01:09] I guess so. It's just Herm Edwards had a bit of a like cowboy. I mean, first of all, the NCAA, no one should respect the NCAA rules. And at the same time, like, there are certain like rules that you got to at least know and not execute by that standard, because otherwise it's just total anarchy and that's okay and nil, but it's not okay with like breaking public health guidelines. But like so Herm Edwards might have been fired with cause in a year anyways, but based on onfield performance, Arizona State with that hanging over and it affecting transfer portal and recruiting it was it was time and then when you lose to eastern Michigan and they're flying the Mac flag all over the field, which someone pointed out that they bring that to every game in case the Mac wins, which means just in case someone brought it to Toledo versus Ohio State. But flying the Mac flag on Arizona State was kind of the ending point for Herm Edwards. [00:02:01][51.9]
Speaker 1: [00:02:02] I mean, we talked about it in our Lakers breakdown that we thought the Lakers were finessing people with HD. I think, you know, Herm in his tenure in Arizona was him finessing the tire world to college football and making them think that the Sun Devils, we're going to become a respectable team in college football. It's eight and 585. A couple of years is a bad for Arizona State, right? I mean, okay, let's look at the history of Arizona State. So best finish ever. Undefeated season 1975 12 and a long time ago, 1975. I wasn't even a thought. That was 19 years before I even came to this planet. Okay. Yeah. [00:02:41][39.0]
Speaker 2: [00:02:42] And by the way, just as a side note, they named the field after the coach of that team, just as a heads up, like I think he ended up going to coach the Baltimore Colts after that. But they named the field after the guy who coached that 12, another team. [00:02:53][11.4]
Speaker 1: [00:02:54] But it's been a long time since they've been at that level. Right. Okay. Well, you come back. Okay, 20 years later, 1996, they're 11 and one PAC ten at that time, not PAC 12, PAC ten champions. They lose in a Rose Bowl. Good season 8.0 in conference you know OC 1996 at least I was two years old at that time. Jake Paul gets oh we're starting getting into existence right you have a couple of successful 1970 seasons before the 1975 season, recent history. So again in some recent history, 2014, 2013, a couple of ten, ten seasons mixed in their 2007, they have a ten win season, a couple of bowl wins, Sun Bowl, Peach Bowl. That's all good stuff, right? You know, but okay. So we're saying the peak the peak of them in the modern era is a ten win team. Okay, that would be respectable, but that would be something in return. Fell short by that standard eight and five is your best finish as a head coach and a program that has some latency potential to win ten games on any given year. That is a failure. And what we would consider to the constant merry go round of the PAC 12, right? We always joke about how the PAC 12 cannibalizes each other. There is an opportunity there, right? There is an opportunity for you if you are a successful head coach, because what do we consider a successful head coach in college football? Someone that is a great personality that can recruit? Shouldn't that be a guy that has NFL equity? Should that be a guy like Herm Edwards? You know, even you know, we remember even though this is an old press conference, we all remember you play to win the game. It's still something, you know, that we all remember Herm Edwards from. And if I'm recruit I still might know about that, even though that may have been before I was even born. We're talking about this new age of recruits that come in. And you still kind of know about Herm Edwards. [00:04:42][108.4]
Speaker 2: [00:04:42] Also one of the Herm Edwards. One of Herm Edwards. Interesting strategies. And I really like this part of her. Edwards in his development as he went to TV, the thing he emphasized is, was never going to cussed at players and was never going to yell at players. He was never going to berate players. This was his like, we're going to change coaching because we are going to be in a working relationship with these. [00:05:04][21.4]
Speaker 1: [00:05:04] That's kind of a dangerous, kind of dangerous environment. How that Arizona State man, I mean, come on, it's one of the top party colleges in the U.S. Someone has to hold those kids accountable. I don't know their candidate. I think. [00:05:15][10.6]
Speaker 2: [00:05:15] His argument is that as a. [00:05:16][0.8]
Speaker 1: [00:05:16] Kid. [00:05:16][0.0]
Speaker 2: [00:05:17] Get his argument is there can be accountability without yelling at people and berating them and treating them like crap. And that it's. [00:05:23][6.0]
Speaker 1: [00:05:23] It's a tough thing is sometimes you do need a yell. So I wonder if he kind of worked in a little bit of that. Let's be honest. If you're in a war room of an NFL locker room or a college locker room, sometimes you got to yell. Sometimes you have to be the loudest person in a room. I don't know. Did his players respect him? Do they enjoy their time at Arizona State? Were they giving him the true effort, the best effort they could, or was he just falling short on recruiting? [00:05:47][24.7]
Speaker 2: [00:05:48] Here's the best way I can describe what Arizona State is, and this is all I know. Some people aren't listening to it like some people don't know college football that well. So let's throw a sport that some people may also not know. Baseball is the American League East. You have the Yankees, Boston, Tampa, Baltimore and Toronto in the PAC. 12 South U.S. is your is your Red Sox, UCLA is your Yankees, and then everyone else kind of. Colorado doesn't exist. Colorado's just terrible. But they're going to finish last place every year we just don't acknowledge Colorado but with. [00:06:22][34.1]
Speaker 1: [00:06:23] My man Joel at. [00:06:24][1.0]
Speaker 2: [00:06:25] Yeah. But have you seen Colorado this year? Have you seen Colorado the last decade? [00:06:29][3.8]
Speaker 1: [00:06:30] Joel. Joel knows. Joel knows. But still, you know, the voice of college football and. Yeah. [00:06:35][5.0]
Speaker 2: [00:06:35] And so basically the best way I can describe it is that the Arizona State Sun Devils should have the expectation of the Toronto Blue Jays, which is, you know what, you're under-resourced, you have money, but you don't have as much money as USC and UCLA. You can be able to compete with them every now and again. It might take years to build the program back up. You might rotate coaches. If your coach does well enough, he might leave to take another job. Or sometimes you hire assholes like Todd Graham, like that's sometimes the rotating panel. But you should be competitive every now and again. You can beat UCLA, you can beat you. I mean, UCLA's like the Yankees because they just misuse resources all over the place. But you should be able to compete with those guys, especially given how terrible the last. [00:07:19][43.9]
Speaker 1: [00:07:20] Time, right? Okay. Yeah, because the last five years. Right. Though Herms tenure in the PAC 12, there has been a dominant school. I mean, you know, Oregon. Sure. But Oregon still, we talked about the lack of a PAC 12 team in the college football playoffs that kind of tells you there has been a dominant school. So there's an opportunity for you if you're doing your job as a head coach to jump up the rankings. Jump up the rankings. Just at least one season there have won ten one season. If Herm had won ten win season, they might he might still be there. You know, it might be something that he kind of cling to. He could say, okay, I'm sending guys to the NFL. I have Brandon, are you Guy a RINO? Benjamin I had to kill Harry. I know Nicole had returned to her bus, but you're still sending guys to the NFL. You know, first round pick. That's something that help hook them horns. We have we didn't do that last year. You know, Herm sending guys to the NFL draft. See, that's another thing that you got radar on his head coach, right? It's not just wins. Are you sending guys to the NFL? How are your star ratings? Are you like, you know, those are all things that are kind of like baked into like being a successful coach in college football and. Herm I think maybe in the recruiting, I think obviously the winning part just fell short. And I think for Arizona State, how patient should you be? It is five years is fine, right? Five years. [00:08:35][75.3]
Speaker 2: [00:08:35] This season. Yeah. If five years and you're headed for a cliff in year five because Utah was going to be better than them. USC all of a sudden. Good. Now, of course, because USC decided to just start spending Boston Red Sox money again and basically just copy and paste Oklahoma. Obviously, UCLA is better now. They're not great, but they're better and Arizona is still bad. But, you know, Arizona might beat Arizona State this year because Arizona State was headed for a nosedive this year in year five. So that's the reason he got fired, was not just like you had to. I think they finished second in the PAC 12 South twice in four years. But this year they were going to finish either fourth or fifth, so they were headed for the nosedive at the end of whatever the peak of Herm Edwards was. And so they're going to hire whoever the next coaches again. Jamey Chadwell always available. Go get them. Coastal Carolina, Ronnie Sandusky. [00:09:26][50.6]
Speaker 1: [00:09:27] BYU. Come on. I mean, he's done a good job of there, right? [00:09:30][2.8]
Speaker 2: [00:09:31] He's done a great job. It's just that BYU is also headed to the Big 12 and it might be might be a difficult conversation to pry him away. I mean, if you want to go for it, go for it. Like, I'm not going to say people shouldn't hire Deion Sanders. You should absolutely give Deion Sanders interviews. I'm not saying you shouldn't absolutely bring in Deion Sanders. [00:09:50][19.2]
Speaker 1: [00:09:50] Now, obviously, I don't think the term is anywhere close to Deion Sanders in terms of name recognition, but I think that was kind of the hope when he hired her. Right. He's a name he should be able to get on TV. Yeah, he should be able to attract people just because he's a name. You know, that's why the argument, you know, and obviously his name besmirch nowadays. But that's what the reason people said even Jon Gruden would have been a successful college coach because guy on TV right. And you know that sometimes that just helps. You know you get your foot in the door, you get there in front of mom, dad, the player, you talk to them, you could sell them on your program. And they're like, Hey, there was that guy I saw Monday Night Football. Sometimes that's enough. And I guess, you know, Arm didn't really take advantage of that opportunity, you know? So now it opens the door for some next coach to step in. And I don't know what the expectation is going to be because expectation at Arizona State, I know that they were good in 1975. They're never going to have that again. That that's not going to be something that we're going to see from Arizona State again. I think that they're best case scenario, like you said, is just to be kind of like good but never great. And I think that's fine for the Sun Devils. [00:10:50][59.7]
Speaker 2: [00:10:51] Yeah, the game is changing now, though, because USC and UCLA are leaving. So now the PAC 12, they're in that group, which is the shell of the PAC 12 and whatever PAC 12, Big 12 Alliance might happen. We don't know what's going to happen there. But like Arizona State's kind of just in the shell of whatever's left of the PAC 12. And so that'll make it easier to compete because they don't have to. Imagine if, like the Yankees traded places with like the Miami Marlins in the baseball divisions and all of a sudden the whole construct of the elites changes. But I think that it's going to be fine for Arizona State and Auburn's going to fire their coach. Nebraska's job is is already open like those are better jobs than Arizona State. It's just that Arizona State's going to pick from whatever the next group is. And maybe it's Jamey Chadwell, maybe it's an assistant coach at Alabama, maybe it's a assistant coach even at somewhere like Baylor, like what Texas Tech did last year. Like maybe it's a job like that. Maybe it's one of those Mountain West coaches, although I think most of the Good Mountain West coaches have already been taken, like Fresno State's coach just went to Washington. So there's not not a lot of great options available there. But like it, higher. [00:11:58][66.8]
Speaker 1: [00:11:58] School is going to get here. He's available here. He's taking calls. [00:12:01][2.8]
Speaker 2: [00:12:02] You know who they should hire is Matt Rhule. They should hire Matt Rhule as their coach. [00:12:05][3.3]
Speaker 1: [00:12:06] All these. Great. Okay, you know what? With it, he's not make it to this year North Carolina. I know I was high on the Panthers early on, but that's I changed my tune a little bit after seeing them play football games. Matt Real I think he's going to be on the coaching hotseat moving forward in eight straight losses, but be available pretty soon to start filling those calls. He might be able to take him in pretty soon here. If you're Arizona State, like it. He's obviously rebuilt college programs before. You're the Sun Devils. I think that's the answer. You have to go. I think he could get you ten wins. But anyway, guys, I think wait in the comment section, who do you think should be the next head coach of the Arizona State Sun Devils? Do you think they gave her a fair shot? Are you surprised by the decision? Anything and all things Sun Devils, tropical. In the comment section we were like on this video, subscribe to the channel. Follow us on social media at Juju Talk Sports by Kyle Ledbetter and his various social media platforms. We have all below in the YouTube bio. Stay safe, happy and healthy. We'll see our next one. She? [00:12:06][0.0]
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