From down in Florida

Media23

Two items of interest from the sunshine state that we thought we would wrap together in a quick entry.

(1) Check out this Twitter from FSU’s Tomahawk Nation about Chuck Amato.

FSU telling recruits that Chuck Amato will be fired after this season. Great news. He’s by far the worst coach on the ‘Noles staff.

WOW! That is particularly timely in light of the fantastic conversation about the Chested One that LRM’s recent entry has driven. If you want to talk about CTC+NCSt then please keep your comments in the other entry. If you want to talk about CTC+FSU then this is the place to do it.

(2) I hope that you have noticed that we have tried to stay above the Erin Andrews fray in recent weeks…but it is getting harder and harder after her 911 call.

  • Deadspin has their take and transcript here.
  • DeepSouthSports has the YouTube of the call and a more critical take here.

But, there is a lot more to all of this..and, as usual, Dr. Saturday had all of the background and commentary that you could want in this entry last week.

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23 Responses to From down in Florida

  1. BJD95 07/31/2009 at 5:54 PM #

    If what Tomahawk Nation says/tweets is true, then I suspect that also means that Papa Bowden is a retirin’. Talk about a career trainwreck for Chuckles.

  2. Wufpacker 07/31/2009 at 7:15 PM #

    BJD, assuming you are correct, I wonder if the NCAA’s decision to vacate those wins (which if it stands will make it impossible for Bowden to overtake JoePa in all time wins) has anything to do with a decision to go ahead and retire after this season.

    EDIT-just to add that someone should remind Erin Andrews that 911 tapes and transcripts are public domain. Right or wrong, the profanity and the comment about Britney Spears is going to show her in a negative light. I don’t blame her for being upset about the whole thing, but folks aren’t going to care…just look at the author’s comments on deepsouthsports.net

  3. Clarksa 07/31/2009 at 7:19 PM #

    I have a hard time believing that if they were going to fire a coach, any coach, that A) they would tell recruits about it, B) let that coach recruit for them, and C) let him coach all season. It just doesn’t make sense.

  5. VaWolf82 07/31/2009 at 7:38 PM #

    Does everyone remember that on Jan 2011, Jimbo will either be the FSU head coach or $5M richer?

    This Tomahawk Nation article from Jan seems to fit well with this entry:

    http://www.tomahawknation.com/2009/1/22/731851/the-bobby-bowden-contract

  6. Wufpacker 07/31/2009 at 8:25 PM #

    Clarksa, initially I thought that you had a pretty good point about telling recruits about an impending coach’s firing, as well as allowing that coach to continue to recruit and coach. After reading the article linked above by VaWolf, though, I don’t think “normal” expectations or not “making sense” is much of a reason not to believe it.

    The sheer dysfunction of Bowden and his relationship with the other coaches, and even the athletic dept. as a whole, sounds staggering and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Amato is deeply involved in the dysfunction and on the “chopping block” so to speak (if not for Bowden still technically being in charge, that is).

    No matter what you think of his current abilities, however, its going to be a real shame if Bowden ends up being essentially forced out at FSU. I for one hope he doesn’t make it necessary for them to do that to him, but if he does you really can’t blame anyone but him.

  7. Wufpacker 07/31/2009 at 8:27 PM #

    ^^VaWolf, the article didn’t say…do you happen to know if this agreement with Jimbo is more of a “handshake deal” or is it actually a signed contract.

  8. VaWolf82 07/31/2009 at 8:33 PM #

    Google around….it’s been widely reported as a signed contract, including MSM outlets.

    http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=3865923

  9. Clarksa 07/31/2009 at 11:11 PM #

    Ok…so if there are two “camps” within the coaching staff…I can see it happening…

    It seems like the Tomahawk website writes with a bit of a slant towards helping BB out the door…careful what you wish for.

  10. Wufpacker 08/01/2009 at 6:20 AM #

    A wee bit off topic, but something I can’t seem to let go of. I have to again point out the almost unreal truth that now, as of this posting, 23 of you have chosen “JOSE!” in the poll. I don’t mind telling you, this is really messing with my mind. It was bad enough when it was 10, but at least then I could tell myself it was 10 jokesters trying to be funny. But now, at 23, there have to be at least a few of you that have made this choice because you really believe in it.

    Please, Please, I want to hear your reasoning and rationale for your pick.

    Sorry for the off topic post (perhaps polls should have their own threads?) but I can only claim temporary insanity…its driving me crazy thinking that 23 folks are picking Mr. Laureano as the NCSU QB of the 90’s.

    Some people are trolling and they’ve landed at least one….or they’re idiots. In either case, just ignore them.
    VaWolf82

  11. GAWolf 08/01/2009 at 6:39 AM #

    Wufpacker: Those votes are clearly the act of jokers. This is just another example of why we can’t have nice things. But since I had blacked the “Laureano-Era” out of my memory completely prior to that poll, I do chuckle with every new vote for him.

    Of course there’s at least a rumor that one of the Terry’s pitched a game for NC State still drunk from the night before. Legend has it that one of the first pitches hit the backstop… Ricky-Vaughn-style.

  12. Wufpacker 08/01/2009 at 6:49 AM #

    Juuuuuuust a bit outside…

    I do remember Terry Jordan (in ’92 IIRC) taking Carolina down nearly single-handedly on something like 23/25 passing.

  13. LRM 08/01/2009 at 10:54 AM #

    The thing to remember about most head football coaches — college, NFL, even high school — is that they’re all uber-intense, Type-A egomaniacs, and they’re usually class-A pricks, too. When they’re winners — like Bowden was for two decades, or Nick Saban is now — their fans overlook their personality traits. But when they start losing — like Chuck back in 2004 or Bowden the past few years (“losing”) — we lose our tolerance for them.

    As for the poll, I saw it as an opportunity for a good laugh — I didn’t realize it was serious (the timing was impeccable because my buddy had quite literally just emailed me to ask why Jose wasn’t in my 90s write-up). If you want serious votes in a poll, don’t make clowns like Laureano one of the choices, since no one that knows anything about State football would ever argue he was one of the best QBs of the 90s. Would you have a poll for this decade and include Burke? (What’s next, a poll for best 90s basketball coach that includes Herb and Les?)

    I jest.

  14. Scooter 08/01/2009 at 12:07 PM #

    I’m not sure where to post this and it is not sports-related, but this article is definitely NCSU related and I think this blog might have commentary of some sort — http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1629948.html

  15. tvp1 08/01/2009 at 5:20 PM #

    You can take it to the bank that CTC will be cleaning out his desk the moment that Jimbo is in charge at FSU. This is no big secret to those in the know about FSU football (and I do have a pretty good source for this).

  16. Wufpacker 08/01/2009 at 8:17 PM #

    Hypothetical…

    The ’03 Wolfpack football campaign, after a 9-0 start, does not derail and ends up 14-0 (or at worst 13-1) including a BCS bowl win, a conference title, and a top 10 final ranking.

    Then, the ’04 edition gets a successful final drive to beat OSU at the shoe. At the end of the season, the OT game against FSU goes our way, and the finale against UMd goes our way. Another conference title, another BCS bowl, and a 10-2 final record with a final ranking in the top 15 or so.

    Does Amato successfully parlay these successes to success on the recruiting trail and bring enough talent (including a viable replacement at QB) to Raleigh to keep the train rolling indefinitely? Or does this only delay the inevitable by a few years?

    Discuss…

  17. LRM 08/01/2009 at 11:11 PM #

    Well, first off, you got your years wrong. ’02 would’ve been the 14-0 or 13-1 year and ’03 the Horseshoe year (we played tOSU at C-F in ’04).

  18. VaWolf82 08/01/2009 at 11:13 PM #

    Discuss…

    Why?

  19. GAWolf 08/02/2009 at 5:47 AM #

    Amato didn’t coach into his players enough discipline to win a title in anything. I haven’t gone back and looked at the individual games you’ve mentioned, but I can confidently assume that each had critical turnovers and/or penalties that essentially cost us any chance to win the game. That was the legacy of Amato at State and that’s not how championship teams string together wins.

  20. Wulfpack 08/02/2009 at 9:39 AM #

    “The thing to remember about most head football coaches — college, NFL, even high school — is that they’re all uber-intense, Type-A egomaniacs, and they’re usually class-A pricks, too.”

    Maybe as a general rule (stereotype). But there are countless exceptions. Our head man is one of them.

  21. ncsu0812 08/02/2009 at 11:06 AM #

    off topic but this would have been nice to pull out during tyler hansbrough’s time at unc

  22. Wufpacker 08/02/2009 at 5:50 PM #

    LRM : You’re right, I did get my years mixed up. Not only that but for (what would have been) the ’03 year I did the math wrong…with only 2 losses there should have been 11 wins. This is the very reason why I try not to write posts that contain stats (or numbers of any kind) without checking my own math before posting. Broke my own rule on this one. But the general point still stands…Would more success early have changed Amato’s fate?

    VaWolf : Why? Well mainly I guess with it still being a bit of a slow period I thought a hypothetical about Chuck (since he was already being discussed) and what folks thought might be interesting. If he had been as successful as he might have been in those first few years do folks think it would have made a difference in his ultimate success at NCSU. Basically would lucking into massive success in those two years have brought with it enough goodwill to make a difference or would he ultimately have ended the same way, even if it were a few years later? I realize it doesn’t really matter, and “what if’s” are kind of silly. I’m not trying to imply that any of it really matters in the grand scheme of things.

    GaWolf : Yes, I agree with you, Amato did not have the necessary qualities or skill sets to be able to build a successful championship caliber program, and I’m sure you’re right that there were critical mistakes that lost those games, there always were.

    My own thought is that he still would have ended up the same way, but likely a few seasons later because the powers that be would have been slower to pull the trigger. Thus we would have missed out on the TOB opportunity, so personally I’m glad things happened the way they did.

  23. GAWolf 08/02/2009 at 6:53 PM #

    I watched the FSU bowl game last week on ESPNU and it was pretty clear that it was for all practical purposes Jimbo’s team just watching all of the coaches on the sidelines.

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