Legitimate Head Coaching rumor...

[HellBass]

Hey everyone,

I don't post on here very often, but I am a steady daily lurker here on the boards. You all can take this however you like, but I have from a VERY RELIABLE SOURCE (only 1 person removed) that Wyoming has already interviewed the Offensive Coordinator from Missouri, Dave Christensen, for the job. Word is that he and his wife have been talking a lot about whether or not they are going to move to Laramie. One hang up is that his son is going to be a Senior next year and they don't want to have to move him to another H.S.

Like I said, take this with a grain of salt, but this is coming from a highly reliable source. I for one would think this would be a great hire if we could get him. I'm not sure if the job has been offered or not at this point.

[Snowman_55]

I have no reason to doubt you or your source, but I would suspect nothing could be official, since I would guess the NCAA has rules about interviewing someone for a position that's not currently open?

[cheypoke]

But can he play the piano?

[HellBass]

He can't play the piano, but he does run a mean spread offense!

[Cornpoke]

Even if this guy wants the job I'm not sure he's the right man for the job. Is he someone we could get really excited about being our next HC?

[WYCowboy]

Here is the link for the bios on Christensen:

http://mutigers.cstv.com/sports/m-footb ... ave01.html

I say get him if we can. I would be very excited to have someone of his calibre as our next HC.

[TheRealUW]

I have mixed feelings about hiring Christensen as our next head coach. The guy obviously can run one hell of a spread offense, but it takes certain caliber players for a spread offesne to be successful. I'm not sure we have that type of talent on the roster right now. Could Christiensen recruit better talent to Laramie in order to run the same spread offense he runs now? To me, that is one of the most important questions and would make all the difference between a wildy successful Cowboy program and another mediocre team. He also is an offensive line coach and produced some very good offensive lineman the past few years at Missouri. That part excites me because the line is such an important part of the game, and UW has seemed to lack good offensive lineman over the past few years. Missouri's center last year was a finalist for the Remington award (best center) and was 3rd team All-American. The best part is that he wasn't a highly touted recruit (only a 2 star on scout). He also had 3 ADDITIONAL O-lineman who received Big-12 honors besides the center last season. He obviously know hows to coach up an offensive lineman. However, I'm convinved our main probelm has been poor recruiting. I'm not convinced Christensen will be able to do much better than Glenn did as far as recruit goes. For that reason, I would lean more towards bringing in bigger name ex-head coach (like Fulmer) who may have a chance at getting a bit more tlanted kids to Laramie. It will be very interesting to see how this whole thing plays out. Hopefully it's all for the best of the program.

[armchaircoach]

Just my take—we need the new coach to be able to adept to what is here not try to change our players into something they are not. If we hire a spread offense coach we will rebuild until we fire him, find a new coach and rebuild again. I have watched all the games, except Tennessee too cheap for that one, and have been to a dozen or so practices this year. From my arm chair it looks like we will need to hire someone with a solid knowledge of throwing the football, Texas Tech or Nebraska type offense, some kind of west coast look. We will not be as strong or deep at running back next year and need to get back to throwing the ball 30-35 times per game.

Random thoughts on the New Football Coach (if we really hire one)
• Offensive minded (pass first mentality)
• Defensively we may need to take more chances next year-create turnovers
• Special teams -we need to get back to the basics, this year it looked like we tried to do everything and consequently we did everything poorly—By the way our punter and the back-up look pretty good in practice, not sure why we punt like the sisters of the poor in games. I once booted a balloon nearly 12 feet from here in the easy chair—lets find a punter-JC, maybe
• Keep none of the present staff, sorry but we need an all new start
• Four or five year contract, and hope for the best
• Keep the recruiting inroads Coach Glenn has made in the Chicago area
• Keep working on Texas recruiting—we will get some if we work at it
• Lets face the facts—we need to get more Junior College help—I know, I know, I don’t like this either, we must be careful but there are players in JCs that can help
• Don’t be Texas AM and hire an old worn out college or pro coach—we need to find someone with tremendous desire and the energy to out recruit area and conference schools
• Recruiting wins games, it all starts there and TB needs to talk long and hard to prospective coaches about recruiting

One last thought. We will not get an established D-1 coach (Turner Gill, if and when he leaves Buffalo will go to a BCS school) and we may struggle finding a D-1 coordinator from a BCS school to come. Joe Glen is very respected and I would expect that him not being able to win here may make the job less attractive than many of us think it is. Hiring a coach is always a crap shoot—just hope we shoot straight and find a good one.

WHY DO WE REALLY NEED SKY-BOXES—I STILL BELIEVE FOOTBALL IS AN OUTDOOR SPORT. LET THE RICH SIT OUT IN THE SUN AND SNOW WITH ME.

[MrTitleist]

Pretty damn good first post.

[Fullback41]

I agree, good input for a first post.

I do disagree about needing a passing offense though. I think we need whatever wins. I don't think it matters if it is a spread, pro, pass, run, option, whatever. If an option coach like Troy Calhoun wanted the job we would be stupid not to hire a coach of his ability just because he doesn't have a throw first offense. We need a staff that is responsive to needs and weaknesses, like finding a cure for a weak kicking game and turnovers, several years in a row of these areas killing us is crazy, Joe is/was too nice of a guy to hold those position coaches responsible and replace them quickly.

So I would get the coach who gives us the best chance to go bowling right away. Maybe we need JC players that fit his system if need be, but let him know we expect to go bowling within 3 years or we are no better off than sticking with Glenn.

Again, we have a lot of players returning but our schedule looks even tougher next year and we are in need of serious talent upgrades of offense. Based on how thier position players perform, I would say Marty English is the best coach on the current staff and worth trying to keep.

[Fullback41]

Glenn was the right coach to energize the program and build interest again. But we have only had 1 GOOD team during his era (2006, NOT the 2004 bowl winner). The rest of the teams have been mediocre. The 2006 team was 3rd in the MWC yet didn't go bowling because of a poor kicking game early in the season. I just can't understand how it can remain an issue 2 years later, why does it take so long to fix weaknesses? I know we had a recruit back out at the last minute but still.

Keeping that history in mind, how long would it take to cure a 4 year turnover issue?, 2 year kick and punt coverage issue?, 2 years of teams blocking our punts? It is apparent to me we need a serious QB coach, none of these guys looked well prepared this year. You don't need to be amazing just playing smart will get the job done, most of the time.

On the flip side, look what AFA has done since hiring Calhoun, 2 years, 2 GOOD seasons. It doesn't have to take a long time to turn around a program, with our budget and talent level, and he has done it with recruits ranked lower than ours.

Finally, I don't think it is a coincidence our recruiting classes have ranked over #100 the last few years. Teams in the MWC that have classes ranked in the top #70 are AP top 20 teams now.

[armchaircoach]

I think you are right on Fullback41—I don’t care what we do either, as crazy Al says, “Just win Baby.” That doesn’t seem to fit his Raiders very well anymore.
I love the new brand of option football and think we could recruit that kind of kid here. I just think with our present players we would be better suited to a short, quick passing game. But if we run this, our receivers will need to learn how to battle for the ball.

As far as special teams and turnovers, sometimes new blood will take care of these--I hope that will be the case.