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CA Mustang wrote:http://footballscoop.com/news/handle-fired-according-coach-just-got-fired/

SMU DC was the pinnacle of his coaching career. If his coaching game, would have been as good as his talking game, he might not be looking for work.

Somebody will throw him a bone, at some level. Good luck Van.

When the ncaa moves to 30 coaches he can be trash can basketball coordinator at Oklahoma

I always got the feeling that Morris promised him that he would be around long enough that they would have time to recruit the defense and get it going once the offense was secure. He may be a bad DC, but he wasn’t really given a fair shot IMO due to Morris structuring everything to make his offense look good first and foremost. Seemed to me our D made more big game winning plays than the O did.

Monty_The_Mustang wrote:I always got the feeling that Morris promised him that he would be around long enough that they would have time to recruit the defense and get it going once the offense was secure. He may be a bad DC, but he wasn’t really given a fair shot IMO due to Morris structuring everything to make his offense look good first and foremost. Seemed to me our D made more big game winning plays than the O did.

Reflects my take on the situation. Now he has been hung out to dry.

Van got a raw deal. He may not have ben the greatest coordinator in the history of football, but he was given no talent- defensive recruiting didn't seem to improve over JJ's efforts, the offense got all the attention, and from what I saw this season, it was our defense that managed to hold the line in the closing minutes in games or we would have been a 4 win team. Games where , if the offense was as good as billed, shouldn't have relied on the defense to hold.

Greenwich Pony wrote:Van got a raw deal. He may not have ben the greatest coordinator in the history of football, but he was given no talent- defensive recruiting didn't seem to improve over JJ's efforts, the offense got all the attention, and from what I saw this season, it was our defense that managed to hold the line in the closing minutes in games or we would have been a 4 win team. Games where , if the offense was as good as billed, shouldn't have relied on the defense to hold.

Tough to coach D with linebackers who lacked speed, corners who were too small and lacked speed and no experience at the safety positions. In addition, the D line lacked depth and was part of the reason the corners and safeties got hung out. Throw in the number of times the O failed to run some time off the clock giving the D some rest and you have a failed D.

Agreed. Again, I can't say if he was a good DC or not, but his defenses managed to hold the line with spit, bailing wire and willpower when our vaunted offense sputtered. He seemed to spin just enough straw into gold to get us to 7-4.

Defense won the Cincinnati and Tulane games. Tulsa beat themselves.