Ole Miss fires Luke a day after Missouri cans Odom
The weekend was always going to be messy for head coaches.
Nicknamed ‘Black Friday’ in the college football world, schools tend to get rid of the pieces that they don’t like as quickly as possible in an effort to show their all-important recruits as well as boosters that winning is all-important.
At Ole Miss, Matt Luke lost his job after a 15-21 record (6-18 in the SEC) in three seasons. You could hardly blame Luke for failures after his first season. He was given a poisoned chalice in NCAA sanctions and the firing of Hugh Freeze. The boosters liked him, the players liked him (according to the Clarion-Ledger a number of players walked out of the meeting angrily) , but the powers-that-be, worried that the school might fall further back in the SEC West arms race. He had a fine 6-6 year in 2018, but things backslid in a 4-8 (2-6 SEC) season in 2019.
The players, apparently, were furious at the decision by new AD Keith Carter, who only came along a few weeks ago.
“After evaluating the overall trajectory of our football program, we did not see enough momentum on the field and determined a change is necessary in order for our student-athletes to compete at the highest level,” Carter said. “While improvements were evident in certain aspects of the program, we are judged ultimately by our record, and, unfortunately, we did not meet the standard of success that we expect from our program. We will always be grateful to Coach Luke for his leadership, particularly from a recruiting, academic and overall culture standpoint. At the same time, winning is important, and we know that we can compete for championships at Ole Miss.”
The reason why Carter’s hand was forced – according to Red Cup Rebellion, the unofficial school blog – was because fellow SEC bottom-dwellers Arkansas and Missouri both fired their head coaches – the latter who got rid of Barry Odom on Saturday after Friday’s stunningly-poor victory over the Razorbacks.
Most Missouri fans weren’t upset about Odom’s firing. He had a lot of offensive weapons this year, but the team took a massive step back. Kelly Bryant came along as a much-heralded quarterback and was awful for much for the season, as the school seemed to bend to his wish to be more of a pocket passer and not go for his skillset was making throws on the run. They also seemed to ignore TE Albert O, who’s going to be in the NFL next year, with staggering regularity. On the other side the ball, the defense – while stout at times – was undisciplined, going for late hit after late hit. From a distance, it seemed as though Odom had lost control of the program.
The move by Missouri has seen the school already lose two recruits, and this will happen at Ole Miss too as the coaches who begged them to come and play are longer able to follow through on their pleadings.
The best move for both schools is to go for a younger coach who’s willing to tell the fanbases: “Look, it’s going to be a long journey. With me coming in at such short notice, we’ll probably take a battering in recruiting this year. But we’re going to rebuild, and we’re going to be OK”.
Unfortunately in the SEC, no coach would dare to say this.