AZCENTRAL SPORTS
ASU, UA coaches looking for wins, security
After faltering against the Atlanta Falcons in the first quarter, the Cardinals got back in the groove to win the first game at Atlanta’s new stadium 24-14.
Throughout their time here, Arizona State’s Todd Graham and Arizona’s Rich Rodriguez have followed similar paths.
Both coaches won eight games their initial seasons. Both won Pac-12 South titles by their third, elevating their profiles and raising expectations throughout the 48th state.
And yet, both men enter their sixth seasons with their jobs in jeopardy, the result of a two-year slide that’s made those early successes seem more like a desert mirage than program building blocks.
With the season about to kick off, it’s put fans on both sides in a strange spot, optimistic for a reversal, yet unsure about the future. Last month, Pac-12 media picked ASU to finish fifth in this season’s South division. It slotted Arizona sixth.
“Here’s what I know, unfortunately, about college football,” said Pac-12 Networks analyst Glenn Parker, a former Arizona lineman. “Every year a coach is either on the hot seat or one year away from it. I don’t care who they are. I don’t care what school they’re at.”
The hot seat is an interesting phenomenon in this sport. It’s usually more speculation than substance, yet at the same time the hot seat has remarkable staying power. In many cases, perception turns into reality.
Just one example: Before the 2015 season, SI.com listed 12 coaches on the hot seat. Three years later, only three remained in place. One left to take a better job. The rest were fired or forced to resign.
If any of this bothers Graham or Rodriguez, they hide it well. At Pac-12 media days last month, both said their recent slides were unacceptable. Both pointed to injuries as a contributing factor, but they also took responsibility.
Graham said the Sun Devils lost their hard-nosed discipline. Rodriguez said the Wildcats lost their urgency. Both came across as ticked off and determined.
Historically, none of this should come as a surprise.
Since Arizona State and Arizona joined the Pac-10 in 1978, this has been their reality, two yards forward, one yard back. In 39 years, Arizona State has produced just 13 seasons of eight-plus wins, three under Graham. Over the same stretch, Arizona has produced 11, three under Rodriguez.
While Graham and Rodriguez’s early success may have showed what was possible in the desert, it also may have created unrealistic expectations.
“I’m a big believer in the equation: Who are we, where are we going and how are we going to get there?” said Joel Klatt, the lead analyst for Fox Sports. “That means you have to clearly define who you are. As a rule, every fan base in the country – save for maybe five – have an over-inflated view of who they are, and that leads to all the coaching changes.”
CBS analyst Rick Neuheisel knows the Pac-12 as well as anybody. He’s coached at UCLA, Washington and Colorado. He thinks both Graham and Rodriguez are victims of their own successes. They came in. They changed the culture. They won.
At the same time, Neuheisel believes both programs are capable of more.
“Having recruited against both of them, whether I was at Colorado, Washington or UCLA, I know they have the ability to get in almost every home,” Neuheisel said. “They have attractive programs. I think there’s an answer at both places for long-term stability, but that also requires a real long-term stable boss.”
This point likely will be brought up often this season. Both Graham and Rodriguez work for athletic directors who didn’t hire them, Ray Anderson at ASU and Dave Heeke at Arizona. In college football, it’s widely believed administrators are more patient with their own hires simply because their reputations are attached.
After consecutive losing seasons, ASU for the first time this summer didn’t give Graham a one-year rollover extension. Even though the coach remains in good position with a guaranteed contract that stretches through the 2020 season, the decision was seen nationally as a vote of no-confidence. Rodriguez’s potential buyout is reportedly just under $6 million, but it must be paid within 60 days.
Amid all the outside noise, much depends on communication and trust, Neuheisel said. In 2011, after a rocky four seasons at UCLA, he thought his job was secure after the Bruins qualified for a bowl. As it turned out, he was fired just after the regular season.
“To me, the hardest thing for a head coach staying at one place for a long time is an athletic director who doesn’t sit at the computer and look at the blogs,” Neuheisel said. “With talk radio and social media, there’s all sorts of naysayers. You have a growing list of pseudo owners, well-heeled boosters that are contributing to these departments and they have more influence.
“It requires a very bright, very sureminded athletic director that’s not going to be influenced by all the talk coming from people who haven’t spent their lives in that business.”
Both programs recently have invested in football.
In 2013, Arizona opened a $74 million football facility. This summer, ASU did the same, a part of a $268 million Sun Devil Stadium reconstruction project that stretches to next year.
An argument can be made that both programs are in position to not only win, but win consistently. This helps the men in charge. It also puts more pressure on them.
“I know this: Todd Graham and Rich Rodriguez are good football coaches,” Parker said. “They’ve proven it. RichRod won at West Virginia. He recruited well at Michigan. He’s won in Tucson. Graham has won everywhere he’s gone. It’s coaching. It’s culture. It’s the school. There are places where football is the most important thing and then there places where it’s not. Those are hard places to consistently win.”
Contact Doug Haller at 602-444-4949 or at doug.haller@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/DougHaller. Subscribe to the ASU Pick Six Podcast, available on iTunes. Download the ASU XTRA app for your smart phone.