I agree about the wording. There are a thousand better ways to say he was fired/canned/let go/resigned/etc. DPU did themselves no favor by releasing that particular statement.

I'm very curious to see who the potential candidate pool will include, given the circumstances surrounding the last three exits. You would imagine they're going to need to approach this search very carefully. Do they hire an alum or go completely away from the program? Lots of questions to ask in that search. DPU folks, any names that pop out?

Quote from: Li'l Giant on September 18, 2012, 01:44:46 PM
I'm way more intrigued about a head football coach not traveling with his team than I am by a fender-bender. Is that as unimaginable of as I think it is? What is that about? Does he have a bad back and needs to lay down in a back seat or something? Does he want to be alone and focus? Does he want to sing along to Miley Cyrus without having to explain himself? What could that be?

It's not the fender-bender. It's the "cited for driving with a suspended license" part of that fender-bender. Makes the whole driving to the games on his own thing a little questionable, at least a little bit, you'd think. Regardless of why he travels separately, and who knows, he may have a valid license now, the point is, he wasn't exactly setting a fine example when you're dealing with things like that on the side.

I've been following this Long firing quite closely and I think there's a lot of interesting information being thrown around, but the one thing that seems to stick out to me is how much everyone is focusing on the DPU administration and Baker-Watson (as one poster so eloquently called her "Stevie Wonder"). Yes, I don't think there's any doubt that DPU has not exactly handled this firing in the most discreet manner and I absolutely feel like they've left the door open for A LOT of questions (purposely or not, I'm not sure).

These "administrative" issues surely leave a lot of room for speculation. However, the term "administrative responsibilities" can cover an exceptionally broad spectrum of things. As the head football coach, there were no doubt certain expectations for how Long should be running/administering his team/the football program. That includes everything from budgets to travel to recruiting to meals to disciplinary issues to you name it. It could also apply to administrative responsibilities outside of football but still within the athletic department or university. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't seen anywhere where it explicitly states what administrative responsibilities he was failing to comply with.

But here's some food for thought. Everyone has seemed very quick to point out that the University is ruining this football program and Baker-Watson is just the nail in the coffin. But look at what has happened in the last few years. I don't think you can place all the blame squarely on the shoulders of the admin. That program was on the up and up when the Walker fiasco happened. Long fell into the head coaching job and rode the coat-tails of something that was already in place for the 2009 season. Since Long became head coach, DPU has lost every assistant coach with the exception of Len Felton and Tim Hreha. And it's not been a matter of Long working to build his own staff. They've absolutely lost the handle on Indiana recruiting (and I betcha this comes hand in hand with the loss of some of those assistant coaches, several of whom were excellent recruiters). The current seniors were the very last recruiting class of the Walker era. According to the '09 roster, there were 41 freshman that year (current seniors, class of '13), there's 11 seniors left from that class. It wasn't but a few years ago they were boasting senior classes of 30+. The win-loss record and current Monon streak speaks volumes. Sorry, but Long hasn't exactly done a ton to show that he's the right guy for the job. The declining numbers, Monon blowouts, etc. were all happening before "Stevie Wonder" along.

The University admin is absolutely NOT blameless in this mess. But I'm just trying to point out that Long hasn't exactly been running an perfect program in Greencastle, either.

And one last thing, DPUIrish brought this point up "Also, supposedly didn't travel on team buses and drove himself.  I don't know how that's even possible, but the way I understand it, the University was far from happy about it." There's no supposedly about it. And when you throw in the fact that Long made an appearance in the Greencastle Banner-Graphic police blotter just before camp, makes you wonder about some of those "policies" and administrative issues he failed to comply with.... http://www.bannergraphic.com/story/1882330.html