ESPN: NC State’s search focused on Johnson

General NCS Football139

North Carolina State’s search for a new football coach has focused on Navy’s Paul Johnson, sources close to the situation said early Tuesday.

SFN will have a more detailed coaching update later in the afternoon. In the meantime you can click here for our latest.

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General NCS Football

139 Responses to ESPN: NC State’s search focused on Johnson

  1. old13 12/05/2006 at 12:37 PM #

    OK. I’m convinced that we would not necessarily be stuck with a gimiky offense if PJ came to State. My other primary question would be: “Can he recruit big time athletes for Pack football?”

    IMO there is nothing about PJ or his current staff that would be a big draw for top football players anywhere. Of course, he could bring in “name” assistants to offset that issue – or could he? I have no feel for it one way or another. But I do fear the unknown – at least in this case. Maybe he could hire a Randy Shannon at DC. Keeping/getting the Cignetti brothers could help both the O recognition and continuity in recruiting. But I would hate to see the Pack take a step back in recruiting as that is the life blood of any program.

    Jimbo Fisher already has the OC reputation at a bigtime school. It is rumored he could bring a bigtime DC in with him. But he has NO HC experience, although I would think that being an OC in a bigtime program would much better prepare him than what CTC had as only a position coach and AHC.

    Bottom line, both have pros and cons with much potential. I guess if I were making the decision, I’d go with who I thought could put together the best recruting team (which, in the long run, would actually be reflection of the perception of how good a program the choice could develop.)

  2. BoKnowsNCS71 12/05/2006 at 12:38 PM #

    I’m not sold on PJ.

    Heard that Jimbo could also bring in the Auburn Def. coach plus some other hungry young lions to his staff.

    But at this point I hope we focus on everyone and bring the best here. We have some awesome talent at QB in the wings.

    A person who head coaching experience does prove he can manage his assistants but does not necessarily mean the AC cannot.

    Still say Fowlup is going to blow this and settle for Shane Montgomery 😉

  3. tvp 12/05/2006 at 12:40 PM #

    All of the stupid criticism of Johnson cracks me up.

    If anybody doesn’t want a coach who is winning 10 games a year at freaking Navy, and has a 9-1 record against his rivals, because they saw one game where the offense didn’t hit on all cylinders (a game in which they scored 26 points, I might add, which we haven’t done in years)…I don’t know what to say with you. How do you reason with unreasonable people?

    LOL!!

  4. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 12/05/2006 at 12:43 PM #

    Would Chow be a better choice?

    No! After being burned by O’Cain and Amato State needs to get a proven head coach, period. An assistant coach may work out but it also could put the program futher behind that of WF and ECU and State can’t afford to have that happen.

    Whoever the N&O was speaking about when saying State booster are pushing Dick Sheridan, I say to you shut up. The man is 65 years old, hasn’t coached in 15 years and left State without warning about a month before the start of the season.

  5. EdoubleE 12/05/2006 at 12:45 PM #

    Triple Option = Princeton Style Offense

  6. BladenWolf 12/05/2006 at 12:46 PM #

    There are A LOT of coaches, assistants, and even guys that have been out of the game, that are VERY INTERESTED in this job. It’s reasonable to assume we have our eyes on a couple at this point, but it also wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that we haven’t even discussed the man that will lead the Pack next season.
    Johnson is an excellent coach. But many other quality guys have expressed interests (Fisher, Chow) and I would hope that we are taking the neccesary time to get it right. Who knows who may emerge that we’ve not even talked about?

  7. DIXIE Wolf 12/05/2006 at 12:48 PM #

    Does DUKE always have the “best talent” in hoops? IMO, they usually have the “best talent with better brains”.

    I think PJ would bring in the kind of players Sheridan did, but with “better talent”. And if I’m right, we can and will win 9-10 games a year and occasionally play in BCS bowls, and if the “moon and stars” are aligned properly, the National Championship.

    Am I making sense?

  8. jbwbubba 12/05/2006 at 12:48 PM #

    I think Johnson is waiting for the Bama job to play out, if they get RR, then PJ is a natural for WVU. If not, Bama might start looking to take a shot with PJ. Chow goes to ASU or Stanford, Fisher might go to La Tech and we end up taking leftovers.

  9. partialqualifier 12/05/2006 at 12:49 PM #

    I am not judging Johnson on one game. I am not trying to judge him at all. I think he is probably a pretty decent football coach, but he is not Bear Bryant either. There are a lot of people up here (and in the Wolfpack Club) who are acting like this guy is the next coming of Vince Lombardi, and I just dont see it. He is a good coach who has spent 27 years coaching D1-AA and Navy. Since he becam a head coach at GS there have been probably over 100 coaches hired in D1-A, and the best job he has gotten is Navy. What do we know that all those other guys didnt? I think it is very interesting that schools like Cincinnatti wont even give this guy the time of day and we are all jumping for joy because NC State might.

    The other thing that bothers me is the seemingly premeditation of it all. It is well known that some of the “good ‘ol boy” faction at State has wanted Johnson for a while now….even while Amato was the coach. I think that because of the influence of some of those folks, this has been a limited job search with only a couple of people cosidered. With all the interest out there, it sickens me to know that it is a strong possibility that only one or 2 guys have even been considered. I truely believe that if Johnson wasnt from NC he wouldnt even have been considered for the job.

  10. PapaJohn 12/05/2006 at 12:54 PM #

    From ESPN …”The source said Wolfpack officials hope to hire a new coach by the end of the week.”

    I hope LF isn’t rushing this thing to avoid humiliation similar to that he received during the BB circus.

    SFN: We don’t believe this is a timetable at the moment.

  11. quypack93 12/05/2006 at 1:02 PM #

    ok, assistants from big time school. thompson at ecu; jim caldwell at wake; carl “airball” franks at duke; chuck amato; torbush at carolina. etc, fisher will bring more unknowns than pj. saying that hiring him and he will bring auburn dc and that would make him an attractive candidate is dangerous. he is not married to the auburn dc anymore than amato was married to norm chow. you hire a proven head coach who has a habit of winning games. a hc who has a habit of winning games knows how to assemble a good staff because if he can’t do that he wouldn’t be winning games in first place. does wake have lots of name assistant? we are hiring a head coach, we not hiring lsu, or navy. pj might not have a bunch name assistants at navy because navy doesn’t pay their assistants well, i don’t know. having known assistants is not the name of the name or the duty of a head football coach, it’s winning football games that is his duty. does osu have household name assistants? usc? wake? florida?

  12. RickJ 12/05/2006 at 1:02 PM #

    “…reputation of an offensive guru, running a pass-happy spread formation with the Rainbows and triple-option running attack with the Midshipmen.”

    I don’t think the “pass-happy” stuff is true. Johnson was OC at Hawaii from 1987-1994, before they became the pass first offense of today. In 1992 they had an incredible offensive year with a 1,500 yard rusher and finished 11-2.

    He would certainly pass more here than at Navy. West Virginia would be as good a guess as you could make for what the offense would look like here.

    This would be a solid hire, maybe a great one.

  13. BladenWolf 12/05/2006 at 1:03 PM #

    Very good point and one that I vaguely aluded to earlier. Let’s not rush things here. I realize there are other vacancies out there, but we have to get this right. Jed is a fool and the more time that is taken to consider the choices, IMHO, the better. I don’t buy the “leftovers” scenario.

    Anyone mention Coker in their analogies?

  14. tvp 12/05/2006 at 1:04 PM #

    “I think it is very interesting that schools like Cincinnatti wont even give this guy the time of day and we are all jumping for joy because NC State might.”

    Oh, so you KNOW Cincy didn’t give him the time of day??? It’s far more likely it’s the other way around. PJ can get a better job than that. He’s been mentioned prominently as one of the top or the top Bama choice after their big name fantasy candidates (Spurrier, Rich Rod).

    I can’t believe some of the stuff people are making up to criticize him. The best job he has gotten is Navy??? His career path strikes me as very logical: Win a shitload as an OC. Win a shitload as a D-1AA head coach. Win even more at a lower tier D-1A school. Now is the perfect time for him to move to a high profile D-1 school. He’s only 49.

    Gee, I guess we should hire a 41 year old OC instead so that he doesn’t take the North Texas job first!

    when and if we hire the guy, I just hope the small but vocal minority keeps their uninformed opens to themselves. I’ll do the same if we hire Jimbo, for instance, who I am not a big fan of but I’ll support him 100% if he’s the guy.

  15. NCSU94GRAD 12/05/2006 at 1:08 PM #

    I value everyone’s opinion but for me, I don’t care if every play is three yards and a cloud of dust. Just like Al Davis said “Just win, baby!” I don’t think we should get confused with style vs. substance. PJ is a winner and I think he would restore discipline and put us in a position to win every Saturday!

  16. partialqualifier 12/05/2006 at 1:21 PM #

    Can somebody tell me why no one here is talking about June Jones? He has expressed some interest in the job. And he is REAL “offensive genius.”

    As for this argument about assistant coaches becoming head coaches. This has become the fad of the day at NC State….the idea that hiring a current HC is better than hiring an assistant. Where did all this come from? How did hiring a head coach work out for Stanford? How did hiring a head coach work out for Michigan St.? On the flipside….Rich Rodriguez, Steve Spurrier, Butch Davis, Paul Johnson, Mark Richt, etc…..were all assistants who did a damn good job when they were hired as head coaches. There are many more examples of failures and successes trying it both ways. It is rediculous to suggest that hiring a current head coach is better than hiring an assistant. Just hire the best available coach….period.

    Amato failed because he had trouble getting along well with others. I would make the argument that he ran the program VERY well. He drastically improved facilities, He recruited very, very well, He kept players out of jail and out of the papers. His problem was that he couldnt hire decent assistants because he was a hard ass. It wasnt that he couldnt recognize good assistants….he did….Chow, Herring, Holiday, etc….it’s that he couldnt keep them. So…I would argue that hiring an assistant acually worked out very well for State.

  17. graywolf 12/05/2006 at 1:27 PM #

    Records speak for themselves. At Georgia Southern he was 62-10 and won two national championships. At Navy he took a team that won one game in two years and turned them into a bowl eligable team with 8+ wins the last 4 years.
    Sign him NOW!

  18. Lock 12/05/2006 at 1:29 PM #

    I’m not big on a rush-focused offense…but everything I’ve read from people who have worked with or under the man claims he knows what he’s doing and he can adapt very well to what he has and what he needs to do.

    Adapting with the talent on-hand and in-game…sounds similar to a coach we’re all praising highly at the current moment…

    Bring on PJ. I’d like a more pass-happy coach, but I can’t argue with his results either. I’d be quite happy with him.

    And if things don’t work out, maybe Cowher will finally be ready.

  19. BoKnowsNCS71 12/05/2006 at 1:30 PM #

    I talked to a Hawaii booster last week. He said June Jones and Jerry Glanville loved the atmoshere of Hawaii.

    Only problem with UH is no defense. All air. Fun to watch but good teams beat you. Just don’t see June wanting to switch Hawaiian shirts and the island atmosphere to come here.

  20. choppack1 12/05/2006 at 1:30 PM #

    PQ – I posted it somewhere else, but of the ACC schools, statistically, coaches w/ significant prior HC experience are twice as likely to succeed than are assistants.

    I’m not saying that Jimbo wouldn’t succeed. I’m just saying those the #s. You can pull any example you want to out of a hat, but when I did the analysis for coaches of the current ACC schools the last 20 years, the evidence was very clear which coaching hires had the most success.

  21. Lock 12/05/2006 at 1:39 PM #

    June Jones would be a lot of fun…but I fear the possibility that we, too, would stagnate defensively.

    Still, a part of me would be estatic to hear his name announced, I must admit. A small part.

  22. wolpfack 12/05/2006 at 1:41 PM #

    The more and more I read, the more I come to the realization that I dont care what these guys have done in the past, all I care about is what they do once they get here.

    PJ is a proven winner as a HC, no doubt, but we dont know what he will do with his offense once he gets here. He has put together some great turn-arounds for programs and shown he knows how to get the job done.

    Jimbo (and I do love that name) has proven himself as a great OC in arguably the toughest conference in football, but doesnt have the HC experience most people on here seem to desire.

    Personally, I dont care if a guy has HC experience. For every OC or DC that succeeds, there is another that doesnt; likewise for HCs…some move up and flop, others dont. All I hope for is that Jed & Co. keep their eyes and ears open and hire the best candidate for the job, be it an OC/DC who turns out to be the next Greg Schiano or a tried and tested HC who gets the job done…thats the bottom line.

  23. quypack93 12/05/2006 at 1:44 PM #

    tell june he can keep his hulahoop and the the hawaiin shirts, we don’t want him here. and give glanville a raise too because we don’t want him here either. june jones, jerry glanville, jim donnan, gee, why don’t we get wayne newton, sam wyche, and all the of elvis personaters.

  24. primacyone 12/05/2006 at 1:47 PM #

    The man seems to know how to win football games – period.

    We have had everything we could ever want in the past except an adequate win/lose record. Isn’t that why we are looking for a head coach – isn’t that what we are looking for in a head coach – a coach that will win football games?

    PJ has won a lot a football games. He has won enough to say: the man seems to know how to win football games – period.

  25. partialqualifier 12/05/2006 at 1:48 PM #

    I think it is soooo funny to read you guys rip June Jones for bad defense. Why cant you use the same analogy you are using for Johnson? Why cant we assume that he would recruit better defensive players to NC State than the under-sized kids on that Hawaii D-Line? After all…isnt that what you are asking me to do with Johnson?

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