re: Rich Rod in Oxford for OC interview

Twitter says it’s nearly a done deal.

He’s no Slinger but he’s got a good track record running offenses

There’s more to Freeze’s firing than just the hookers. Ross Bjork took what turned out to be a golden opportunity to fire a coach that he otherwise wanted to fire but couldn’t actually justify. The hookers not only gave Ross an out but let him do it without paying a 16mil buyout.

I love this hire because RR plays to his player’s strengths. Arizona was actually a pass heavy team for a couple of years but when Tate became the QB, he went back to the offense that he’s more known for. But he doesn’t exclusively run a run heavy offense at all.

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Twitter says it’s nearly a done deal.

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$3 mill over 3 years is the word.

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Arizona was actually a pass heavy team for a couple of years but when Tate became the QB, he went back to the offense that he’s more known for. But he doesn’t exclusively run a run heavy offense at all.

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He was fairly adaptable here. When Anu Solomon was good, before the concussions, he wasn't much of a runner. RR let Solomon be a pass first QB and the offense ran fine.

The biggest thing for me was RR put up 41 ppg with Tate and crew. The offensive personnel was basically the same for Sumlin and he put up 31 ppg. RR can run an offense.

He recruited poorly and his defensive staff was a mess at Arizona. That was the major on field issue here. It shouldn't be as an OC.

I like the move for Ole Miss. It lets RR focus on the things he's best at.

Here's my thoughts. I don't claim to be an Arizona insider, but I have friends who are well connected. I don't want to discuss the pending lawsuit, but there's other stuff.

First, RR was hired by Greg Byrne. When Byrne left for Bama, the new AD, Heeke, never really got along with RR. Heeke also was never invested in RR being his hire the way Byrne would have been.

RR let his friends on staff get away with too much. The biggest one was letting Casteel, his friend, be a D/c and never leave Tucson for recruiting. Casteel didn't like to travel, and RR let him sit at home while the D was a sieve and we scored subpar recruiting classes.

There were several ugly off field incidents towards the end. We had an O-lineman die in his sleep and there were some bad rumors around that. Our backup RB got convicted in a felony DV case with some really unpleasant facts.

Then, the on field results were shaky. He won 3 and 7 games the last two years. A lot of people thought he was gone until Tate pulled out crazy performances to win enough to get us bowl eligible.

When the notice of claim dropped, Heeke wasn't invested in RR based on the above and he was gone that same night. Take from it what you will.