So, we hired Mark Fox towards the end of March, 2019...Gates was hired by Cleveland State, his first Head Coaching job, in July of 2019. Honestly, I don't completely fault Knowlton for wanting to avoid a first time HC following the Wyking Jones disaster, and to his credit, Knowlton DID reach out to Gates. In the end, Jim went with the more experienced HC, which certainly made sense at the time...the problem was the selection, not the formula: a below average recruiter that had struggled to consistently produce a competent offense in 9 years at UGA was a poor fit from the start for the points-savvy P12, as we saw. I guess In a perfect world, Knowlton fires Fox at the end of LAST season as many of us had hoped, after it was clear the program was already stagnating (for various reasons, some admittedly beyond his control) with Fox, and hires Gates after he's gained HC experience and before Missouri gets to him.
In my opinion, that idiot Mike WIlliams was the one that REALLY dropped the ball. If you are comfortable going with a first time head coach in the first place, THAT guy needs to be Dennis Gates, NOT Wyking f-ing Jones. Williams interviewed Gates, but went with Wyking in March 2017...considering Gates' playing career at Cal, his 10+ years as an assistant coach, including two seasons under Braun at Cal, and then his time with Leonard Hamilton at Florida State, Gates WAS the guy in '17...plenty of us on the CGB (I believe) site were banging the table for him. Even at the time, Wyking Jones was just a catastrophically poor decision by a complete nincompoop sitting in the Director's chair.
So, we hired Mark Fox towards the end of March, 2019...Gates was hired by Cleveland State, his first Head Coaching job, in July of 2019. Honestly, I don't completely fault Knowlton for wanting to avoid a first time HC following the Wyking Jones disaster, and to his credit, Knowlton DID reach out to Gates. In the end, Jim went with the more experienced HC, which certainly made sense at the time...the problem was the selection, not the formula: a below average recruiter that had struggled to consistently produce a competent offense in 9 years at UGA was a poor fit from the start for the points-savvy P12, as we saw. I guess In a perfect world, Knowlton fires Fox at the end of LAST season as many of us had hoped, after it was clear the program was already stagnating (for various reasons, some admittedly beyond his control) with Fox, and hires Gates after he's gained HC experience and before Missouri gets to him.
In my opinion, that idiot Mike WIlliams was the one that REALLY dropped the ball. If you are comfortable going with a first time head coach in the first place, THAT guy needs to be Dennis Gates, NOT Wyking f-ing Jones. Williams interviewed Gates, but went with Wyking in March 2017...considering Gates' playing career at Cal, his 10+ years as an assistant coach, including two seasons under Braun at Cal, and then his time with Leonard Hamilton at Florida State, Gates WAS the guy in '17...plenty of us on the CGB (I believe) site were banging the table for him. Even at the time, Wyking Jones was just a catastrophically poor decision by a complete nincompoop sitting in the Director's chair.