OSU football: Holgorsen meets West Virginia media
Mountaineer athletic director Oliver Luck has drawn fire for the way he’s staged this strange transition. WVU will 1) Play the Champs Sports Bowl next Tuesday with Stewart and a lame-duck offensive staff; 2) Play the 2011 season with Holgorsen running the offense and Stewart as a lame-duck coach; 3) Play the 2012 season with Holgorsen fully in charge.
Luck on Wednesday didn’t rehash the process but did say “that I expect from all of our coaches, led by coach Stewart, coach Holgorsen and coach (Jeff) Casteel (defensive coordinator), a lot of professionalism during this transition.
“I have mentioned, I studied the transition models of Wisconsin and Oregon, and I think those transitions went extraordinarily well and were reflected by great results on the field and great experiences for the student-athletes.”
Interesting. We always focus on the coach-in-waiting situations that didn’t work, but Oregon and Wisconsin are two that obviously did work.
In July 2005, Barry Alvarez, coach and athletic director at Wisconsin, announced he would retire from coaching at the end of that season, and Alvarez named Bret Bielema, newly hired as defensive coordinator, to replace him. Now Wisconsin is in the Rose Bowl.
In 2007, Oregon coach Mike Bellotti hired Chip Kelly as his offensive coordinator. In the days before Oregon’s 2008 Holiday Bowl victory over Oklahoma State, Bellotti — ascending to the Ducks’ athletic director job — named Kelly the eventual successor, and Bellotti indeed stepped down three months later. Now Oregon is in the Big Bowl.
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