this is who we should go after. Not sure, however, that he'd even be willing to leave Annapolis to come to Charlottesville though.
Niumatalolo (57-35, .620), U.S Naval Academy, is the all-time winningest coach in school history, passing George Welsh. This is a coach like Welsh who has even tougher recruiting and retention requirements than UVa and this is the type coach needed at Virginia. Not somebody who has never had to be selective in who is recruited or deal with individuals staying eligible.
I keep reading on this forum about this coach and that coach who has been "successful" at schools with much more flexible or lax entrance or retention requirements than UVa. Everybody who has posted here knows what this coach and the one before had to deal with in terms of going after the type player they wanted. Sometimes they got them but more often than not they didn't or when they did they lost some of them somewhere in-between getting them into school and onto the field.
Unless the University leaders (not athletic but academic along with the faculty) decide that football is more important than academics and make accommodations like other "so called academic" universities this will remain a hurdle to any new coach, and any coach who has not had to deal with this and been successful in the process will not be successful at UVa. To keep thinking this way, or for the AD to keep going after those coaches without a proven track record at a university that prides itself on academics like UVa, is just an extension of the futility we've seen over the past 15 or so years.
Niumatalolo (57-35, .620), U.S Naval Academy, is the all-time winningest coach in school history, passing George Welsh. This is a coach like Welsh who has even tougher recruiting and retention requirements than UVa and this is the type coach needed at Virginia. Not somebody who has never had to be selective in who is recruited or deal with individuals staying eligible.
I keep reading on this forum about this coach and that coach who has been "successful" at schools with much more flexible or lax entrance or retention requirements than UVa. Everybody who has posted here knows what this coach and the one before had to deal with in terms of going after the type player they wanted. Sometimes they got them but more often than not they didn't or when they did they lost some of them somewhere in-between getting them into school and onto the field.
Unless the University leaders (not athletic but academic along with the faculty) decide that football is more important than academics and make accommodations like other "so called academic" universities this will remain a hurdle to any new coach, and any coach who has not had to deal with this and been successful in the process will not be successful at UVa. To keep thinking this way, or for the AD to keep going after those coaches without a proven track record at a university that prides itself on academics like UVa, is just an extension of the futility we've seen over the past 15 or so years.
