Neal Brown was fired yesterday as head coach at West Virginia. Of course, this was announced after I posted yesterday’s firing watch.
They were 6-6 this season, and lost on Saturday to Texas Tech, 52-15. At least Mr. Brown was able to make some people in my family happy.
37-35 in six seasons. 25-28 in conference.
I’m trying to get out of the house to do some shopping, but stuff keeps coming up.
The Chicago Bears fired Matt Eberflus this morning. Tribune. ESPN.
This was not entirely unexpected. The Bears have lost six straight games, and are 4-8 this season. The big reason for pulling the trigger seems to be yesterday’s Lions game. It wasn’t just that they lost to Detroit, it was that the Bears completely botched the end of the game.
(I don’t know why ESPN keeps referring to this as “Sunday’s game”. It was Thursday, right? My internal clock isn’t that messed up, is it?)
I didn’t see the game (we were busy eating Thanksgiving dinner out with our people) but from what I hear and read, Eberflus completely botched things. For crying out loud, the game ended with an unused timeout by da Bears!
“Bears fire Matt Eberflus shortly after making him meet with media” from Awful Announcing. Yes, he had a press conference this morning, in which he said “I’m confident I’ll be working to San Francisco and coaching that game.”…and then they fired him about two hours later.
Eberflus was 14-32 in “three years”.
Mack Brown has been shived by the North Carolina Tar Heels.
He is going to coach the final game of the season, and might coach a bowl game (reply hazy, ask again later) but he won’t be back next year.
ESPN.
The team is 6-5 this season.
Brown has coached 192 games at UNC over 16 seasons. He has won more games (113) than any coach in school history, and during first tenure at the school, which ran from 1988 through 1997, UNC became a top-10 program. During his second tenure with the school, though, his teams have been defined by late-season collapses and porous defenses. The highs were an Orange Bowl appearance at the end of the pandemic-altered 2020 season and a Coastal Division championship, followed by a loss against Clemson in the ACC title game, in 2022.
But the lows were many. A preseason top-10 ranking gave way to a 6-7 finish in 2021. In 2022 and ‘23, the Tar Heels started strong and entered the top 15 of the national rankings, only to endure agonizing late-season losing streaks that called into question their ability to finish. Throughout it all, UNC recruited well but the success there didn’t often translate to the field. Defensively, UNC has been among the worst teams in the ACC throughout Brown’s second head coaching tenure — a stunning contrast to its performance on that side of the ball during his first stint at head coach. On offense, the Tar Heels have had two of the best quarterbacks in school history in recent years in Sam Howell and Drake Maye, but sustained success proved elusive.
In two stints at North Carolina, Brown has gone a combined 113-78-1.
Drew Bannister was fired yesterday as head coach of the St. Louis Blues.
This isn’t SportsHirings.com, but it is interesting: the Blues have already replaced Bannister…with Jim Montgomery, who you may recall was fired last week.
Jim Montgomery out as head coach of the Boston Bruins hockey team.
They were 120-41-23 in “three seasons”. 20 games into the current season, they’re 8-9-3.
The Bruins have been one of the NHL’s most notable disappointments this season. They’re 31st in team offense (2.40 goals per game) and 28th in defense (3.45 goals against per game).
Previously dependable aspects of the team have malfunctioned, in particular the goaltending. The team traded former Vezina winner Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators for goalie Joonas Korpisalo. The Ullmark deal broke up the best goalie tandem in the NHL with 26-year-old Jeremy Swayman, who missed training camp during a bitter negotiation before signing an eight-year contract that will pay him $66 million.
(Apologies for the ESPN link, but I flat out cannot get around the various Boston media paywalls/”disable your ad blocker” prompts.)
According to “sources”, the NY Jets have fired general manager Joe Douglas. ESPN.
Under Douglas, the Jets have a 30-64 record, no winning seasons and no playoff appearances.
The Charlotte 49ers have fired football coach Biff Poggi.
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The good news is, former coach Biff is going to have more time to drink white wine spritzers at the club with Muffy, Buffy, and Brock.
There’s been a lot going on. I’m sorry to be linking so much to ESPN, but I’m having trouble finding local coverage for some of these.
Tom Herman out at Florida Atlantic. 6-16 in two seasons, and 0-6 in the AAC this season.
Don Brown out at the University of Massachusetts. 6-28 over “two plus seasons”, and they’re 2-8 so far.
Phil Longo out as offensive coordinator of the Wisconsin Badgers. I have not heard anything about mushrooms or the snake.
Stan Drayton out at Temple. 9-25 in “two plus” seasons, 4-18 in the AAC, and 0-15 on the road. But they actually won (in overtime) Saturday.
Noted: “Temple’s firing of Stan Drayton should open the door to dropping the football program“.
I had scheduled today and tomorrow off, and am running around with Mike the Musicologist. I had no idea how busy it was going to get, so I am blogging by phone.
Dennis Allen out in New Orleans. 18-25 in more or less three seasons, and the Saints have lost seven games in a row.
The Raiders fired Luke Getsy as offensive coordinator. Also offensive line coach James Cregg and QB coach Rich Scangarello. The team is 2-7, and all three were in their first season with the Raiders. (Hattip: Lawrence.)
Mike Bloomgren out as head coach of Rice.
24-52 in seven seasons, 2-6 this season with four games left.
As you know, Bob, I prefer to link to local coverage when I can, but I couldn’t find any. Not in the HouChron, not on the Fox station, not on KHOU, nothing.
Christie Sides out as coach of the Indiana Fever, which is your WNBA team featuring Caitlin Clark.
33-47 in two years, 20-20 this year, and they got swept in the playoffs. ESPN.
Latricia Trammell was fired on Friday as head coach of the Dallas Wings.
The team was 9-31 this season.
In case you were wondering- and it took me longer to figure this out than it should have – the Dallas Wings are a WNBA team.
On a related note:
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Robert Saleh out as head coach of the Jets. ESPN.
He was 20-36 over roughly three and a half seasons with the Jets. Noted:
In other news, Josh Wolff was fired on Sunday as head coach of Austin FC, the soccer team. 45-30-60 over four seasons. Austin FC made the playoffs once in that period (2022).