Keeler’s Firing was Personal NOT Business

[cougarpines1]

This whole thing reminds me of the election in November. Since it's been over the two sides have spent the last 60 days regurigitating their positions they've held for the last year. KC is gone. Does it really matter why at this point in time? A new page in UD football will be opened in the next week or so. . Wouldn't it be great if everyone was on it?

HZ, I agree, we all need to get behind the new coach whomever that may be. Hopefully, this will solve the performance related attendence problems. Obviously, there has been much debate, including a lot by me, over the last week as to how much can be attributed to performance and how much to administrative policy changes. Since they have taken steps to solve the on field problems to address the attendence issue, which I believe they referenced as one of the factors in the decision, it would be refreshing to hear from them regarding the other issues at some time in the future.

[Tailgating Hen]

Amazing how you didn't include 2012 to try and make your argument for #6.

My point by leaving out 2012 is, from 2002 to 2011, Delaware had the best program in the CAA. Most wins (81) which was tied with NH. Most playoff wins (11)…no one else is close to that number. Most Conference Championships (3)…tied with UMass and Richmond. Only team to play for multi National Championships (3). So in 2012 we have an injury-riddled year, you’re going to fire the guy? He is statistically the best HC in the league. Those are the facts.
I'm sure if Sean McDonelll was here we would have fired him because he can't win a playoff game. Face it; this was a personal agenda by the "Powers" at UD.

Don't try to confuse the KC Haters with facts. It just makes them more angry, and thus call for you to move on. They know why KC was fired, and it had less to do with his record than for personal reasons. Anyone who claims otherwise is lying

[ChickenMan]

Anyone who claims otherwise is lying

6-6
6-5
5-6
4-8
6-5
5-6

isn't lying

[mpwerrell]

Get over it and move on with your lives, KC fans.

Yes, there were some great years. But they were outweighed by the non-great years, that were at times, just awful, craptastic, boring, uninspired, ridiculous football. And those years fall on the 'Football CEO' shoulders. They always have, and they always will. He had more bad years than good years, no???

I am with you Ray.
I am a KC fan but as Observer2 so aptly said, "It is done, and it is time to move on"

Go Hens!

[Cluck U]

KC is gone. Does it really matter why at this point in time? A new page in UD football will be opened in the next week or so. . Wouldn't it be great if everyone was on it?

Of course it matters why and how KC's termination was handled.

Otherwise, no one should complain about the way parking, trumpetman, UD's offense, UD's record, and how the UDAF contributions were handled.

Hey everyone...don't complain about anything...just accept it and move on.

For many years, and even with some of the snipes you've put in lately, you certainly haven't taken your own advice about getting on the same page...and neither did some other people around here.

UD is telling their employees that they bleeding money right now almost all across the board. The Arts and Science departments are all being asked...again...to trim their budgets and people are going to be terminated.

Harker and his pals screwed up UD's attendance FAR more than KC...but KC, with what people are saying is a great recruiting class, and who changed his OC, gets terminated with a + million dollar payout?

Cue the clown music.

And, with all of the "needed" budget cuts, what are we going to pay our new coach...and staff? Does anyone think the new coach will get paid a paultry amount? Imagine that conversation...attention all really good, qualified coaches: come to Delaware, one of the best football coaching jobs out there...and with the full support of the administration...and with 20,000 - errrr, 18,000 fans...but we won't really pay you or your assistants much.

This has been handled poorly...as expected from Harker. And, going by his record, he has a good chance of goofing this up as well.

[BlueHenBill]

Does anyone know with certainty whether or not Ciarracco was going to be Keelr's next OC? If so, I would have been underwhelmed. Many UD fans were not too happy withthe O when Ciarracco was running it and he got canned as OC at RU because Schiano wasn't happy with the O under Ciaarracco.

[cougarpines1]

UD is telling their employees that they bleeding money right now almost all across the board. The Arts and Science departments are all being asked...again...to trim their budgets and people are going to be terminated.

The sad issue here is that it's a self inflicted injury far worse than the football issues. Harker needs to be held accountabe for the new programs and the data he used to get them through the BOT.

[UD77]

Does anyone know with certainty whether or not Ciarracco was going to be Keelr's next OC? If so, I would have been underwhelmed. Many UD fans were not too happy withthe O when Ciarracco was running it and he got canned as OC at RU because Schiano wasn't happy with the O under Ciaarracco.

Makes no difference today and I doubt that anyone could answer this question other than KC. Ciarracco bolted before KC was let go so either it wasn't offered to him or he already had this other offer.

[BlueHenBill]

Does anyone know with certainty whether or not Ciarracco was going to be Keelr's next OC? If so, I would have been underwhelmed. Many UD fans were not too happy withthe O when Ciarracco was running it and he got canned as OC at RU because Schiano wasn't happy with the O under Ciaarracco.

Makes no difference today and I doubt that anyone could answer this question other than KC. Ciarracco bolted before KC was let go so either it wasn't offered to him or he already had this other offer.

Yeah and/or maybe Ciarracco had an inkling (e.g, the way that Hofher's firing was handled and the delay in officially naming a new OC) of what might have been coming and took the other opportunity as a sure thing. Cluck U 's post in defense of Keeler refers to a change in OC. I was just pointing out that may not have been a good thing if Ciarracco was going to be the new OC.

[93BlueHen]

It doesn’t matter if you liked K.C. Keeler or not, it’s obvious that the firing was PERSONAL.

You don’t fire a coach who’s:
1. Team has the most wins in the conference the last 3years
2. Team is the last CAA team to play for a National Championship
3. Team has won 11 playoff games in 11years. No school in the CAA has ever won that many playoff games in their history EVER. (in fact, KC’s 11 in 11 is almost twice as good as Tubby’s 11 in 21 years)
4. Taken his teams to 3 National Championship appearances in 11 years. (Tubby’s teams played for 1 in 21 years of 1AA and that was in 1983)
5. The only CAA coach to play for multiple FCS (1AA) National Championships.
6. Teams from 2002 to 2011 had the most wins of any CAA team, most conference championships, most National Championship appearances, and most playoff wins of all CAA teams.
7. Had the highest winning % of any coach in the CAA that has been at their institution for more then 3 years.
8. Had the highest winning % of any coach at UD.
9. 2 years removed from winning the National Coach of the Year and Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year!
10. Players represent UD well in the community. 2010 Sidequee Haynes won a National community service award.
11. Tremendously involved in the community as evidenced by the service projects that he and his wife are committed to.
12. A proud alum!
13. Team has a strong academic APR.
14. Helped to set record season ticket sales and attendance records - until UD instituted its ridiculous ticket and parking policies.
15. Shown by his recent handling of his firing - is a class act!


If you think we fired him because the AD, that has been on the job 30 days, didn’t like the direction the program is going I have some swampland in Smyrna to sell you. Keeler pissed someone off up campus and got wacked. Z-daddy may have pulled the trigger but our illustrious President called for the hit. He is the only one with enough power to pull a scumbag move like this. Firing a Football coach and his staff in January is not just stupid but also immoral. I, for one, am not proud to be a BLUE HEN with these bad people running UD!

By the way, to whom does The President have to answer to?????
If the answer is no one - then I guess Mel Brooks had it right with his movie line “it’s good to be the king”.

16. Missed playoffs 6 of the last 8 seasons
17. Most losses in a season in school history
18. Inability to recruit and develop a starting QB from HS
19. Wildly inconsistent from season to season

Also, where is this swampland near Smyrna you want to sell? It's goose season and I'm game. Shoot me a PM with the plot and the price. We can make this happen.

[Bandwagon]

It doesn’t matter if you liked K.C. Keeler or not, it’s obvious that the firing was PERSONAL.

You don’t fire a coach who’s:
1. Team has the most wins in the conference the last 3years
2. Team is the last CAA team to play for a National Championship
3. Team has won 11 playoff games in 11years. No school in the CAA has ever won that many playoff games in their history EVER. (in fact, KC’s 11 in 11 is almost twice as good as Tubby’s 11 in 21 years)
4. Taken his teams to 3 National Championship appearances in 11 years. (Tubby’s teams played for 1 in 21 years of 1AA and that was in 1983)
5. The only CAA coach to play for multiple FCS (1AA) National Championships.
6. Teams from 2002 to 2011 had the most wins of any CAA team, most conference championships, most National Championship appearances, and most playoff wins of all CAA teams.
7. Had the highest winning % of any coach in the CAA that has been at their institution for more then 3 years.
8. Had the highest winning % of any coach at UD.
9. 2 years removed from winning the National Coach of the Year and Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year!
10. Players represent UD well in the community. 2010 Sidequee Haynes won a National community service award.
11. Tremendously involved in the community as evidenced by the service projects that he and his wife are committed to.
12. A proud alum!
13. Team has a strong academic APR.
14. Helped to set record season ticket sales and attendance records - until UD instituted its ridiculous ticket and parking policies.
15. Shown by his recent handling of his firing - is a class act!


If you think we fired him because the AD, that has been on the job 30 days, didn’t like the direction the program is going I have some swampland in Smyrna to sell you. Keeler pissed someone off up campus and got wacked. Z-daddy may have pulled the trigger but our illustrious President called for the hit. He is the only one with enough power to pull a scumbag move like this. Firing a Football coach and his staff in January is not just stupid but also immoral. I, for one, am not proud to be a BLUE HEN with these bad people running UD!

By the way, to whom does The President have to answer to?????
If the answer is no one - then I guess Mel Brooks had it right with his movie line “it’s good to be the king”.

16. Missed playoffs 6 of the last 8 seasons
17. Most losses in a season in school history
18. Inability to recruit and develop a starting QB from HS
19. Wildly inconsistent from season to season

Also, where is this swampland near Smyrna you want to sell? It's goose season and I'm game. Shoot me a PM with the plot and the price. We can make this happen.

My point to posting the thread is that in the toughest conference in America, Keeler had the highest winning percentage of any coach in the conference. People on this thread can skew some of my points, …but in it’s entirety, Keeler has an impressive resume. You don’t fire a man with this resume and you don’t recruit a donor to buy him out for 1.5 million dollars when you have much more pressing issues to address on campus. This was PERSONAL NOT BUSINESS. And that is disturbing!

Here is my take on each season under Keeler:

2002 – Keeler’s 1st year coming off a 4-6 season by Tubby. UD was horrible in 2001 and had no QB for the future. Keeler’s team going 6-6 that year was actually a pretty good season considering they put a new offense and defense and played a transfer QB who showed up in training camp.

2003- National Champions. Good junior and senior classes left by Tubby that were moved to a championship level by future draft choices, Andy Hall and Sean Johnson along with David Boler, Brad Shushman, Brian McDermott, Kyle Campbell, etc.

2004- Playoff Team.

2005 & 2006 – Both years had poor teams with no senior talent because of poor recruiting by the previous staff under Tubby. Hmmm…why do you think that is? Answer: Because the staff all knew Tubby was retiring at 300 wins and most likely weren’t going to have a job when a new coach came in. No one was recruiting with any passion. If you look at the recruiting classes from 2001 & 2002, most of the kids didn’t make it to their senior year.

2007 – Played for a National Championship

2008 – Team stunk / Schoenhoft + injuries = Bad year on Keeler.

2009 – If their kicker doesn’t miss an easy field goal on opening day against Richmond, they get in the playoffs.

2010 – Robbed in the National Championship game

2011 – Played with a back-up QB all season. Went 7-4. Should have made the playoffs except for the West Chester scheduling debacle.

2012 – Injury riddled year.

I can tell you this - no one else in the CAA is firing a coach with these credentials!

[UDPat]

Convienent how the ultimate choke in the 2004 playoffs is left off your analysis. Remember they blew a 3 TD lead in the 4th Q against W&M. And yes that was ALL coaching!!!

And who recruited Schoenhoft to play QB.

You should really stop, you come off less and less credible with every post.

[IRISHMAFIA]

Convienent how the ultimate choke in the 2004 playoffs is left off your analysis. Remember they blew a 3 TD lead in the 4th Q against W&M. And yes that was ALL coaching!!!

And who recruited Schoenhoft to play QB.

You should really stop, you come off less and less credible with every post.

There is no credibility here, this guy is pure whiner. How can a team get robbed in the NC game (2010) when the team only play 2.5 quarters? Yeah, the team was robbed by KC & the Noshine Band.

[Redcoat]

Convienent how the ultimate choke in the 2004 playoffs is left off your analysis. Remember they blew a 3 TD lead in the 4th Q against W&M. And yes that was ALL coaching!!!

And who recruited Schoenhoft to play QB.

You should really stop, you come off less and less credible with every post.

And not only Schoenhoft. Who was the dude from JuCo who took nary a snap? I forget. For Pete's sake we had a TE and a WR sharing time under center, even when QBs were healthy. That was not bad luck. That was lousy management, simple as.

As to the Personal versus business, I don't get it. What decisions don't have a personal element? This dismissal had been building for a while (Exhibit A the mediocre to mind numbing performances in our non playoff years) and I suspect that the timing (crappy as most on this board agree) may have been triggered by personal dislike but not the actual decision.

[pict]

Even if there were personal motivations behind "relieving" KC, I DON'T CARE. (And there were plenty of justification/reasons for getting rid of KC that rise above the merely personal - so it was not ENTIRELY personal. And no doubt this new direction will boost attendance at least initially.)
Delaware Football needed this change to have any chance of living up to the traditions of a program that was once (but under KC was no longer) one of the most respected programs in the nation. And I am glad to see that the new coach paid homage to those traditions in his initial comments.
GO HENS!!!