In college football dominoes fall everywhere and this time a big domino moved the pile when Dana Holgorsen went West Virginia to become Houston’s new head football coach. This move was impactful because we all know the Power 5 and Group of 5 arguments some hold a lot of weight and others are just for clicks, but I’ve never seen a coach move from a P5 to a G5 until Holgorsen did this week. Now, Houston opened up their pocket books to get their head coach signing him to a five-year $20 million deal.
I could dig more into the Holgorsen move, but he isn’t the main subject of this article. So after Holgorsen signed with Houston (which I thought wasn’t going to happen unless he was silently being ran out of Morgantown) I tweeted out man that is very good for the American Athletic Conference and then one of my followers wrote me back unless West Virginia gets (Luke) Fickell. In that made me think, could he bolt for West Virginia? The glamour of West Virginia couldn’t lure him right, just a basic college town with no big city lights, but they play in a P5 and the Bearcats don’t. We know the AAC says they are Power 6, but we all know when it counts they don’t get the same respect as the P5 schools when it comes to the College Football Playoff Committee. But the Bearcats head coach did stay at Ohio State longer than people expected because he wanted the right job, not just any job. Fickell is fresh off of leading the Bearcats to an 11-2 record in his second season the most wins in program history since 2009, so you don’t need to be in the know to know he was and is one of the hottest coaches in America.
#BearcatNation had a reason to be nervous, I cover the team and I was like dang anything is possible. So, when Troy’s Neal Brown was considered the front-runner I was happy and nervous at the same time you never know what is smoke or real nowadays. On Friday we found out it was real when Brown signed a six-year deal with West Virginia. #BearcatNation can jump for joy, but with the success brewing in Clifton I don’t think this will be the last program that comes sniffing around wanting Fickell or possibly members of the staff. I personally think it will take a top-tier job to get Fickell to leave, but at the end of the day money talks and bull**** walks.
