Al Golden going to Happy Valley after all?

Well according to NBC Philadelphia (Comcast Sports Net Philadelphia) last night, they're reporting that Al Golden is back in play for the Penn State job. 

Here's my take on the AllCanes.com blog post about this today. 

Its true that each time another job from a power 6 conference comes up, Al has turned them down. However, that's not the case with Penn State, his alma mater, and a school where he was a star TE back from 1987-1991 and a team captain. 

As I said a few days ago, when this first came up, Golden's name was near the top of the list, and at that point, no one in the Hecht was talking, they went into bunker mode over there. Freet, Yandle, James weren't talking because they were in Al's inner circle. 

The statement on Sunday saying that he was staying. I've had a few days to read it, and I believe it was a forced statement by those in the Ashe Building (I suspect that order came from Donna herself), that Al was forced to give just to wield off the media and the fanbase for a little while, maybe to give PSU more time to do their due diligence, before coming back to Al to offer him the job and maybe accept. 

As for the interview with Rose on Monday, Al went on Shutdown mode. He was not going to talk about the Penn State job and then went to defend D'Onofrio and saying in his final presser later that day that there would be no changes. Simple fact, he wants to prove people wrong and do this his way. 

Now, In regards to this comment that Bello and/or The Beast posted on AllCanes, "Regarding this currently-rocky relationship between Miami and Golden—a couple somewhat on the outs—things can always take a turn for the better, barring there’s growth, change, unity and an ability to both forgive and forget."  I'll tell you this now, that paragraph tells me that if there's no trip to Charlotte next year, then, Blake is going to put his foot down on this and either force Al to make changes on the staff, or can him totally if he refuses to make any changes after next year. Golden wants to do it his way. OK, fine, but, I'm sure Blake and the higher-ups in the Ashe Building will give him this edict, if he stays, "get to Charlotte next year, or you're gone. We appreciate you staying through the dark days of the NCAA, but now that's that gone, the clock is ticking." With our biggest rival up North in Tallahassee having the Crystal Football, the pressure to get back to a Major Bowl/CFB Playoff went up 1000 fold. That clock is ticking even faster now. If we're not in Charlotte next year, it's not going to end well inside the Hecht. 

As I said a while ago, the CANES are at a crossroads and so is Al here, read Hyde's piece in Sun-Sentinel and you'll see how big this decision is for Golden going forward. What will Al do? What identity will we have on D especially? Hopefully, those questions get answered in the coming days, weeks, and months ahead. 

My take on Golden's comments to Joe Rose on QAM this morning

Here's my take on Golden's interview this morning: 

On PSU, though he declined to discuss Penn State’s reported interest in him or whether he interviewed, repeatedly saying he and the program are “moving forward.” PSU sources, as I documented yesterday, say that this was a family decision. When he was asked if he was close to taking the job, he said he hasn’t in the past discussed similar situations., though very well placed sources say otherwise. I take Al at his word, when he made the statement he made yesterday, when he said that he’s not a candidate for any other position. Here's something that shed light on where he was last week, he said he was in the office inside the Hecht Center working on ways to get us better for the 2014 season. 

Asked if he was interested in the job, he repeated the answer above. Again, sources close to the situation say otherwise. If you look at PSU's boards last night and today, they are not happy they whiffed on Golden. They went all-in and came up snake eyes. 

Now, on the matter of D, when read Al's comments, it seems to me D is going to survive all this and in that scenario, Al's time is shorter and the patience will be very thin. 

Here's his comments to Rose, verbatim: 

“I appreciate you asking the question. There’s no question, from the last game – I worked on it Monday and Tuesday of last week, and I worked on it again Thursday and Friday. I looked at everything, Joe. If you want me to really talk about it, we can talk about it. Do we have time to talk about this?”

Rose: “Oh no, we’ve got plenty of time for you, Coach. You go ahead.”

Al: “OK. What I don’t want to do is give you a half-ass answer and then it gets chopped up. I think the biggest thing is, we’re not coming from a place of 11 or 13 wins. We’re coming from, as you know, what amounted to be a train wreck two years ago, and we’re on an upward trend. So we won nine games. 

My take: That's fine, but losing to Louisville in Orlando, the way we did is unacceptable and inexcusable. 

He continues on the matter of change: “People think change is the answer. I want to get to the same place everybody else wants to get. I believe that continuity, the progress that we’re making, is really important. The recruiting that we’re making. All of that is on an upward trend. Recruiting, all of those things are on an upward trend.

Translation: We're staying status quo on that. To me, that's a big issue, in a year where we had to make changes and it seems, we're not going to make any. That being the case, the clock is ticking on Al to get to Charlotte next year. 

“If we look at the defense, for instance, again, we’re not where we want to be. But what are the trends? Those are the trends that I look at every day. We moved up 17 spots in terms of points per game, we moved up 36 spots nationally in terms of giving up rushing defense. We moved up 52 spots in interceptions. We moved up 25 spots nationally in forced fumbles. We moved up 40 spots in takeaways. We moved up 74 spots in sacks. We moved up 52 spots in red-zone defense. We moved up 36 spots in red zone TDs. We moved up 21 spots in yards per rush, and again, it’s still not where it needs to be, we’ve got to get that under 4 [yards per carry]. We moved up 17 spots in yards per play. Our mental errors were down. Our tackling percentage was up.” 

Al continues: “I want to make sure when I communicate, if everybody doesn’t hear the whole philosophy or whole approach that I’m making, then it’s easy to take a little, a piece out. We’re not where we want to be. On defense we have to be better in tackles for loss. We’re not very good there, Joe. We gave up too many plays of 20 yards or more. Many of them, as I looked at it, were attributable to missed tackles. We’ve got to do a better job of that. Our third-down percentage, on both sides of the ball, is really at the end of the day what’s hurting our defense. Our third-down differential, we’re not converting enough on offense and giving up too many up on defense.” 

My take: He's right when he says we're not where we want to be here on that. Yes, we've improved statistically, the issue to me is tackling. What's not said is missed tackles, poor angles, etc. When you hear recruits like Bethel call out the defensive staff for the scheme, you know changes have to be made there. With D likely back, the D cannot regress next year, because if it does, the calls for D's ouster will get louder and louder, and there will start being calls for Al's head as well.  His top priority this off-season on D: STOP THE RUN! His goal to under 4.0 ypc allowed. The pass rush was better, but I need to see more of a presence there. 

On the offensive side, Al said the biggest issue was lack of 3rd down conversions and he wants more balance there. He wants the running game to average 200 ypg and I think we can do that with the backs we have coming in and those that are back in '14. 

On the matter of personnel and numbers, he mentions 10 players playing over 400 snaps, some as high as 1,000. in fact, here's what he told Rose: 

 “All of those things, for me, are positive trends. We definitely need to fix some things, there’s no question about it. The first thing to do is look at our personnel and what we need to do better. Everything for me, right now, as I look at it, is positive.” 

My take: Yes, they are positive, and yes we have to get those fixed. He said he was going to look at the personnel. I would move Chick to the inside with Pierre and have McCord and AQM on the outside. The main thing here is the scheme, we have to be more aggressive with it. 

Here the interview for yourselves in its entirety and you be the judge: Al's interview with Joe Rose on WQAM 1/6/14