Alabama's Nick Saban cleared to travel with team to LSU on Friday
Seattle Seahawks WR Josh Gordon reinstated for last 2 weeks
4:01 AM
Brady Henderson
ESPN
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Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Josh Gordon has been conditionally reinstated for the final two weeks of the 2020 season, the NFL announced.
Gordon will be allowed to begin COVID-19 testing Friday and might join the Seahawks on Dec. 9 if he tests negative for the coronavirus.
He will be permitted to take part in meetings, individual workouts, and strength and conditioning, but he will not be permitted to practice, travel with the team or attend games until Monday, Dec. 21, after Seattle's Week 15 game.
Gordon responded to the news of his conditional reinstatement with a tweet that he was "thankful."
The NFL announced Gordon's suspension the day after the Seahawks' Week 15 game last season, so he will have effectively served a one-year ban. It was a mystery to the Seahawks and to Gordon why the league was taking so long to deliver a decision, according to sources. Gordon's team applied for reinstatement in mid-June with the hope that he would be reinstated in time for training camp.
He re-signed with the Seahawks on a one-year deal in September. The deal with Seattle includes a $910,000 base salary, a $52,000 roster bonus due after his reinstatement and $80,000 in per-game roster bonuses, according to a source.
He was suspended indefinitely last December for violations of the league's policies on performance-enhancing substances and substances of abuse. It was Gordon's sixth suspension since the 2013 season and his fifth for some form of substance abuse, according to ESPN Stats & Information records.
Gordon's attorney, Adam Kenner, confirmed to ESPN in June that Gordon's latest suspension was the result of a setback he experienced after the death of his brother last fall. Gordon posted on social media on Nov. 11 of last year, the day he made his Seahawks debut, about losing his older brother.
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Gordon, 29, adds to the firepower in Seattle's wide receiver corps. DK Metcalf leads the NFL in receiving yards (1,039), and Tyler Lockett (771) is 16th. David Moore, rookie Freddie Swain and Penny Hart have been the team's Nos. 3, 4 and 5 receivers, respectively. Free-agent addition Phillip Dorsett is on injured reserve recovering from foot surgery.
"He's an amazing receiver, a guy who was great last year for us, made some great plays. Obviously he's been a great player over his years and all that. But I think more than anything else, it's a testament hopefully to his growth in life," quarterback Russell Wilson said Thursday. "You always want to see people overcome, overcome challenges and everything else."
Wilson said he has been checking in with Gordon "as a friend, about life and just making sure he's doing well."
"He seems like he's doing really well. I think also too is he's been super supportive of our team. I've seen and I've heard about that he's been really about the team. ... It's important to check on people you care about, and I think hopefully he'll be ready to play and I think also too, just to come in and be an addition to our team. We've got so many great guys making plays right now. So we've just got to stay the course and praying that he's ready to roll," he said.
Gordon caught seven passes for 139 yards in five games last season with the Seahawks, who claimed the one-time Pro Bowler after he was released off injured reserve by the New England Patriots in November.
Gordon missed the 2015 and 2016 seasons as a member of the Cleveland Browns and was suspended in December 2018 for violating terms of his reinstatement, which led to his missing the final three games of the season with the Patriots.
He was suspended for the first two games of the 2013 season but still caught 87 passes for nine touchdowns and a league-leading 1,646 yards and was named to the All-Pro team.
Gordon has played just 63 games since he was chosen by the Browns in the 2012 supplemental draft. Overall, he has caught 247 passes for 4,252 yards -- an average of 17.2 yards per catch -- and 20 touchdowns.
Alabama's Nick Saban cleared to travel with team to LSU on Friday
9:06 AM
Alex Scarborough
ESPN Staff Writer
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Alabama football coach Nick Saban said he has cleared COVID-19 protocols and will travel with the team to LSU on Friday.
"I'll be there," Saban said on his radio show Thursday night. "I'm good. I think my time is up. I'm ready to get back in the swing of things."
Saban, 69, tested positive for COVID-19 on Nov. 24.
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SEC protocols call for a minimum 10-day quarantine, making Friday the earliest Saban could return to activity.
Saban reported only minor symptoms of the virus, most notably a runny nose. He said he received an IV treatment last week that "worked wonders."
"Whatever was in this plasma deal, it knocked it out in one day," he said. "From Thursday on, I've felt great and 100 percent. I would certainly recommend that treatment for anybody that could get it."
No. 1 Alabama (8-0) will play LSU (3-4) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Saturday.
South Carolina's win streak halted at 29 as NC State women's basketball secures third-ever victory over a No. 1
10:05 AM
Mechelle Voepel
ESPN.com
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The top-ranked South Carolina women's basketball team saw its 29-game winning streak end Thursday at home in Columbia, South Carolina, as the Gamecocks were upset 54-46 by No. 8 NC State.
It was the first loss for the Gamecocks since Nov. 28, 2019, when they fell to Indiana 71-57 in the Virgin Islands. South Carolina didn't lose again last season and ended it ranked No. 1; the Gamecocks would have been a No. 1 seed had there been an NCAA tournament.
The Gamecocks started this season at No. 1 and got off to a 3-0 start. But offensively, they struggled against NC State, shooting just 27% from the field (20 of 74). This was a game in which the Gamecocks definitely seemed to miss point guard Tyasha Harris, who finished her career last season and moved on to the WNBA.
"We just had no flow," South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. "In 21 years, I never felt what I felt during the game. Uncoachable, untamable, just not listening, just selfish play. It will open our eyes to see how we need to be and how we need to play every time we step on the floor. We need some leadership. We need somebody who is going to step up and say, 'We need to get organized, we need to take better shots.'
NC State players and coaches celebrate after the Wolfpack beat a top-ranked opponent for the first time since knocking off Duke in the 2007 ACC tournament. AP Photo/Sean Rayford
"We can't rely on just being talented. That talent has to play as a cohesive unit, and we did not do that tonight. And it's disheartening. We've got to reel them back in and figure out how to bounce back."
Zia Cooke and Laeticia Amihere had 11 points apiece to lead the Gamecocks. It was the first time South Carolina has been held under 50 points in a game since Feb. 10, 2013, when they lost 50-48 at home to Texas A&M.
"Normally we talk about trying to hold a team to 60 points," NC State coach Wes Moore said. "Our defense has not been good. Tonight, we stepped up in a big game and did a great job for the most part keeping them in front of us. While also concentrating on trying to keep the ball out of the paint. I'm proud of it, because I've been the worst critic of our defense so far this year."
Entering the game, NC State was 2-17 vs No. 1-ranked teams in the Associated Press poll era, which for the women began in the 1976-77 season. The last time the Wolfpack beat a No. 1 team, the coach was still Kay Yow, who died in 2009. That was in the 2007 ACC tournament semifinals, when the Wolfpack beat Duke 70-65, the Blue Devils' first loss that year.
Moore is in his eighth season at NC State, which won the ACC tournament title last season and has started this season 3-0. Kayla Jones had 16 points and 12 rebounds to lead the Wolfpack, who were without starter Jada Boyd (knee injury.) The Wolfpack didn't shoot well, either, at 29.4%, but their defense made up for it.
"I'm just very excited right now," Jones said. "Usually I take the back seat and just do the little things to get my teammates open. But I knew I had to be aggressive so we could come out and get this win."
Houston Rockets' Stephen Silas says he's giving disgruntled James Harden 'space'
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Rockets head coach Stephen Silas says he wants to give James Harden space after the Russell Westbrook and John Wall trade and let him process the news on his own. (1:27)
5:26 AM
Tim MacMahon
ESPN Staff Writer
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First-year Houston Rockets head coach Stephen Silas has not been in regular contact with James Harden, saying he is giving the disgruntled face of the franchise "space" as the season nears.
Harden has informed the Rockets that he wants to be traded to the Brooklyn Nets, according to sources, preferring a fresh start while forming a super team with Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. However, team sources say that Houston plans to enter the season with Harden on the roster, is confident the Rockets will be competitive and is hopeful that winning would ease the perennial All-Star's desire to be dealt.
"When stuff like this kind of happens where there's a little indecision and stuff going on, I kind of take a step back and allow guys some space," Silas said in a virtual media availability Thursday, a day after the Rockets granted Russell Westbrook's wish to be traded by dealing him to the Washington Wizards for John Wall and a protected first-round pick.
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"From my perspective, my communication has been, 'I'm giving you space,' and that's kind of where it's been as far as my communication with him. Guys like that need that. They need to figure it out, and they don't need someone banging on them all the time to kind of figure out where they're at and whatnot."
Harden, the 2017-18 NBA MVP and the league's scoring leader the past three seasons, is under contract for two more seasons and has a player option for a third year.
Silas, a longtime NBA assistant coach who most recently was the Dallas Mavericks' offensive coordinator, anticipates the Rockets being a more versatile team than in recent seasons, when their offense was heavily reliant on isolation plays. Houston acquired skilled centers Christian Wood and DeMarcus Cousins in free agency before trading Westbrook for Wall, who has not played in almost two years due to heel and Achilles tendon injuries.
"Everybody is excited about the possibilities that we have," Silas said, "us having multiple ways to play on both ends of the floor and having the talent of DeMarcus Cousins and John Wall and Christian Wood to meld with the previous guys that were on the team.
"James is going to have the ball a lot, like he has in the past. Like I said, we're not going to change things so drastically that the offense isn't going to be as effective as it has in the past. We're going to try to change things to make it a little bit more diverse, but he's going to have the ball quite a bit."
Silas said he had not had a conversation with Harden since the Westbrook-Wall trade, but the coach was optimistic that Harden would be fully committed to the Rockets once training camp started.
"I'm confident that he'll be all-in," Silas said. "That's where I'm leaving it. As I said, I'm giving him his space to do his thing, but I'm confident that he'll be here when we get started."
BYU needed quality football opponent, AD says, and Coastal Carolina fulfilled 'incredible opportunity'
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Heather Dinich isn't convinced BYU can make the College Football Playoff despite its undefeated record because of its weak strength of schedule. (1:13)
4:17 AM
Heather Dinich
ESPN Senior Writer
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After the College Football Playoff selection committee made it clear in each of its past two rankings that BYU's weak schedule was dragging it down, athletic director Tom Holmoe said Thursday that there was "no question" he felt a greater sense of urgency to try to quickly schedule another quality opponent for the No. 13 Cougars.
The "incredible opportunity" arose this week, when BYU was able to replace Liberty as Coastal Carolina's opponent on Saturday after COVID-19 issues prevented the Flames from playing in the game.
"You want to be able to put your team in a position to do the best they can," Holmoe said. "We were in a good spot being ranked, but you want to give your kids every chance they can get.
"Earlier in the year, we kind of foresaw that something like this could happen, not really knowing what it would look like. The only reason we have open dates is we couldn't find games. We found 10 games and that was it, door was closed. ... Now, we've got a game. It was just fortuitous how the puzzles all pieced together that it's such a good team that we're playing."
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BYU (9-0) and No. 18 Coastal Carolina (9-0) are both ranked outside of what is typically New Year's Six bowl range, which is usually filled by the next 12 top teams after the seeding of the top four teams for the playoff. The highest-ranked Group of 5 champion is guaranteed a spot in a New Year's Six bowl, and No. 7 Cincinnati is the current front-runner.
A win by BYU on Saturday, however, could give it the boost it needs to earn one of the more lucrative bowl bids. While finishing in the top four isn't out of the question, BYU would likely need a convincing win against Coastal Carolina plus multiple upsets of Power 5 teams ranked above it and a loss by Cincinnati.
Three two-loss teams are currently ranked ahead of undefeated BYU: No. 8 Georgia, No. 9 Iowa State and No. 11 Oklahoma.
Holmoe said he has tried to stay calm as he has watched the selection committee's ranking each of the past two weeks.
"I've been on the NCAA men's basketball committee, so I get it," Holmoe said, "I know how it works. I understand the intricacies of that. I've just tried to stay calm and know that we still have time. Everybody watches the rankings, whatever sport it is. When you watch it, you want to climb. It wasn't where we expected [to be ranked in the latest CFP rankings], based on the other polls, but the key in our building was stay calm.
"We've got one more game, and we can control that game. We can control the San Diego State game. We might not play it well, but we at least get the opportunity to control that, and if we can get a couple other games, we'll have a couple more opportunities. That's all this is, an opportunity for our kids to play. No one can do anything, we've just got to keep playing."
BYU, which last played Nov. 21, had been looking for another opponent. The Cougars weren't scheduled to play again until Dec. 12 against the San Diego State Aztecs. The decision to play at Coastal Carolina (5:30 p.m. ET/ESPNU) happened at warp speed, as Holmoe said he first learned of Liberty's precarious position on Wednesday morning. By the end of the day -- even with the game still uncertain -- he sent BYU's football equipment truck on a cross-country journey to the campus near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
"If it had to turn around and come back, turn around and come back," Holmoe said, "but we're not going to miss a game because we don't have our equipment. Our guys just wanted to do it. They pushed me."
It wasn't until Thursday morning that the game became official. Holmoe said that there isn't yet an official contract or written agreement -- he and Coastal Carolina athletic director Matt Hogue don't know each other -- but that they'll work out a home-and-home deal when the season is over.
Holmoe also said ESPN, which will host College GameDay from Coastal Carolina this week, played an integral role in helping cement the game.
"ESPN called and said, 'Hey, can you do this? Do you want to do this?'" Holmoe said. "I knew these guys were ready."
Coastal Carolina has already clinched a berth in the Sun Belt Conference championship game on Dec. 19 and will face Louisiana. Coastal, led by second-year coach Jamey Chadwell, beat Louisiana 30-27 earlier this season on the road and is off to its best start in school history in only its fourth full season as an FBS member.
"Thanks to the Sun Belt Conference and Coastal Carolina, who said let's go," Holmoe said. "They didn't have to play that game. No way they had to play that game. There's a lot of struggles and trials to try to put together a game like that, and we couldn't have done it without them. I've said this all season long, it takes two to tango. We're just grateful the Sun Belt and Coastal said, 'Yes, let's go.'"
BYU has scored more than 40 points in eight of its nine games this season and has won its past five games by an average margin of 34.4 points. At one point, the team, with no conference ties, was left with only three games on its schedule as conferences started to cancel their seasons during the summer or go to league games only due to the pandemic.
The Cougars had to build a schedule from scratch, one that hasn't included any Power 5 schools, after the original schedule -- which included three Pac-12 teams, two Big Ten teams and one SEC team -- was being touted as the strongest in the program's storied history.
Instead, BYU's strength of schedule is currently No. 87 with only three wins against FBS teams over .500 -- and no Power 5 opponents.
Holmoe said he urged coach Kalani Sitake to prepare his team to play this week -- against somebody.
"They've watched a lot of film this week of a lot of different teams, thinking this might be the team we play," Holmoe said. "You're guessing, but you're guessing based on some little clues.
"Coastal is in the same situation we are. They weren't preparing for us; they were preparing for Liberty. And we were preparing for San Diego State. We weren't in full, all-out San Diego State mode -- we were kind of in a bye week -- but I said, 'Kalani, you've got to get your team ready to play a game this week against somebody.'"
Knight Commission endorses FBS split from NCAA
2:14 AM
Dan Murphy
ESPN Staff Writer
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A commission of college athletics leaders recommended Thursday that the best way to repair the NCAA's "broken governance model" is to remove the teams of the Football Bowl Subdivision from the association, forcing the top level of college football to govern itself as a separate entity.
The Knight Commission, a reform-minded independent group of university presidents, former athletic directors and others, spent the past year studying the current state of college sports before making its recommendation.
After surveying a wide swath of college sports stakeholders, the group said it discovered that many leaders in the industry believe the time has come for significant change. It decided that the most effective way to solve a variety of problems is to separate football -- an outlier of a sport because of the vast and quickly increasing difference in the revenue it generates.
"Every other sport looks like a duck and walks like a duck and probably is a duck," Knight Commission co-chair Arne Duncan told ESPN. "That one [football] looks like a pterodactyl. It's not like the others, and it's had a wildly disproportionate impact on everything else. It doesn't make sense."
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The commission does not have any authority to enact change in college sports, but its leaders hope Thursday's recommendation will serve as "an essential first step" in what they see as a needed overhaul of how college sports are governed.
The group met with NCAA president Mark Emmert on Thursday morning to present its recommendation. It also plans to present its finding to other members of the NCAA for further discussion in the near future.
"The governance and oversight of college sports are determined by the presidents of the schools who participate," the NCAA said in a statement. "The nearly 1,100 presidents of NCAA schools have consistently sought to create the most effective and fair ways to support student athletes. Presently, the NCAA is discussing the long-term sustainability of intercollegiate athletics. These discussions are focused on promoting the education, health and safety and fair treatment of college athletes. NCAA members within Division I have long sought to include a diverse representation of schools while supporting all student-athletes in similar ways."
The commission's proposal to separate FBS football from the NCAA would leave those big-time football programs in charge of creating a new entity that would develop and enforce rules, determine eligibility requirements, set health and safety standards, and organize a national championship.
The NCAA currently provides all those services for college football except for organizing a championship. The NCAA organizes championships for most sports, but college football's postseason -- and the significant money that it generates -- is controlled by a separate entity called the College Football Playoff.
Under this proposed plan, all other sports at those FBS schools would remain under the NCAA's governance system. That includes college basketball and its March Madness tournament, which remains the largest revenue source for the NCAA.
Lower levels of football would also remain under the NCAA's purview.
Duncan said the group also considered the idea of creating a new division just for schools in the Power 5 conferences, which operate on much larger budgets than most of their peers thanks in large part to money generated from media rights deals and their own television networks. The last split of that magnitude occurred nearly 50 years ago when the NCAA divided its schools into three divisions in 1973.
Ultimately, the Knight Commission decided that the gap between an FBS-level football program and the non-revenue sports on that same campus was wider and the source of more problems than the gap between, for example, the softball team at a Power 5 school and the football team at a school from a smaller conference.
The Knight Commission also made several other recommendations for all of college sports -- the NCAA and its proposed National College Football Association (NCFA) -- to reform its current model. They include holding university presidents accountable for controlling their athletic departments, making sure revenue is distributed in a way that promotes the schools' educational mission and a continued prohibition on allowing players to be paid.
Duncan, who played basketball at Harvard before serving as the Obama administration's secretary of education, said a shake-up of the NCAA's current model is long overdue. He said he believed that outside pressure stemming largely from recent court cases and legislative interest in the ongoing name, image and likeness debate have added a sense of urgency to make major changes.
"Change is coming," he said. "Whether that's at the state level or federal level, change is coming to college athletics. It's absolutely in the NCAA's interest to control their own fate and to lead. I don't want to say this is their last opportunity to do that, but I will say they are running out of time."
Duncan and the Knight Commission say the plan they laid out to the NCAA provides the best path for the association to make needed changes while also keeping control of its future.
The lack of Black college football coaches is still glaring, and so are the excuses behind it
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Ivan Maisel details college football's ongoing challenge with a lack of diversity among its coaches. (1:29)
5:35 PM
Ivan Maisel
ESPN Senior Writer
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I began covering college football in 1987. Nick Saban wouldn't be a head coach for another three years. Mack Brown had 11 career victories.
The first story I wrote about the lack of racial diversity among major college football head coaches ran in 1992. The number of Black head coaches in major college football that year had shrunk from three to zero. I thought the story -- actually a series of stories for The Dallas Morning News -- broke new ground. I thought college football would break new ground. I thought the new generation of coaches -- my generation -- would be judged on merit alone.
Revisiting the lack of diversity in college football coaching has become an annual chestnut of what we journalists refer to as enterprise reporting. Many of my colleagues have written on the topic. I wrote about it again at New York Newsday in 1996 and have revisited the issue more than once since then. Here it is, now 2020, literally a generation later. Nick Saban is in his 25th season as a college head coach. Mack Brown has 257 career victories. Other than Saban and Brown, there isn't much else that is familiar about college football then and now.
Offenses no longer huddle.
Defenses no longer tackle.
Coordinators make millions.
Don't get me started about realignment.
But nothing is more evergreen than the lack of diversity among college football head coaches.
This year, there are 14 Black head coaches among 130 FBS programs. Oops, Vanderbilt just fired Derek Mason this past weekend; make it 13. While that's 13 more than there were in 1992, it also means that only 10% of the programs have Black head coaches in a sport in which nearly half the players are Black, according to the NCAA Race and Gender Demographics Database. In the SEC, 61% of players are Black, and now that Vanderbilt has fired Mason, two of the Power 5 conferences -- the SEC and the Big 12 -- do not have a Black head coach. In the year 2020. And with hiring season about to begin anew, there's no expectation of much changing.
Vanderbilt fired head coach Derek Mason this past week after an 0-8 season (and a 27-55 record overall) in his sixth year with the program. He was the sixth-winningest coach in program history and the second to lead the Commodores to two bowl games. George Walker IV/Tennessean.com
Over the past few months, I asked commissioners, athletic directors, university administrators and, of course, college football coaches why we lost a generation -- why my generation, the administrators my age, failed to make any headway on the issue. Everybody has talked the talk for nearly 30 years. The walk? Not so much.
"I don't think there is an answer," said Stanford head coach David Shaw, who has won more games (87) and conference titles (three) than any other Black head coach in FBS history.
"It's a great question," said Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, who, as Stanford athletic director, hired Shaw in 2011. Bowlsby's conference has not employed a Black head coach since Texas fired Charlie Strong in 2016. In fact, none of the conference's 10 athletic directors has ever hired a Black head football coach at any school. Bowlsby added, "We need to be held accountable for that."
"You have this mindset that's been set in our country, in our minds, in our culture, why people aren't equipped to do certain things," said Ivin Jasper of Navy, one of only a few Black offensive coordinators in the FBS. "It spills right over into everyone's thinking. It's not right, but it has been the norm."
Head coaches are hired by mostly white athletic directors, who run programs supported by mostly white donors. ADs are hired by mostly white university presidents, who report to mostly white boards of trustees. If we are waiting for those dynamics to change, we might be here a while. According to a survey conducted by the NCAA in 2019, the 65 Power 5 schools employed 10 Black athletic directors -- and two Black presidents. As for Black voices among donors, all we know is that they haven't been very loud, if they exist at all. No one seems to know how many there are. The SEC conducts a demographic survey of its 14 fan bases and, associate commissioner Herb Vincent said, doesn't ask about race. I asked athletic directors in the SEC, Big 12 and Pac-12 whether they knew of any such data for their conferences. No one said yes.
Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne said he believes that the diversity of the fan base at Bryant-Denny Stadium is increasing, give or take a pandemic, but he said that pinning down that information is well down the list of priorities of the modern, sprawling athletic department.
"As an athletic department, we have 20-plus teams, and our staff isn't any bigger than what an NBA organization would have for two teams [Many NBA organizations operate NBA and WNBA teams.]," Byrne said. "We deal with academics. Pro teams don't deal with that. We deal with compliance. We deal with recruiting. They don't deal with those things.
"Until you've been on the campus and realize, half the time, you're just trying to keep your head above water. You got 650 18- to 22-year-olds and issues that come along with that. You got not one coaching staff or two coaching staffs. You have 16 coaching staffs to deal with. To be honest, I think part of it is just there are just things that have never really been a priority. I think collecting good, solid demographic background on your fan base has not been a big enough priority, but I think that is changing."
Whatever the diversity of fan bases is, there isn't sufficient pressure being applied on universities to compel them to hire Black football coaches.
"Whoever is pulling the trigger on hiring, it's still going to be who they want it to be," Shaw said. "... I commend people that have fair hiring processes, but when it comes down to it, they're still going to pick the person they think is best for the job."
The Numbers Don't Lie
Here's a breakdown of how many Black coaches hold staff positions among the 65 Power 5 schools this season (*-ACC numbers include Notre Dame).
POSITION SEC ACC-* BIG 12 PAC-12 BIG TEN TOTAL
Head Coach 0 1 0 5 4 10
Off. Coordinator 0 1 1 1 2 5
Co-OC 1 0 1 1 3 6
Def. Coordinator 3 4 0 0 0 7
Co-DC 0 2 1 3 2 8
Special Teams Coord. 2 3 2 2 1 10
Assistant STC 0 1 0 0 0 1
Strength/Conditioning 3 2 2 4 2 13
Associate Head Coach 4 1 5 1 1 12
Asst. Head Coach 2 1 1 1 4 9
Passing Coord. 2 2 2 2 0 8
Passing DC 0 1 0 0 0 1
Running Coord. 1 1 1 0 2 5
Running DC 0 1 1 0 0 2
Running Backs Coach 11 11 8 9 10 49
To be fair, it shouldn't be necessary for minorities to be in hiring positions to hire minorities. The athletic director and president need to be comfortable with the coach they are trusting to run the financial engine of their eight- or nine-figure athletic department, and that is where some believe the system has failed.
"The pool of minority candidates still has to be good," Shaw said. "Sometimes it's been good. Sometimes it's been debatable whether it's good enough, whether or not there's one or multiple candidates to fill a position."
Shaw is the son of a college and pro assistant coach. His father, Willie, had two stints at Stanford. David Shaw played at Stanford. Shaw knew how to be a coach, and he knew Stanford. That helped justify Bowlsby's decision in 2011 to promote Shaw, who was the Cardinal's offensive coordinator, instead of, among others, current Denver Broncos head coach Vic Fangio.
"As an athletic director, you've got to be an idiot to hire a coordinator that's never been a head coach if you can do anything other than that at all," Bowlsby said. "The number of things you have to learn as a head coach, the list is as long as your arm."
Here's Shaw, who has long arms:
"A head-coaching job has something to do with football, but everything else takes much more of your time: managing people, dealing with alumni, dealing with athletic directors and presidents and provosts and other on-campus personnel, setting schedules, handling difficult situations, handling your team individually and collectively.
"You can be a great X's and O's coach and lose your team because you made a couple of bad decisions. It's like showing you can climb a ladder and then trying to climb a mountain."
The difference between being an assistant coach and being a head coach is greater now than it was a generation ago. Programs have more moving parts. There are on-field coaches, off-field analysts and recruiting operations that have made marketing as vital as talent evaluation. What hasn't changed? The pipeline of Black head-coaching candidates.
In 1992, Division I-A had four Black coordinators, and the excuse was, "Hey, they haven't been coaching at this level for long. Give it time." Nearly three decades later, the 65 Power 5 teams have 12 Black coordinators: seven on defense and five on offense.
Hey, give it time.
You know what else hasn't changed? Black coaches being hired for specific jobs. Among the 65 programs, 49 have Black running back coaches. That is a vestige of the early days of breaking the color line in coaching.
"They lean on the one or two Black assistants," said Dr. Leonard N. Moore, vice president for diversity and community engagement at the University of Texas, "who, in addition to coaching, have to do all this mentoring and supporting, all this emotional labor that they don't get rewarded for, while the white coaches can just sit in the film room working on their craft."
"I don't want to be hired because I'm Black. I just don't want to not be hired because I'm Black."
Navy's Ivin Jasper on gaining coaching opportunities in college football
What I heard on this topic in 1992 sounded an awful lot like what I heard in 2020.
"As a player back in the mid-to-late '70s, many white coaches felt Black coaches could meet the needs of the Black players better than they." -- Nebraska assistant Ron Brown, 1992
"In football, 'Well, we gotta find a Black guy to coach the running backs and a Black guy to coach the secondary.' We've not permitted the growth that comes from a more merit-based promotion process. -- Bowlsby, 2020
That attitude lays bare the lack of progress that college football has made. That's not to say there has been no progress whatsoever.
First, Black head coaches have begun to be hired for higher-profile jobs. Five of the 12 teams in the Pac-12 have Black head coaches. Simple odds dictate that some of them will succeed. "If we are able to have success," Colorado head coach Karl Dorrell said, "maybe other conferences will take notice."
The fact that Dorrell made that statement in the year 2020 is, on its face, evidence that other conferences have yet to take sufficient notice.
Second, fired Black head coaches have started to receive second chances, opportunities unavailable until recently. Before 2015, well-respected coaches such as Sylvester Croom at Mississippi State (21-38), Randy Shannon at Miami (29-25) and Ruffin McNeill at East Carolina (43-34) didn't get second head-coaching jobs. If that didn't sound the alarm of racial discrimination, it echoed it.
However, in the past four years, Texas fired Strong, and he landed at USF. Kevin Sumlin bounced from Texas A&M to Arizona. Black coaches began receiving other opportunities once athletic directors figured out that if they hire a coach who held a marquee job, they can win the news conference. The trend indicates that second chances might have more to do with the prestige of the coach's previous job than with his skin color.
What HBCU coaching legend Marino Casem told me in 1992 would be harder to believe if it happened today. Casem, a College Football Hall of Fame coach who won 159 career games at three HBCUs (including four national titles with Alcorn State), said he got an interview for the vacant job at Washington after winning his third championship in 1974.
Stanford's David Shaw has won more games (87) and conference titles (three) than any other Black head coach in FBS history. Cody Glenn/Icon Sportswire
"The Seattle boosters would not have given me strong support," Casem said then. "They came out and said, 'If you name this guy, we're not going to give you $100,000.' ... They have accepted the fact that they've got more Blacks playing. They are not going to accept a Black dude over the whole program."
Casem died last spring, months after Washington promoted co-defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake to become the second Black head coach in the program's history.
That's pretty much it for progress. The rest of the story hasn't changed. At some level, there is an understanding that the lack of diversity at the top of college football coaching is a problem. How else to explain the proliferation of job titles? While the number of Black coordinators among the Power 5 conferences has barely budged, there are six co-offensive coordinators, eight co-defensive coordinators, 10 special-teams coordinators, 12 associate head coaches and nine assistant head coaches.
"Some of these white coaches throw the Black assistant a bone with this bogus associate head coach title," Moore said. "And nobody has ever told me what that [title] meant."
After last season, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly promoted Lance Taylor from running backs coach to run-game coordinator. Taylor, 38, has a dreamy résumé. He coached under Nick Saban at Alabama and Shaw at Stanford. He worked for the New York Jets and the Carolina Panthers (twice). Taylor coached Christian McCaffrey and Bryce Love with the Cardinal. This season, sophomore Kyren Williams has been a bright spot for the Irish, whose 229.7 rushing yards per game are 50 yards more than their average a year ago.
Taylor helps the Irish's offensive coordinator, Tommy Rees, 28, a white former Notre Dame quarterback. The optics of an older, Black assistant falling behind a young, white coach might raise an eyebrow. That would be unfair to both coaches. Rees is a wunderkind, the son of a college coach and longtime NFL scout, who has been around football and honing his craft, as it were, since childhood.
"More people should be talking about how many minorities are there at the coordinator level," Taylor said. "I don't think enough people are talking about that. Until we fix the subcutaneous layers, we're not going to see it at the surface level, where we all judge whether real change is being made."
Mike Locksley is in his second season as head coach at Maryland, nine years after he was fired at New Mexico. In August, Locksley began the National Coalition of Minority Football Coaches, with the goal of "removing roadblocks" to coaching opportunities for minority candidates. Locksley believes the social justice movements of 2020 just might be the key to effecting permanent change for minority coaches. Handwringing, hope and trust have not gotten the job done.
"At some point," Locksley said during an Oct. 20 panel discussion conducted by the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at Maryland, "the goodwill runs out, and the only way you usually affect owners of NFL franchises or even the athletic directors and the boosters involved with them is you affect their pocketbooks. You affect their ability to make money."
That doesn't necessarily have to be confrontational.
"If you're relying on goodwill, then you're in trouble," American University law professor N. Jeremi Duru said during the panel discussion. "One of the key things at this juncture is to work not on goodwill as much as on interest convergence. Let these universities understand that they are helping themselves by thinking broadly about who they are going to hire, by casting a wide net, by being deliberate about diversity."
Duru grabbed the carrot, and Locksley reached for the stick, but they're saying the same thing. There is a hesitance to endorse an NCAA-wide Rooney Rule, the NFL mandate adopted in 2003 that states that every team must interview at least one minority candidate for a head-coaching vacancy. The rule hasn't worked. The NFL has only three Black head coaches. As Shaw said, you can't force a school to hire someone.
Jasper, the Navy offensive coordinator, finished as runner-up to fill the vacancy at Rice in 2018. The 50-year-old said that the perception that Black coaches don't make the best head coaches will continue "until someone decides to change it."
"I don't want to be hired because I'm Black," Jasper said. "I just don't want to not be hired because I'm Black."
College football has gone through quite an evolution since I began covering it in 1987. Some things have barely evolved at all.
LSU, Penn State and the 2020 stumbles of college football's power programs come to light in Week 14
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Without explicitly saying it, No. 1 Alabama's Nick Saban says last year's loss could be relevant for his team with the challenge of Ed Orgeron's Tigers ahead. (2:28)
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David M. HaleHarry Lyles Jr.
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It has been just 11 months since LSU topped Clemson 42-25 in the College Football Playoff National Championship, completing what might have been the best season by a team in the sport's history. And it already feels ancient.
On Saturday, LSU will stumble toward its 2020 finish line with a makeup date against Alabama that perfectly encapsulates all that has gone wrong for the Tigers in the past 11 months.
This week, head coach Ed Orgeron lamented the latest opt-out of a star player, as WR Terrace Marshall ended his time with the program. Orgeron spoke glowingly of his former players, the stars of 2019, now off to spectacular starts in the NFL. He did his best to add some optimism to a lost season, promising the 3-4 Tigers would "be champions again" at some point.
But when Orgeron was asked whether his team was better equipped today to face Alabama than it would have been three weeks ago, when the game was originally scheduled to be played, his answer felt pretty telling of all that 2020 has wrought for the defending champs.
"Yes," Orgeron said, "because now we have enough players to play the game."
After winning the CFP championship last season, 2020 has been much harder on Ed Orgeron and 3-4 LSU. AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
LSU is among the most prominent examples of 2020's misfortunes.
But Orgeron's misery is nothing compared to what has happened at Penn State. The Nittany Lions won their first game of the season last week, but that's hardly enough to forget how inept they looked during an unprecedented 0-5 start. Now, Penn State travels to Rutgers this weekend with more potential embarrassment waiting around every corner.
The team Penn State beat last weekend might be in a worse position. Michigan just canceled its game with Maryland this weekend, COVID-19's intrusion into the Wolverines' locker room the latest problem for embattled coach Jim Harbaugh.
Look around the standings and it's not hard to find programs that ended 2019 on a high note -- Louisville, Baylor, Utah, Tennessee -- that might now be wondering if playing this season was worth all the trouble. And that doesn't even touch on Nebraska. No team has ever pushed harder or argued louder for the right to go 1-4.
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Orgeron, for one, refused to blame COVID-19 for the setbacks, but it is fair to wonder whether LSU-Alabama or Tennessee-Florida or Virginia Tech-Clemson might be a whole lot more interesting if everything off the field in 2020 had been -- well, a whole lot less interesting.
"Nobody wants to go through a season like this, but I do believe we're building character and grit that will help us later on," Orgeron said. "You always have to represent LSU with pride, and the standard is very high. We haven't met that. I'm not going to make any excuses for COVID. We've just got to get the job done. We have some good young players. They're just not there yet."
What's worth watching
Can Virginia Tech put up a fight against Clemson? In most years, Clemson's trip to Virginia Tech on Saturday would be circled on the calendar as a huge speed bump for the Tigers and a potential marquee win for the Hokies. Even a month ago, when the Hokies were ranked in the top 20, that might have been the narrative. But Virginia Tech has now lost four of five, Justin Fuente's job security is at an all-time low and the team hosts the Tigers as a 22-point underdog. That's the most a visiting team has been favored by at Lane Stadium since 1988, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. That would seem to make this a safe bet for the status quo. But don't be surprised if the Hokies aren't ready to roll over yet.
Coastal Carolina pivots to BYU: This game is a surprise, as Coastal Carolina was originally set to face Liberty, who had to cancel because of coronavirus issues for the Flames. But the Chanticleers found a match in the Cougars, who are looking to improve their playoff positioning. According to FPI, BYU's remaining strength of schedule rank jumped from 98th to 52nd after adding Coastal Carolina. The game will also be the first time two 9-0 or better teams meet during the regular season (not including conference championship games) since 2006, when No. 1 Ohio State (11-0) def. No. 2 Michigan (11-0) 42-39.
Aggies get a road test: Texas A&M needs a win to stay in the playoff hunt, but the job might not be as easy as the records indicate. Auburn has won 12 of its past 13 home games, and Bo Nix is a much different QB at Jordan-Hare (63% completions, 7.3 yards per dropback, 22 TDs and three turnovers) than when he's away (55%, 5.22, 15, 13). An Auburn upset certainly would make the selection committee's life a little easier.
Will Buffalo's Jaret Patterson continue to ascend? Patterson has popped off in the Bulls' past two games. On Nov. 17 against Bowling Green, he rushed for a school-record 301 yards and four touchdowns. And against Kent State this past week, he exploded for 409 yards and eight (no typo) touchdowns. He probably would have had the FBS record of nine touchdowns had head coach Lance Leipold been aware of the position he was in and not taken him out of the game. Regardless, Patterson will be worth keeping up with this week as Buffalo travels to Ohio to play the Bobcats.
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Patterson ties major college record with 8 TDs, rushes for over 400 yardsJaret Patterson rushes for 8 touchdowns and 409 yards in Buffalo's 70-41 win against Kent State.
Is Jeremy Pruitt in trouble? Given Pruitt has recruited well, and Tennessee's last coaching search should have included the Benny Hill music playing in the background the whole time, it would seem a bit impetuous for the Vols to make a coaching change. But after a strong finish to last season, Pruitt's team has lost five straight, and the offense has found the end zone on just six of its past 53 drives. Life isn't going to get any easier with Florida and Texas A&M remaining, but Pruitt could answer a lot of the doubters by having his team play well against the Gators on Saturday.
Under-the-radar game of the week
Lyles: Texas vs. Kansas State
My interest in this game has more to do with the consequences if Texas loses. The Longhorns lost to Iowa State last week, and Tom Herman's job status was (understandably) a large topic of conversation. That gets magnified to greater levels if they fall to a 4-5 Kansas State team that has a loss to Arkansas State on the résumé.
Hale: Bowling Green vs. Akron
It's the pillow fight of the year, and we couldn't be more excited. Think of it like a movie so bad, you can't help but watch it -- like "Cats" or "Gigli" or "Titanic" (that's right, I said it). Of the 127 teams to play this year, ESPN's FPI ranks Akron 125th and Bowling Green 126th. (UMass, at 127th, should automatically get to play the loser in a bowl game.)
Over the past three years, the two teams are a combined 7-46 vs. FBS opponents -- and two of those wins are against each other. Their losses, meanwhile, are by an average of 28 points. So putting them on the same field, in a year in which everything that can go wrong has gone wrong, is simply a perfect send-off to 2020, like remaking "The Godfather Part III" and hiring M. Night Shyamalan to write a twist ending for it. None of it was good to begin with, putting them together is worse, and yet, who's going to say no?
Player to watch
Lyles: Indiana QB Jack Tuttle
The Hoosiers have been one of the season's biggest pleasant surprises, but their story took an unfortunate turn last Saturday when QB Michael Penix Jr. tore his ACL against Maryland. Penix is out for the season, and the Hoosiers' season now lies with Tuttle. The redshirt sophomore went 5-of-5 passing for 31 yards in his limited time against the Terps, and will immediately be tested against Wisconsin this weekend.
Hale: Clemson RB Travis Etienne
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It's been something of a strange year for Etienne, who returned for his senior season against all expectations and hasn't quite found the room to run he enjoyed in years past.
The yards after contact aren't far off from his career averages, but Etienne is seeing only about half the average yards before contact he has been used to. He has largely made up for the reduced production in the rushing attack by emerging as one of Clemson's most reliable pass-catchers, a feat Dabo Swinney said has only improved Etienne's draft stock. But the fact remains that, if the Tigers want to win another national championship, they're going to need more production on the ground. That, of course, starts with the run blocking, which offensive coordinator Tony Elliott said has shown improvement, but it might also come down to Etienne simply doing more with less. That will start against a Virginia Tech defense that has allowed nearly 1,000 yards and 11 TDs on the ground in its past five games.
Upset of the week
Lyles: Rutgers over Penn State
You might be saying to yourself, "Penn State is 1-5, they have a worse record. This wouldn't be an upset." To which I would say, (A) Vegas says Penn State should win comfortably, and (B) Penn State is still Penn State, and Rutgers is still Rutgers. Penn State's win over Michigan last weekend doesn't mean nearly as much as it usually does. Plus, Rutgers has stayed competitive in most games it has played this season. I'm going with the Scarlet Knights because I don't know when I will ever be able to reasonably pick Rutgers to upset anybody again.
Hale: West Virginia over Iowa State
The Cyclones are coming off an emotional, come-from-behind win over Texas. Their path to the Big 12 title game looks pretty clear. Iowa State already has four wins by a TD or less, which isn't typically sustainable. And West Virginia's defense is legitimately good. All of this adds up to a real trap-game scenario, with West Virginia pulling the upset.
Bobby Hurley and how to play point guard for college basketball's most decorated point guard ever
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Arizona State guard Remy Martin puts his defender on skates with a crossover and then finishes at the hoop with a scoop layup. (0:20)
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TEMPE, Ariz. -- When Bobby Hurley hits the recruiting trail looking for a point guard, he has a particular player in mind.
Sometimes he finds him; sometimes he doesn't. But the Arizona State head coach knows exactly what he wants -- almost to the point of being too specific.
Hurley wants the opposite of himself.
Yes, the former four-year starter for legendary Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski who won back-to-back national championships, who was named a Final Four Most Outstanding Player and an All-American, who still leads the NCAA in assists and who is widely considered to be one of the best point guards in the history of college basketball -- in addition to being an NBA lottery pick -- doesn't want another version of himself.
Hurley understands how that sounds "to a degree."
"I think that I look for a guy that's a little different than me," Hurley said. "You would think that I would try and find myself again. But I kind of look for someone that is a little more explosive, has a little more athleticism, and then can we teach a little bit? Can we refine a little bit through watching film, just through how we drill and how we play?
"So, I kind of look for a guy that has a little more upside than I had. I, kind of, maybe maxed out my talent and I try and find a little bit more of a dynamic point guard."
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Talk about expectations.
Hurley doesn't want to coach himself. He wants to coach someone better than himself. So imagine what it must be like to be a point guard for Hurley.
It's actually nothing like what you might think, his former point guards say.
"When you think about playing for someone who's arguably the best point guard ever, someone from an outside perspective may think it's a lot of pressure, but Hurley, he was very much a players' coach and gave us a lot of freedom to be able to create on the floor," said Tra Holder, who played for Hurley at ASU from 2015 to 2018.
In Hurley's eight years as a head coach, two at Buffalo and the past six at Arizona State, being a point guard for him has been a crash course in unconventional but applicable and necessary skills. It has been a front-row seat in a classroom of court vision, an opportunity to occasionally face Hurley -- experience his trademark on-floor intensity in person -- and a chance to be given the freedom to run an offense not often seen in the college ranks.
The latter is a direct result of Hurley's experience playing under Krzyzewski, himself a collegiate point guard.
"He had high expectations, high standards of how we work and how we train, how we prepare, but when the lights were on, he allowed me to express myself playing the game," Hurley said.
All-America candidate Remy Martin says his freedom to run Bobby Hurley's offense has been hard-won. Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
Now Hurley does the same for his point guards, giving them an extraordinary amount of responsibility, freedom and leeway.
Hurley believes if he gets the types of point guards he wants to execute his up-tempo system, then he will run the offense through them "to a large degree," meaning they're going to have a significant impact on the end result.
"If you want to be here and play here at that position, then you're going to have that opportunity," Hurley said.
Holder, who was recruited to ASU by former Sun Devils coach Herb Sendek, nearly transferred when Sendek was fired after the 2014-15 season, but he stuck around to play for Hurley. It wasn't until after he graduated and started watching other teams that he realized just how much freedom Hurley gave his guards.
Shannon Evans, who played for Hurley at Buffalo before transferring to Arizona State when the Sun Devils hired Hurley in 2015, never felt like he had to worry about what Hurley was thinking or what the coach might do if he messed up.
It's a shared feeling among all of Hurley's point guards, and that belief in them instilled a level of "ultimate confidence," Evans said.
"It's unbelievable how much he believes in you," he said. "It was really easy to play for him because I felt like I didn't have to look over my shoulder. Like, if you're playing for somebody that's real high status and every time you make a mistake, especially as a young guy, you're going to look over your shoulder and think, 'Am I about to come out if I turn the ball over?' and things like that, but he always instill[ed] confidence and made me believe in myself."
Hurley isn't a believer in micromanaging.
He's not one to overcoach, said Luguentz Dort, the former ASU guard now with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Dort believes that Hurley understands the downside to overcoaching: handcuffing a player's potential.
"I let the play breathe," Hurley said. "I let my guys make decisions."
But that independence to run the offense isn't just handed over. It's earned. And when it is, then Hurley lets his point guards do their thing.
Bobby Hurley is coaching his players just as he was coached when he played. AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File
"He gives me a good amount of freedom," said Remy Martin, a preseason first-team All-American. "Throughout the years, we've developed a great relationship and, obviously, I had to work for that and for the freedom ... He just allows me to do what I need to do."
With that much freedom, however, come high expectations, Hurley said.
As Monte Bearden, who ran the point for Hurley at Buffalo, put it, every coach is looking over their point guard's shoulders to a degree because "their program is in your hands."
"If they're not playing the right way, then there's going to be consequences and it could get a little heated," Hurley said.
Hurley added that he won't "sugarcoat anything or pretend things aren't happening. If we have to address something, we do it." And that usually means the guards get subbed out so Hurley can talk them through their issues, Dort said.
But one of Hurley's expectations of his guards was relatively simple, said former Buffalo guard Jarod Oldham: Don't turn the ball over.
"He didn't hold anybody back," Oldham said. "Like playcalls, shot selection, he wasn't really big on trying to control you in that aspect. It was more so, like, display your talent, whatever your strength is, stick to those."
Hurley is one of 10 former Krzyzewski players or staff members who are now Division I head coaches, and his experience as a point guard has given him a "unique insight" to being a head coach.
"Your role, your responsibility as a point guard is to kind of orchestrate everything," Hurley said. "You got to know not only your position, but what everyone else should be doing so you could direct out there on the floor. And, so, the cliché that 'the point guard is the quarterback' or 'the extension of the coach on the floor,' you feel that way ... that's part of the responsibility of being a point guard."
Now, as a coach, Hurley relies on that experience and the rare understanding of what a player is going through to coach his guards, both on and off the court.
Former ASU guard Kodi Justice said Hurley would pull his guards aside for quick conversations, sometimes showing off his ability to see things before they happened.
"He's like, 'When somebody attacks, why did you attack that way? If you would've went this way, this guy would've helped and this would've opened up,'" Justice said.
Bobby Hurley credits Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski for influencing his coaching style. Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
Hurley's renowned court vision as a player has come through as a coach, especially in the times when Hurley harped on Dort about finding open teammates in the corners off a screen on the wing.
Said Hurley: "If I notice something immediately, it just becomes a quick side conversation so that the guys will adjust and the next time maybe look for something different that they didn't maybe necessarily see on that one play."
One common thread that has connected all his guards has been Hurley's intensity.
He's a yeller and a screamer. He's demanding. He's tough.
"He's just so intense on doing the right thing," Dort said. "I must say that he really pushed us [to make] a point. It was me and Remy -- you know, Remy Martin [in 2018-19] -- and he was just telling us, with so much intensity, to do the right thing, because he knows that we can do it."
Going back to his days at Buffalo, Hurley likes to seek out the opinions of his guards on their next opponent, sometimes doing it during game-day shootarounds. He wants to know what they're seeing, how they're feeling or what they feel are areas or matchups they can take advantage of.
Hurley has long had an open-door policy. Martin estimates 80% of his time spent with Hurley is spent talking about things other than basketball -- like what Hurley has been cooking lately. He understands when a player just needs to get away.
During the 2017-18 season, when Evans was a senior, ASU lost back-to-back games on the road to the Arizona Wildcats and Colorado Buffaloes to start its Pac-12 season. Heading into that stretch, ASU was 12-0 and ranked third in the country. Evans remembered having a "horrible week" and said he didn't play well in either loss -- he finished with just seven points and five assists against Arizona and 11 points and two assists against Colorado. Before the next practice after the Colorado game, Hurley told Evans to sit down and relax. He wasn't practicing. He needed to get his mind off basketball for a little bit.
Remy Martin and Bobby Hurley have developed a good relationship in which Hurley allows Martin a lot of freedom on the court. Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
Evans had 22 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks in the next game, an ASU victory.
Hurley taught Martin, who's beginning his third season as Hurley's starting point guard, how to take in the moment, be present and "take the game by the hand."
"The sense of moment -- 'Hey, we need a point here, we need you right now, we need to get a stop, get a steal, make a big play,'" Martin said. "Something that I know, but ... he gives me his energy, he gives me his sense of intensity. He just fills me up a little bit more and it makes me want to make the right play and hit the shot that just changes the momentum of the game."
Then there's Hurley on the court.
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