Even Fred Akers
- Thread starter Boilermaker66
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Fred Akers had the second highest winning percentage in the history of the Southwest Conference, which consisted of Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, TCU, SMU, Baylor, Houston and Rice. In his 10 years, he never had a losing record in the SWC.
Akers was 60-20-1 in the SWC and 86-31-2 overall at Texas. He was 28-17-1 against ranked teams. Four of his 10 teams finished ranked in the AP Top Ten. His only losing season was his last one.
Purdue was considered lucky to get him.
Akers was 60-20-1 in the SWC and 86-31-2 overall at Texas. He was 28-17-1 against ranked teams. Four of his 10 teams finished ranked in the AP Top Ten. His only losing season was his last one.
Purdue was considered lucky to get him.
Few thoughts on that:
1) Akers is a good example of a coach being as good as the talent around him. I'm sure he's not the only one.
2) He could never live up to expectations at Texas. I still think his demise there generally reflects the decline of the SWC and Texas fans not being able to accept it.
3) He seemed to have two annual problems at Purdue: lack of effective running game (made the offense very inconsistent) and inability to compete with Indiana and ND. On that last score, he had the bad fortune of going against the best coaches in the recent history of both programs.
1) Akers is a good example of a coach being as good as the talent around him. I'm sure he's not the only one.
2) He could never live up to expectations at Texas. I still think his demise there generally reflects the decline of the SWC and Texas fans not being able to accept it.
3) He seemed to have two annual problems at Purdue: lack of effective running game (made the offense very inconsistent) and inability to compete with Indiana and ND. On that last score, he had the bad fortune of going against the best coaches in the recent history of both programs.
Akers also switched from a run-oriented attack at Texas to the Run and Shoot at Purdue (apparently in an attempt to keep Jeff George here). George left and the QB play was somewhat inconsistent. Hunter was good, but there wasn't a ton of other talent on offense.
And as I recall, under Akers there were a lot of disciplinary issues. He recruited some great talent, but they couldn't keep themselves out of trouble, academically & team wise. And thus couldn't keep themselves in school & on the team.
This is very instructive for the rest of us. Imagine how crazy excited we would be today if we hired someone with that resume. Success at one school does not guarantee success at Purdue. And we can't afford a third bad pick in a row.
Also, recruiting @ Texas is not even remotely the same as recruiting @ Purdue.
In addition, it didn't help Fred Akers that arguably his two biggest games (the '78 Cotton Bowl and '84 Cotton Bowl) resulted in colossal disappointments with a potential national championship at stake...a rout to Notre Dame with Earl Campbell and a gut-wrenching defeat to a Georgia team that could barely move the ball all day against one of the better defenses of that era.
As another poster put it....the Texas people had had enough, although I think they would take "Fred Akers-type" success right now in a heartbeat.
I too thought he would do much better than he did with the Boilers, and unfortunately, I witnessed most of those games from the stands in Ross-Ade. The Jeff George saga didn't help either.
Yeah, sometimes it just doesn't work out. I liked the hire of CDH, and I still think he's an upstanding man and presents himself well. It's just not working out as of now IMO.
When you look at the .284 of Fred Akers, that seems pretty bad. Then it starts sinking in that Purdue is .167 under CDH. I do think he'll be back next year, but that is just a gut feeling.
For tomorrow's game. I have no expectations, but I will tune in.
In addition, it didn't help Fred Akers that arguably his two biggest games (the '78 Cotton Bowl and '84 Cotton Bowl) resulted in colossal disappointments with a potential national championship at stake...a rout to Notre Dame with Earl Campbell and a gut-wrenching defeat to a Georgia team that could barely move the ball all day against one of the better defenses of that era.
As another poster put it....the Texas people had had enough, although I think they would take "Fred Akers-type" success right now in a heartbeat.
I too thought he would do much better than he did with the Boilers, and unfortunately, I witnessed most of those games from the stands in Ross-Ade. The Jeff George saga didn't help either.
Yeah, sometimes it just doesn't work out. I liked the hire of CDH, and I still think he's an upstanding man and presents himself well. It's just not working out as of now IMO.
When you look at the .284 of Fred Akers, that seems pretty bad. Then it starts sinking in that Purdue is .167 under CDH. I do think he'll be back next year, but that is just a gut feeling.
For tomorrow's game. I have no expectations, but I will tune in.
I'm now looking at it that Hope wasn't truly a bad hire, all things considered. He wasn't given the proper resources to be successful. He begged for a recruiting coordinator (something standard at most schools) and was never ever able to get proper salaries for his assistants along with going out to find better ones. The man admitted to his faults (bad time management and getting guys to play to their ability) and I think that is what is really rubbing people the wrong way with Hazell (beyond the bad results). I think Hope wasn't a long term option but if he was given the proper resources (imagine giving what Painter has on a larger scale) he could have established the program at a point that when he peaked and leveled out after probably another 2-3 years, the program wouldn't be sitting where it is now and attracting a new coach wouldn't seem like bringing them in to a dumpster fire.
I disagree about Hope not being that bad.....his teams made the same mistakes OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. It was comical how almost every game we either got flagged or had to call timeouts because we had too many people (or not enough) when we sent the punt team out there. Stupid personal fouls in key situations. And the kids he was recruiting were undersized - you could see it. It set the tone for our demise and Hazell is doing nothing to reverse it.
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