ASU pulled a rabbit out of the hat and hired Pitt head coach Todd Graham to coach their football team yesterday. There were no reports anywhere of Graham's possible hire before the announcement came. It was a move reminiscent of the hiring of Herb Sendek to coach the ASU basketball team (and Dennis Erickson's hire to a lesser degree). It wasn't the ideal search, ASU took a lot of heat for their bungling, but in the end, I kinda like the hire. I'm willing to give it a chance anyways.
From the start they seemed to indicate that they wanted someone with some head coaching experience, they wanted someone young, they wanted someone who could improve their defense, someone who could tighten up the lack of on-field discipline and someone who would play a similar type of up tempo offense that ASU has been playing (and recruiting for). I think they got most of that, Graham has been a head coach for 6 years, he has an impressive 49-29 career record. He's 47 years old, that's fairly young by coaching standards (Dennis Erickson is 64). Prior to becoming a head coach he was a defensive coordinator, so he knows how to coach defense. His Pitt team was the least penalized team in the Big East last year (conversely ASU was dead last in the country last year). Offensively, he plays a fast paced up tempo no huddle read option type of offense, that's not a drastic departure from what they've been playing or for what they've been recruiting for, that should help ease the transition.
A couple other points:
1) Recruiting. Graham may not have a lot of west coast ties (hopefully, his new coaching staff will rectify some of that) but take a look at the recruiting class he had put together at Pitt this year, it's a top 20 class (according to Scout), that's higher than Dennis Erickson's much heralded class, I don't think ASU fans will need to worry too much about recruiting. Another positive, he knows Texas well from his time at Tulsa, I would expect that they will hit Texas hard. One suggestion, why not offer one of the better local high school coaches, someone well respected in the local coaching community, a spot on the coaching staff and put him in charge of recruiting Arizona? Maybe someone like Steve Belles from Chandler Hamilton or Charlie Ragle from Scottsdale Chaparrel. They need to do something to lock down the borders and I think that could possibly help.
2) Brook Osweiler. I'm not sure that the read option offense is an ideal fit for Brook Osweiler, that type of offense seems to require a dual threat QB to succeed, but I have no doubt that Todd Graham is smart enough to tweak his offense enough to maximize the talent on hand (much like Brady Hoke did at Michigan this year). Red-shirt freshman QB Michael Eubank on the other hand should be doing cart wheels over Grahams selection as head coach, he seems to be an ideal fit for that type of offense, it'll be fun watching his progress.
3) Graham's job hopping. I'm really not worried about this, the way I see it every move that he's made has been to move up the coaching ladder, I see that as a natural progression for a good coach. The fact that they are so up in arms about this move in Pitt may also be a sign that he's a damn good football coach and they really didn't want to lose him, is that really a negative? Let's say he can get ASU moving in the right direction and starts getting interest again from other schools, is that really such a bad thing? Wouldn't that be a sign that he's done a nice job at ASU?
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