In case you missed it, fellow Conference USA East Division member Memphis fired its football coach, Tommy West, this week.
Memphis is currently 2-9, including a loss to Marshall, this season and the powers that be at the school decided enough was enough, apparently. The Tigers will miss a bowl game for only the second time since 2003. For comparison’s sake, Marshall has been to a bowl exactly once during the same span.
Let’s keep with the comparisons, shall we? Since C-USA realigned prior to the 2005 academic year, West’s record at Memphis was a pedestrian 24-35, including one bowl win (and two losses). Wondering what Mark Snyder’s record at Marshall during the same stretch is? Try 21-35 with zero bowl appearances.
Based on those numbers, Memphis made the right decision in letting West go.
All personal things aside, the man simply was not a consistent winner, and winning football games is the bottom line, isn’t it? So looking at Snyder’s resume, it becomes increasingly hard to justify why the man is still the coach of our beloved Herd.
The rumblings started last season, when “Fire Snyder” signs were confiscated from the Edwards Stadium walls Gestapo-style prior to games (fellow Washington Redskin fans will find some irony in a Snyder sign controversy) and the dreaded bag-on-the-head crowd started popping up around the Joan.
Then, after the final game of the season, a home loss to Tulsa, Snyder proudly proclaimed that in 2009, Marshall would be “the team to beat.”
The media and fans scoffed, but then somewhere from the time spring practice started and summer camp commenced, the team looked like it might back up its coach’s statement. I’m as guilty as anyone of preaching that this year might be different based on what I had seen, and Snyder might just be able to save his job.
I was wrong.
This team is not different, and Snyder should be past being able to save his job. Even if the Herd gets back to a bowl game for the first time since 2004, is it really worth dealing with another year or more of the current regime?
There are tons of bowl games, and being able to say your team played in a bowl does not hold the same weight it used to.
Should the Herd turn down an opportunity to go to one, no matter who the coach is?
No way.
Going to one, however, should not be the barometer for deciding if the team had a good season.
Consider this: Memphis finished 2008 6-7, the seventh loss coming in a bowl game. I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t consider that to have been a very good season.
Accepting something similar at Marshall would be rewarding mediocrity.
Athletic director Mike Hamrick wasn’t here when this mess was made, but it is now up to him to clean it up.
Cut the strings, write a check, do whatever needs to be done, but most importantly give the university a chance to move on from this failed experiment. Memphis saw the writing on the wall, and did the right thing. If Marshall has any sense, it will do the same.
Tom Bragg can be contacted at bragg41@marshall.edu.
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