0 chance jets need cooled. Flagship program (men’s basketball) won 7 , 7! Games last year , Hosmer sucks
I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt, but good luck to her and the administration finding someone that can bring more success to Valpo Football if they don’t increase their commitment to the coaching staff.
Overall, I think Coach Fox did a pretty good job of squeezing all of the juice out of the metaphorical lemon he was given by the university.
Hosmer was part of admin that led to.
Fox firing
14-38 Baseball
5-25 Women’s Basketball
7-25 men’s basketball
softball coach resigning (theft)
4-13 Women’s soccer
that is failure. and to eliminate the one job where players loved the coach and a guaranteed 100 tuitions at some level with all the good press from last weekend.
absolute failure
0 chance jets need cooled. Flagship program (men’s basketball) won 7 , 7! Games last year , Hosmer sucks
I find it comical you are comparing the record of a year 1 performance with a roster mostly composed of the table scraps of the previous head coach to a 5+ year head coach who could barely scrape even on the record books. Fox was a good coach, he was a players coach, he was a fans coach, and surely the university didn't help him with the revolving door in the coaches office and the apparent lack of an OC were certainly issues, but all an admin sees, all the new landscape of College Athletics sees, and all the PFL sees, is a less than adequate performance by that record book. Blaming Hosmer for things that were completely out of her control is childish and just shows that you are mad and need to go take 5 and do some breathing exercises. She was hired in January, so the women's basketball and men's basketball points are all but moot. I understand that the Women's coach has needed to go for a while, but once again. Hosmer was hired in January, so she would have no control over such decisions And even then, baseball is also a moot point as for a majority of the season she wasn't even the athletic director, interim or no. She was the Deputy Director for Revenue Generation from January to March and certainly was not a factor in the record books. The softball coach scandal was her first real large scale issue as an interim and even then, that was also something she could not control. Calling things that she has no control over failures on her as a director is just wrong. As for Fox, You could be the nicest guy in the world, the best mentor a group of young men could ask for, a true people person always interacting with fans and alumni, but if the results simply aren't there on the field, why shouldn't there be an assessment come contract time? Wish him all the best at wherever he ends up, and am sorry that he couldn't get the job done here. All I can say to you at this point is to go read Paul's latest article.
To be fair, I think Givens was transferring, regardless of HC, as he can take his ESPN top play to scholarship programs and someone will bite.
Unless they cleaned house, which they may have, the athletics department is in the basement of the their respective conference.
while this isn’t Hosmers fault. She hasn’t righted the ship. With how hard it is to bring talent to Valpo losing two guys like Ukeje and Givens is hard.
Givens father told those in the know Saturday that he loved Valpo. From what I’ve heard team felt like they were building
So it may not be Hosmers fault…. Two scandals and in the basement is not a surefire way to start your first year
Could the problem be what we don't know?
I have never met Laurel Hosmer - she was hired in January 2024, became interim AD when Charles Small resigned on March 25, and was named to the post full time in August. There is no reasonable way she has "righted the ship" (or not) in that time frame.
As far as we can tell, Coach Fox did many things well. After six years, his record was 21-41; clearly some of those buy games were a reach, and certainly the disruption of COVID was unexpected. Coach Fox should be praised for bringing toughness, integrity and improved connections with many stakeholders during his six years at the helm. There is no guarantee that a new coach will have a better record on or off the field.
That said, this is a results business. There is no way that an AD can keep a coach with a record of 21-41 after six years, and a losing record overall and in conference in year six. The message she would be sending to all of the coaches and athletes is that performance does not matter, and she, not the coach, would own the decision to extend that contract.
All of the coaches at VU (or at another mid-major) know that they have to win to keep their job. They do not have to win every game, or have a winning record every year. Yet they have to show that they can have winning seasons. For example, Matt Lottich had one good season in his first year (at 24-9), then went to the MVC title game in his fourth year (2019-20) while finishing 9-9 in conference. He lasted three more years (seven total) before being fired with a record of 108-117. At many other programs, Matt Lottich would not have been around for seven years yet he got the benefit of the doubt.
The good news is that any head coach who comes to Valpo (at least at the major sports) knows they get a relatively long rope if they lead with integrity and put the university in a positive light. They will get an extra year or years to show success on the field.
The bad news is that VU does not have many financial resources. In the case of football, a modest budget increase (say another $250K) to invest in salaries for assistant coaches would have kept a few more promising assistants around. Yet extra financial resources are just not there.
Talk about the ironies of fate: Davidson HFBC Scott Abell just resigned to take the HFBC job at Rice University.
Valpo and Davidson were very similar in terms of RPI with Valpo having the hardest schedule since 2000.
shifting gears. Maybe Brett Dietz from DePauw as the replacement. I think Indiana Wesleyan coach is a better job. DePauw might be a better job now outside of pay.
Word from coaches I know is Valpo is a far from desirable job and University’s struggles are widely known
Valpo and Davidson were very similar in terms of RPI with Valpo having the hardest schedule since 2000.
shifting gears. Maybe Brett Dietz from DePauw as the replacement. I think Indiana Wesleyan coach is a better job. DePauw might be a better job now outside of pay.
Word from coaches I know is Valpo is a far from desirable job and University’s struggles are widely known
All true. It is hard to market yourself as a desirable institution to coach for if that institution is constantly in the press for scandals and is notorious for low pay and admin abuse of the program. I think Paul said it best in his interview with March to Arch when he said, " You gotta really love this place to coach here." Frankly I think the school is going to be hard pressed to find someone with the current state of the department. Hopefully the success seen by the Volleyball program, coupled with some better performances out of basketball if all goes well, would be good enough to convince people that things have changed under the Hosmer era. I do think that anyone who comes for this job should gun for a term in the contract to provide a "fully staffed" coaching room complete with Coordinators for the 3 key sides of the ball. The undesirability of the job was why I mentioned that the school might settle for a proven HS coach seeing as they would be easy to coax into a relatively undesirable D1 job.
To be fair, I think Givens was transferring, regardless of HC, as he can take his ESPN top play to scholarship programs and someone will bite.
I agree with this.
