Loading up with way more freshman O recruits is interesting when our D and maybe ST in need. Tucker had good results with some Juco D transfers last year. Outscore them, strong scout team, or both?

Watts learned on the job at Davis, given the job with very light background. He was just a linebacker coach at Fresno. Got hired due to relationship with head coach both places. Not to take anything away from him but he hasn’t had notable success yet. I’m not mourning the loss of watts.
Gould wasn’t a bad coach but I don’t think his style of play was ever going to work for us. He brought in some talented players who didn’t fit in and left. He had some good young coaches who learned on the job. Offensive line coach left after a year. Gould was learning on the job also.

I will never understand we were battling SLO, at SLO, late in the game, defense hadn't stopped them all day, 4th and a few, and he chooses to punt.

When Gould came in there was excitement similar to Hawkins arrival. If coaches are going to turn around a program they need to capitalize on that excitement or it dissipates. Gould’s best year was his first, but I see that year as a missed opportunity; we lost winnable games that first year, like Northern Arizona at home,
We’ll see where Hawkins goes from here; it seems we did well enough on the field to recruit a good incoming class. Hawkins is a better promoter, better play caller, has a experienced staff, and has a football vision that is more relevant to what we can do here.

I'm sure Tedford would risk his "legacy job" hiring a D-Coordinator based on his relationship and not his ability to design and call defenses. Gould struggled with game management, but a huge part of their lack of success was an offensive scheme that didn't fit our personnel or conference. Our biggest problem was not having a great QB for a long time. Every successful team in the conference has a gunslinger in the backfield that can make things happen on 3rd down. We don't have the NDSU horses, or legacy to get them, so we are going to have to follow the Eastern Washington model of scoring in bunches to win.

It seems like Biggs last few years we were slim at QB and Gould gambled with Lacy, then Laughrea. A 3rd and 4th string QB are gone, and we now have 1 stud and several young men with potential. Gould had lost the team before the last year. Hawk seems more like a CEO on gameday which is great if it works.

San Jose looks like they were aweful last year, 2-9, 1 legit win, prime for an upset? Would be Uuge.

You never know with SJSU, but I don't think they will take us lightly. Lacy wasn't the guy, and Gould stayed with him way too long. Hawk knows what he's doing...if he can't find success, then I have no idea what will work.

OldAggie, Tedford promoted Watts who now has experience that he didn’t have when he was named our DC. When he joined our team his experience was as a high school defensive coordinator and a graduate assistant. Tell me that Gould didn’t hire Watts based on personal relationship, same as he hired a the other graduate assistant from Cal. It makes more sense for Tedford to hire him now that he has four years experience.
My point was also we can’t give Watts total credit for Fresno’s defense as he wasn’t defensive coordinator last year.

He also coached in Austria, and a year with the NFL Denver Broncos.

With the broncos doing what? I’m sure Watts is a bright guy but he had not even been a position coach at the collegiate level when he became our DC. The role, the league, the players, everything was new to him. Same can be said of Gould in his first year.

Interesting. We referred to his Denver time as a "coaching assistant", Fresno says he was a "staff assistant". Big jump to become a DC.

The San Jose game is a big game for us. They’ll be better than last year in all likelihood. They point to getting beat up with a tough early schedule that took a physical toll on their young players. But we go into next year with our team pretty set offensively while they still need to figure out who their QB is. On defense we need to figure things out, we return a lot of starters and guys on the depth chart, have a bunch of redshirts and some good quality freshmen. If our defense doesn’t improve I’ll start missing Watts.