It did not get into Friday’s story about the football coaching hire at Cal Poly, but I spoke with former Mustangs player David Brown, also a former Mustangs defensive coordinator, on Thursday.
Coaching defensive backs at Ohio since 2006, Brown was a finalist for the head coaching job at Cal Poly prior to the hiring of former Army offensive coordinator Tim Walsh.
Since Walsh didn’t have the major-program name recognition of a coach like Oregon’s Steve Greatwood (also a candidate) or of a couple of the other rumored applicants, I tried to get a sense of the pay range from Brown to see if it might have played a factor in Cal Poly’s decision.
“I never even asked,” Brown said. “It didn’t matter. I would have taken peanuts to do that job.
“Obviously, it’s a good job. That’s why a lot of people are interested.”
Brown did say he got a sense that the hiring committee was interested in bringing in a coach who understood the “culture” at Cal Poly. Walsh’s extensive experience as the head coach at FCS-level Portland State for 14 years might have fostered that.
“You did the get the feeling that whoever got the job had to understand the Cal Poly culture … and also being able to be successful on a limited budget.
“Cal Poly’s not the type of place where yo can come in and bang on the doors and say I need this and I need that, especially because Rich Ellerson proved that you could win at Cal Poly without the peripheral things. Those things are nice, but he still found the things that made the difference between winning and losing. Not a lot of coaches can do that.”
January 9th, 2009 at 2:20 am
David Brown did an excellent job in his coaching tenure at Cal Poly. His experiences included position coach — then being promoted to defensive coordinator. This followed his playing career at Cal Poly which even included leading the team in tackles in 1994.
David Brown is a man of his word and would have made an excellent choice as the next head coach at Cal Poly. As a defensive position coach and then defensive coordinator he was instrumental for the excellent Cal Poly defense of a couple years ago which included three consecutive Buck Award winners. Additionally he had the position of recruiting coordinator and was responsible for signing many of this year’s most successful senior class.
David Brown played at Cal Poly and coached at Cal Poly successfully both with class and distinction. It is a shame that he was not chosen to be the next head coach. That is Cal Poly’s loss.
January 9th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
No not necessarily. Only time will tell.
January 11th, 2009 at 7:15 am
I am not sure how you can say that being at Portland State helps a coach understand the culture at Cal Poly. I would believe those two schools are worlds apart.
January 11th, 2009 at 8:38 am
Portland State and Cal Poly are worlds apart academically, but similar in that they both compete against schools with much larger budgets and resources. Portland State had the second lowwest budget in the big sky only ahead of EWU.
After reading about Tim Walsh and getting to meet him, I think they got a winner who will do very well at Cal Poly. I am looking forward to see what he can do.
January 11th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Same here. I am looking forward to seeing what he can do at Poly.