The Ron Jirsa era may have been significantly shortened after Wednesday's loss to the Mountaineers. Many in Herd town think that the head coach's wins over WVU the past two seasons are the only reason he hasn't been canned despite having a 37-67 record since arriving in Huntington four years ago. A 7-12 record to start this season isn't helping matters. Nor is declining attendance and inconsistent play against inferior competition. It seems about 90 percent of Herd fans think a change needs to be made. Most feel that Ron has had plenty of time to build a team and results should be showing now that all of the players currently on his team are his recruits, not Greg White's.
Despite all this, Marcum appears to be standing by his coach. He offered him a one-year contract extension after last season, but Ron turned it down by basically saying he didn't deserve it until the team improved. Certainly a classy move there. Nonetheless, things definitely have not improved this season. The Herd's propensity to gain huge leads and blow them multiple times this year seems to further indicate that the problem may be the coaching staff's inability to adjust in games rather than overall talent.
I was looking up Jirsa's record since he'd been at Marshall, and I ran across this interesting quote from Georgia athletic director Vince Dooley:
"There was no real hope or encouragement as we looked to next year or looked to the future. I didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel."
That was right after Dooley fired Jirsa as head coach of the Bulldogs in 1999 after two mediocre seasons. When one of the greatest athletic directors in college sports history says something that strongly, I tend to agree with him.
Ron is a likable guy and a players' coach who can recruit well, but so was Ron Zook, and look what happened to Florida's football team two seasons after they fired him. Sometimes the tough decision has to be made. Unless things drastically turn around the rest of this season, I think Marcum will be forced to make that decision.
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