Horseshoes and Hand Granades - When to Punt. UB Football needs your help.....

The UB football program has problems. Is it the players? It is coaching? Is it both? Have we not had a sufficient sample size to make any decisions as to the plans for the future. The only thing I will not accept that you cannot win in Buffalo. You are the AD, what would you do? You only have a couple of options:

Time to make a change at top.

Even if you keep Quinn as your head coach, Quinn can not be given any more moral victories. It is time to start winning games. You have to win to keep the fringe fans that can be converted to loyalist. And no, not everyone in Buffalo should just be loyalist for this team and University. The school has to give local fans something to rally around. They last three and half years have given the people of WNY nothing to get excited about. That even includes Turner's last year. Lost a ton of momentum and excitement his last year with a losing record. Although, would I take a 5 - 7 overall record and 3 - 5 in the MAC this year as in Turners last year. Yes. Turner did bring an expectation and excitement to the Amherst campus. Remember that the magical year 2008 was Turner and staff's third year at UB.

In the throws of your third year coaching to be so lost against MAC competition is not what Warde had in mind when Jeff Quinn was hired as the head coach of the Buffalo Bulls. Where would this team be right now if Danny Barrett was given a chance to be a head coach. Danny is currently the running backs coach at the University of Central Florida. Joining Danny is ex-UB coaching alum Allen Mogridge.

Before the season started a ranking of ten worst coaches in NCAA, Quinn was the 7th worst:

"Wins have been difficult to find at Buffalo, as the Bulls have only two winning records since 1996. Success has also eluded Quinn during his two years with Buffalo, as he has just three wins in MAC play. Another 2-10 or 3-9 season could spell the end of Quinn’s tenure with the Bulls, but there are reasons to believe Buffalo could be better in 2012. Running back Branden Oliver should be the MAC’s leading rusher and seven starters are back on defense. If Quinn can get Buffalo to four or five wins this year, he should be safe and easily move off this list for 2013."

Well, things have not gotten better. I do not see four or five wins.

"I am absolutely thrilled for Jeff Quinn," Kelly said, according to the Cincinnati newspaper. "It's a long time coming and I can't think of a guy who's better prepared to take on that challenge. It's hard to really articulate my thoughts other than the fact that Buffalo will be very happy to have him."

I have to totally disagree with Coach Kelly. I do not think that Quinn was prepared to handle to complexity of top leadership. I believe that Jeff Quinn is a loyal soldier and partial piece in college coaching to handle one specific coaching duty. Let me articulate my thoughts, Buffalo is not very happy so far with Quinn's record. The definition of insanity is doing that same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. We keep running the same plays and they don't work. So we do it again. It does not work. This is why if I was the AD after this season I would make a change. You will take lumps when you ever take on a new challenge but do you learn from your failures and become better? Or will it be years of the same unimaginative play calling?

Have we not seen enough of Quinn to make a determination yet:

I look at Cincinnati Bengals who had talent but could not win recently. Bengals the past decade have scratched the surface of breaking out and every time drops back to mediocrity or worse. Now I know that the season is young but you have to admire what Marvin Lewis has put on the field this year. Lewis starts his 10th season and has made the playoffs two of the last three years. Now he started with just one playoff appearance in his first six seasons and has never made it past the AFC wild card round. Ask a Bengals fan today and they are excited. Guarded yet excited. Ask a Buffalo fan and they are guarded without the excitement. Can Quinn marry excitement and the Buffalo hardened heart over the rest of this season and the future? Can the excitement last longer than a week or two?

Or, do you do nothing. Will UB not pony up to buy out Quinn's contract? Do you have a different master plan for the football team? Are you still on chicken wing hang over and not ready to make any big decisions?

I am going to let you be the Athletic Director for the day. You have watched the football outcomes this year. Hopefully when you head over to the football field as the weather starts to turn the benches do not become more and more lonely for butts to fill them. I had a blog sparring match earlier this summer about getting a coach in Buffalo to build his resume. I am not naive to think that a hot young coach will come to Buffalo and build a MAC leader and not leave for greener pastures. What I will do is call that coach a traitor and cry in my beer initially. Then when I wake up with a hangover, I will thank this coach for all the hard work and success he had in Buffalo and hope he has success at a higher football conference. Then wait in anticipation to see who will be Bulls next coach. Buffalo football fans deserve a kick at the MAC can on a consistent basis.

Weigh in and let me know what you would do. As always, GO BULLS.