College Football's Top 30 Coordinator Hires for 2018 (9. Tracy Claeys, DC, Wash St)

per Athlon:

9. Tracy Claeys, Defensive Coordinator, Washington State

Washington State’s defense made considerable improvement under former coordinator Alex Grinch, and coach Mike Leach is hoping to build off that in 2018 and beyond with Claeys at the controls. The Kansas native was out of football in 2017 after his dismissal at Minnesota following the '16 season. Claeys was 9-4 in his only year as the head coach with the Golden Gophers. Prior to serving as head coach, Claeys worked as the program’s defensive coordinator (2011-15) and also has stops as the play-caller from stints at Northern Illinois, Southern Illinois and Emporia State under Jerry Kill.

https://athlonsports.com/college-football/college-footballs-top-30-coordinator-hires-2018

Go Gophers!!

Claeys is a great defensive mind, I believe. And think he was a big part of Kill's success and rise from the Illinois schools.

Just not really suited to being the head guy and in front of a camera. More of an X's and O's guy. My opinion ...

Gophers_4life said:

Claeys is a great defensive mind, I believe. And think he was a big part of Kill's success and rise from the Illinois schools.

Just not really suited to being the head guy and in front of a camera. More of an X's and O's guy. My opinion ...

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Claeys created top 25 defenses that were required to win games for Jerry's bad to awful' offenses. He probably should have left for a better P5 team but stayed loyal to Jerry.

I think the thing with TC is he just coached under Jerry and maybe doesn't have the network of coaches tied to him or know him that other coordinators who jump around more often do. If he did and kept up the same performance and moved around more I would expect he would have ended up at a far better school. Washington St. got a great deal here.

With Leach at the helm TC won't have to worry about being in the spotlight which suits him just fine. He can just go do what he is good at and that is be a DC without having to do all the stuff he is not good at which is be the face of a program. Defense tends to be somewhat optional in the Pac 12 at times but if Washington State can field a good defense to go along with a strong Leach led offense they could be a force to be reckoned with.

MNVCGUY said:

With Leach at the helm TC won't have to worry about being in the spotlight which suits him just fine. He can just go do what he is good at and that is be a DC without having to do all the stuff he is not good at which is be the face of a program. Defense tends to be somewhat optional in the Pac 12 at times but if Washington State can field a good defense to go along with a strong Leach led offense they could be a force to be reckoned with.

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Yah the PAC (provided TC can get players) might be a place where with just enough defense they can pull off some big games.

MNVCGUY said:

With Leach at the helm TC won't have to worry about being in the spotlight which suits him just fine. He can just go do what he is good at and that is be a DC without having to do all the stuff he is not good at which is be the face of a program. Defense tends to be somewhat optional in the Pac 12 at times but if Washington State can field a good defense to go along with a strong Leach led offense they could be a force to be reckoned with.

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Actually Washington St's defense was good last year. S&P had them at 29th in the country. Their former defensive coordinator Alex Grinch left to become co-defensive coordinator at Ohio St.

I just get the biggest kick out of GHers declarations that TC is suited only to be an assistant coach, that being a head coach was just to big for him. He couldn't be the head coach because he doesnt fit the mold or that he was uncomfortable in front of media (most coaches hate having to deal with media).

TC made a few coaching mistakes, none bigger than the game against Michigan, but I thought he was really growing as "the guy". He was loyal, maybe to a fault. He cared about his players.

I know one thing, he still has a great future ahead of him and I wish him great success, I think most people here do as well.

You can say he left the cupboard bare, but you never really know what he had up his sleeve or his thoughts on getting players for his schemes. All I know for sure was that he went 9-4 in his only full year of coaching.

All this being said, I 100% support Fleck, because it makes no sense to not support your head coach.