Making it look easy

Okay, I am now convinced that I would make a better athletic director than at least a quarter of the folks running D-1 athletic departments.  Bowling Green just became the first program to fire its head coach this season, and really, who could have seen it coming?

Anybody, actually.

With Bowling Green fresh off a Mid-American Conference title powered by one of the country’s highest-flying offenses, then-AD Chris Kingston wanted to keep a good thing going. So he Googled which team had the best offense that year, noted it was Texas Tech, and essentially targeted the top Red Raiders assistant he could afford.

Google?  You’ve got to admit that’s one way to avoid paying that pesky search firm fee.

Never mind that Jinks — then the 43-year-old running backs aide at Tech — was a career Texas high school coach with three years of college experience, none as a coordinator. Or that Texas Tech didn’t even run the same scheme as Bowling Green — no small thing if continuity was the main selling point. Or that Jinks had never so much as set foot in Ohio. Or that one BG insider told me Jinks had given so little thought to becoming a head coach that he did not have the standard, ready-to-go list of assistants he planned to hire.

As the resident smartest man in the world, Kingston decided none of that mattered. He saw a sharp, well-respected assistant and charismatic recruiter, and, fit be damned, brought him to Ohio.

Unfortunately, foresight proved 20-20.

Jinks threw together a wet-behind-the-headset staff that counted seven first-time Division I coaches, none with Ohio ties…

There’s thinking outside the box and then there’s not even knowing what a box is in the first place.

And, the inevitable punchline:

$437,228: The base salary Jinks made this season. His contract, with runs through the 2020 season, calls for him to make his base salary through the duration of the deal if he is fired without cause. The buyout can diminish if Jinks gains employment elsewhere.

Yeah, I could do that.