Bye-bye to Beckman
Published: 12/4/2008 9:20 AM
Last Modified: 12/4/2008 9:20 AM
Well, that was some surprising news coming out of Toledo, Ohio on Wednesday night. Tim Beckman will be named the new head coach at Toledo on Thursday after spending the past two seasons as Oklahoma State's defensive coordinator.
In dealing with Beckman the past two years, I thought the day would come where he would get the opportunity to run his own college football program. I thought that day, though, was still another year or two down the road and not today.
But after dealing with plenty of coaches over the years, the one term I've always heard about matching programs and potential new hires is whether it is a "good fit" for both. In this match of Beckman and Toledo, it is a great fit. Beckman knows Ohio. He spent a good portion of his youth growing up in the Cleveland suburb of Berea. He attended college at Findley University in Ohio and has coached seven years at Toledo's arch rival Bowling Green and has two seasons as defensive backs coach at The Ohio State University.
Beckman's defense made positive strides in year two at OSU. Subtract the showings against Texas Tech and Oklahoma, there was a good deal of improvement made by the Cowboys defense in 2008.
As I'm writing this, there is no word whether Beckman will coach in OSU's bowl game. My guess is that he will not, following the same method of operation former offensive coordinator Larry Fedora did a year ago after he accepted the head coaching job at Southern Mississippi.
If Beckman does intend to hit the ground running immediately in Toledo, it will be very interesting how the OSU defensive game plan will be formulated and who will call the shots for the likely Holiday Bowl matchup against a highly potent Oregon attack. Beckman coached the OSU linebackers as well as coordinating the defense. Defensive line coach Glenn Spencer and cornerbacks coach Jason Jones are in their first seasons at OSU, while safeties coach Joe DeForest is in his eighth. The guess here is that DeForest will call the shots in the bowl game.
But who will call the defensive shots for the long term? This is a bigger decision for Mike Gundy than it was two years ago when he hired Beckman to replace the fired Vance Bedford.
---Matt Doyle
Written by
Bill Haisten
Sports Writer
