What would happen if the players he recruited work wonders and UNH bounces back with a 20 win season leading to a MS7 raise and a new 3 year extension? Would folks be happy by then since it was a 20 win season?
I haven't seen this big a chunk of bait floating around since the days of Captain Ahab and Moby Dick
Anyway ... because it's the offseason, and we gotta talk about stuff to get us all to October ... I'll take the bait. Please take careful notes this time, sparkee ...
MS7 enters this season with two (2) more seasons left on his last 3-year deal, which he hornswoggled out of our AD f/k/a SB after his last/only 20 win season. Short of winning an NCAA D-1 title this coming season (obviously, highly unlikely), if it's me as AD, I'm not giving Souza another extension, unless or until he proves he can be a
consistently winning coach, also with a
capability of winning postseason games. He's established NEITHER of those things so far at UNH. That's the baseline from which we are working, in terms of MS7's long-term outlook at UNH.
To become a "
consistently winning" coach, there is no question, he has to post winning seasons this coming season AND in '26/'27. Not one or the other, but BOTH. If he does that, he can point to three winning seasons out of four, and a clear upward trajectory in his career. He is clearly learning on the job by that point. In a profession that is usually measured by "What have you done for me lately?" he can then say he's producing winning teams 75% of the time in seasons directly attached to his current contract (these three and the last of his prior deal). Of course, that ignores Souza's 5 seasons of non-winning teams. And just to go one step further ... his predecessor had 23 winning seasons, one .500 season, and only 5 losing seasons (sadly, including the last three), which was closer to an 80% record of coaching winning teams (including 21 of his first 22, and 23 of his first 25, for 92%). So, 75% is not an unreasonable ask here.
POTLUCK TRIVIA QUESTION: What was Coach Umile's only losing season in his first 22 years in charge, and what was most memorable about that season?
Now, just a short look back at MS7's history behind the UNH bench, which can be broken up into tiny bite-sized 3 year segments, starting with Coach Umile's long goodbye seasons. So, first three seasons, Souza as Coach-In-Waiting ... he was lead assistant and presumably head recruiter (over Stewie) for all 3 years, which saw him take over from Scotty B, followed by the program tanking for the first time ever during the Umile Era. Remember the
March to the NRN, that
only required Umile 40 wins over three seasons to get to 600 total in his D-1 head coaching career?
There were only four (4) two-year segments in the 26 years up to that point where Umile didn't achieve at least 40 wins over two straight seasons. But with MS7 being second in command ... just sayin' ...
So after an inauspicious start as second-in-command, MS7's "New Car Smell" first 3 years in charge saw him turning it around to regain .500 after 2 seasons, but then in his first "contract year" in charge, he was well on his way to running the SS Wildcat into the ground again (6-14-3) when the silly COVID adventure set in. Armed with a fresh new excuse, and a willing enabler in the corner office, MS7 coasted to his first HC extension because he could point to (1) starting with End Stage Umile teams, and (2) the virus ate my homework. Presto, Blue Skies extends his fellow
paisan for another three seasons, in retrospect, likely knowing he was going to be out the door soon himself, and why dirty his hands and pee on his own sidewalk in ending the Souza experiment at that point?
So now we're into MS7's "That's What Friends Are For" stage of seasons 4 thru 6 in charge, where the winless streak of the UNH program extends 2 seasons more to 8 in a row, with two not-even-close losing records setting him up for the proverbial trap door final season in charge. This time, not even Blue Skies is around to save him. So MS7 pulls out all the stops for this one, including a transformative goalie transfer, a young crop of forwards seeming to blossom into legit D-1 talents, and becomes a semi-regular 3rd on the "Jack & Brick" NESN programming in what has since been tagged as "The Charm Offensive". Souza's carriage turns into a pumpkin the minute real postseason games start in Orono. But his fairy godmother f/k/a SB is smitten, and it's 3 more years after that.
Now seems a good point to turn to the second qualifier for a new deal, which as mentioned earlier is
capability of winning postseason games. Since I don't count Make Believe Phony Baloney Everyone Gets A Medal (
MBPBEGAM) round games as 'postseason", then MS7 really doesn't have a postseason record at this point, other than getting his guys trucked up in Orono season before last, in a performance that did nothing to shed us old-timers of the nightmares of the worst of Umile postseason "hits". So this is gonna be the most challenging bit of business for our Mikey to overcome - in my mind anyway - to give him a puncher's chance at coaching at UNH (or quite possibly anywhere else) beyond March 2027. And I don't see any realistic chance he's gonna pull that off.
So two back-to-back winning seasons is the easiest of the two, by far, and even that's a stretch, given the history to date, and the apparent lack of his ability to coach his guys up. But let's say he does get two winning seasons going ... what else does he need to do?? Well, winning records should keep him out of the MBPBEGAM round, so a single quarterfinals win in each of the next two seasons gets UNH to Boston for the first time(s) since Mikey returned. And then he's got a shot at getting the team back into the NCAA's. But you gotta walk before you can run. Establish a capability of winning any of these games?? Doubtful.
In answering sparkee's question today, the simple answer is NO - one winning season alone isn't enough. Or it shouldn't be enough. The AD f/k/a SB fell for that hook, line & sinker last time. Hopefully she abides by the whole "fool me once/fool me twice" thing, and the bar for further extension will be a lot higher.
I'm sorry if it's a long answer, but because there remain SO many things unproven by our current HC, it has to be. There is a lot he has to prove, if not to his boss, but also to the UNH fans that basically pay his salary. I've enjoyed seeing the work happening so far this offseason, as it stands in sharp contrast to the general inactivity we've seen in the past. It's good that MS7 hasn't waited to his next "contract year" to start pushing hard. Seems he's paying attention ...