I feel even worse about this hire than I did Healy. At least Healy had some CFB HC experience.
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Well, I’m not excited by this, but good luck to him. I hope he’s successful.
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clt says we now have a serious NIL program
From MLive (aka Ann Arbor News):
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Is this a joke??
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I come here for NINER news. I stay for the hilarious comments by my fellow posters here.
Chill, y’all. It’s done. Circle the wagons. Pull together. Give the guy a chance. GO NINERS!!
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I just hope he’s writing us checks and not the other way around. We got a stadium to expand.
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I will reserve my judgement until I see the staff he builds. Good staff = good players = wins.
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clt thanks ninermac for designing a chat page that can handle today’s activity
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This is a piece from Wikipedia on St Frances Academy where Poggi coached
Football[edit]
St. Frances’ football program has become the subject of controversy within Maryland in the late 2010s. After former Gilman School coach Biff Poggi took over as head coach, he began aggressively recruiting talented players from inside and outside Maryland, to a greater degree than other private schools in the state did. Within a few seasons, St. Frances became effectively unbeatable by their traditional opponents in the Maryland Interscholastic Athletic Association (MIAA), regularly defeating them by wide margins.[10]
Before 2018 those teams told St. Frances they would no longer play them, citing safety concerns as many of St. Frances’ recruits were well outside the typical height and weight range for high school players and more in line with college football teams. Some St. Frances supporters believe the opponents’ real motives are racial since there had been no complaints when predominantly white teams like Gilman had been similarly successful in earlier seasons. The team won the MIAA championship before the season even started since all those opponents had to forfeit their games, but scheduled intrasquad scrimmages, opponents from as far away as Canada, and road trips to the South for the players’ benefit.[10]
Poggi departed the program in July 2021 but the team continued its winning ways, finishing the following season in the top 5 of MaxPreps’ 10 national rankings.[11]
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This screams NIL to me. Let’s see who he brings in as coordinators and how he uses his background to build the program.
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I’m going to dive into that HBO Max series tonight. Too Michigan has got it dialed in, they’re #2 to only the big dog in the Big X, Harbaugh’s turned them around. I just admittedly am too ignorant of him to say much right now, it’s a surprise to me.
Hope he kills it because this is the biggest coaching hire in our program’s history.
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If people don’t want to schedule us because we’re “dangerous”, I’m here for it.
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Looks like a football guy. Gotta give him a chance. Hope he can recruit
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62 yr old rich guy. Maybe if he wins he’s not looking to move up
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An article related to his tenure and retirement from Gilman High
Longtime Gilman football coach Biff Poggi steps down after 19 years
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By Cam Smith, USA TODAY High School Sports | January 27, 2016 1:55 pm ET
The longtime head football coach at Baltimore private school power Gilman School is stepping down after 19 years, leaving a program he led to 13 state titles and the No. 13 spot in the final USA TODAY High School Sports Super 25 rankings in 2015.
Biff Poggi, who served for eight years as a Gilman assistant coach and 11 years leading the program, announced he was leaving on Tuesday afternoon. He did not announce where he is headed next, but did admit that he had standing offers to join the collegiate coaching staffs at both Michigan and Maryland. According to Poggi’s interview with the Baltimore Sun, the coach was convinced the time was right to leave because of Gilman’s near-impeccable finish to the 2015 campaign; after losing the season opener to Ohio power Lakewood St. Edward, Gilman rattled off 10 straight wins, including an emotional 35-28 victory against archrival McDonogh School in the 100th meeting between the two classic Baltimore institutions.
Poggi finished with a career record of 135-43 as a head coach at the school.
“I felt like it was time, because we’ve done everything we could do,” Poggi told the Sun. “I thought after the 100th [Gilman-McDonogh] game, it just wasn’t going to get any better as a coach at Gilman. I don’t know how many thousands of people were there. We brought the whole school together and it was a monumental deal, an unbelievable day. I kind of wanted to go out like that.”
Poggi admitted that there was some tension between himself and Gilman headmaster Henry Smyth, but insisted that was not a reason why he was leaving the program now.
As for where he heads next, that decision appears to be largely down to the coach’s family. His two eldest children are current students at Michigan — son Henry will be a junior tight end in Ann Arbor in the fall — and his youngest daughter is in seventh grade in Maryland.
“Here we are with our last child in seventh grade and I really want to do the Michigan thing, but I don’t want to do it more than I want to do what’s best for my daughter,” Poggi said. “That’s what we’re considering.”
Wherever he heads next, Poggi leaves behind a monumental legacy of success in the Baltimore area which other programs have tried to emulate, and which his successor — currently slated to be Gilman athletic director Tim Holley on an interim basis for the fall 2016 season — be very difficult to match.
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What an absolute letdown of a hire. No HC experience. Would have liked someone older than Healy, but not 62. Much like Healy a no-name out of nowhere with an underwhelming resume to boot. At least Healy brought some youthful energy.
Don’t want to bash it right away… but I am a little disappointed