John L. Smith
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| John L. Smith | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| Sport | Football | |
| Born | November 15, 1948 | |
| Place of birth | Idaho Falls, Idaho | |
| Career highlights | ||
| Overall | 132-86 | |
| Coaching stats | ||
| College Football DataWarehouse | ||
| Awards | ||
| 2001 Idaho Athletics Hall of Fame 2003 Big Ten Coach of the Year |
||
| Playing career | ||
| 1960s | Weber State College | |
| Position | Linebacker & Quarterback | |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | ||
| 1989-94 1995-97 1998-2002 2003-2006 |
Idaho Utah State Louisville Michigan State |
|
John L. Smith (born November 15, 1948 in Idaho Falls, Idaho) is a former college football coach, most recently the head coach at Michigan State. He was previously the head coach at Louisville, Utah State, and Idaho.
His overall record has been mixed, with great success at Idaho and Louisville, but also with mediocrity at Utah State and Michigan State. Critics have cited a lack of discipline among his players and an offense which does not feature a fullback or power running game. More recently there has been discussion among football pundits of Smith joining his former boss, Dennis Erickson, as an assistant coach or coordinator at Arizona State. Smith has applied for the head coach position for the University of Hawaii at Manoa Hawaii Warriors football program[1].
Contents |
[edit] Personal life
Smith was born in Idaho Falls and raised in nearby Iona. He lettered in football, basketball, and track at Bonneville High School, graduating in 1967. He played college football at Weber State College in Ogden, Utah, as both a linebacker and quarterback in the Big Sky Conference. He married Diana Flora on August 15, 1970 and they have three children: Nicholas, Kayse, and Sam. He is the uncle of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith.
Smith has earned a reputation for his adventurous attitude and actions, including para-gliding with his children in Zermatt, Switzerland, climbing a 19,340-foot peak on Mount Kilimanjaro, participating in a flight on a T-38 Talon in Texas at Randolph Air Force Base, skydiving from 14,000 feet over Greensburg, Indiana, and running with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain.
In 2000 Sports Illustrated recognized Smith as one of Idaho's top 100 athletes of the 20th Century. He was later inducted into the Idaho Athletics Hall of Fame in 2001.
[edit] Head coaching record
John L. Smith had a record of 22-26 (.458) in his four seasons at Michigan State. The Spartans’ 2006 record was 4-8 (1-7 in the Big Ten).
Smith compiled a record of 132-86 (.605) in his 18 years as a college head coach. After being an assistant head coach for Dennis Erickson for seven seasons, Smith began his head coaching career in 1989 at Idaho, posting a 53-21 record (.716) in six seasons. Under his leadership the Idaho Vandals, then in the Big Sky, made the I-AA playoffs five times. His 53 wins are the most in school history (by 17 games). Smith left Idaho following the 1994 season, moving up to Division I-A with Utah State for three seasons (16-18, .470). Smith then spent five seasons at Louisville (1998-2002), where he put together a 41-21 record (.661), including five straight bowl appearances and back-to-back Conference USA titles in 2000-01.
After the 2002 season, John L. Smith was hired as the head coach at Michigan State, which created controversy for two reasons: Smith was hired before Louisville's bowl game that season, and he did not inform his Louisville players of the decision until halftime of the bowl game, which they lost to Marshall.
Smith ranked 12th among active NCAA Division I-A football coaches in career victories.
Twelve of Smith's eighteen teams have participated in postseason play, including seven straight appearances from 1997-2003. Smith is one of 18 head coaches in college football history to take three different teams to bowl games.
Smith, a defensive coach for most of his career, is also known as one of the disciples of the spread offense, learned from Dennis Erickson through Jack Elway and Jim Sweeney. After introducing it at Michigan State in 2003, his first season with the Spartans, Smith was named the Big Ten Conference Coach of the Year.
[edit] Assistant coach
John L. Smith began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Weber State College in 1971. For the next 17 seasons, Smith was an assistant coach, first at Montana (1972-76) for five seasons then at Nevada (1977-81) for five more as the defensive coordinator. He then joined Dennis Erickson as defensive coordinator and assistant head coach for 7 seasons at three locations: Idaho (1982-85), Wyoming (1986), and Washington State (1987-88). The middle name "L." became part of his public moniker in 1982, due to another John Smith on the Idaho coaching staff.
[edit] Head coach - 1989
When Erickson left WSU for Miami in 1989, and Idaho's Keith Gilbertson departed for an assistant's job under Don James at Washington in Seattle, Smith decided to stay on the Palouse as head coach at neighboring Idaho.
Smith inherited a Vandal team that went 11-2 in 1988 (Division I-AA semifinals) with a returning All-American quarterback in John Friesz. Despite losing the first two games of 1989 (Washington State & Portland State), Idaho would go undefeated (8-0) in Big Sky conference play, the only time in school history. The Vandals lost in the first round of the I-AA playoffs, and finished at 9-3. Senior quarterback Friesz won the Walter Payton Award for the 1989 season, and was drafted by the San Diego Chargers.
[edit] 2006 controversy
 |
This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone or spelling. You can assist by editing it now. A how-to guide is available. (March 2007) |
|
|
The grammar of this article or section needs to be improved. Please do so in accordance with Wikipedia's style guidelines. |
 |
This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. Please help recruit one or improve this article yourself. See the talk page for details. Please consider using {{Expert-subject}} to associate this request with a WikiProject |
Smith came under fire during the 2006 season from Michigan State fans and alumni; many of them supported his dismissal as head coach. This was due to the following losses:
- Losing to Michigan 45-37 in 2004 after leading 27-10 in the 4th quarter.
- Losing to Ohio State 35-24 in 2005 in a game that saw the Spartans take a 17-7 lead. MSU had a field goal attempt blocked and returned for a touchdown at the end of the first half. As he ran off the field, Smith blamed the coaches for the confusion on the field regarding what personnel MSU should have had (which led to the blocked kick).
- Losing to Notre Dame on September 23, 2006, 40-37. Michigan State led 37-21 midway through the fourth quarter.
- Losing to Illinois on September 30, 2006, 23-20, on Homecoming. Illinois had not won a Big Ten game since 2004. After the game, Illinois and Michigan State players fought at midfield after several Illinois players tried to plant their team flag at midfield of Spartan Stadium, which was banned between Big Ten after protesting by Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr after the Minnesota game in 2005.[citation needed] In the postgame press conference, Smith admitted the coaches were having trouble motivating the players, a statement that is comparable to those of Bobby Williams in 2002 before he was fired. Smith also slapped himself in the face (jokingly) as a reference to a previous claim by Notre Dame head coach Charlie Weis where he stated that he had been hit in the face during a sideline scrum in the 2006 contest.
- Losing to Indiana 46-21 on October 28, 2006. Historically, Indiana is one of the Big Ten's worst football programs, having only recorded two conference titles (and no national championships) in 106 years of affiliation with the Big Ten Conference. Indiana's most recent bowl appearance was in 1993, a 45-20 loss to Virginia Tech in the Independence Bowl.
On November 1, 2006, John L. Smith was fired from his head coaching job at Michigan State. Smith and his coaching staff stayed on the job through the end of the 2006 season. He was replaced by Mark Dantonio, former head coach of the University of Cincinnati (2004-06), on Nov. 27, 2006. [1]
Smith was credited by some with taking the program to a better place in terms of academics.[citation needed] The team GPA rose higher than it had been in decades, athletes were going to class,[citation needed] and MSU had the most academic all Big Ten selections of any team in the conference in 2005 including two academic All-Americans. But in the end, Smith's inability to build a stable, consistent program cost him his job.
| name = Utah State | overall = 4-7 | conference = 4-3 | confstanding = 3
}} |- style="background:#ffff99" | 1996 | Utah State
| 6-5 || 4-1 || 1st-T || || style="text-align:right" | || style="text-align:right" |
|- style="background:#ffff99" | 1997 | Utah State
| 6-6 || 4-1 || 1st-T || L 19-35 Humanitarian Bowl || style="text-align:right" | || style="text-align:right" |
|- style="background:#fafafa; border-top: 2px solid #aaaaaa;" | colspan="2" align="center" | Utah State: | 16-18 || 12-5 || colspan="5" | |- | style="background:#dddddd; border-bottom: 2px solid #aaaaaa;" colspan="9" align="center" | Louisville Cardinals (Conference USA) (1998 – 2002) |- | 1998 | Louisville
| 7-5 || 4-2 || 3rd || L 29-48 Motor City Bowl || style="text-align:right" | || style="text-align:right" |
|- | 1999 | Louisville
| 7-5 || 4-2 || 2nd-T || L 31-34 Humanitarian Bowl || style="text-align:right" | || style="text-align:right" |
|- style="background:#ffff99" | 2000 | Louisville
| 9-3 || 6-1 || 1st || L 17-22 Liberty Bowl || style="text-align:right" | || style="text-align:right" |
|- style="background:#ffff99" | 2001 | Louisville
| 11-2 || 6-1 || 1st || W 28-10 Liberty Bowl || style="text-align:right" | 16 || style="text-align:right" | 17
|- | 2002 | Louisville
| 7-6 || 5-2 || 3rd || L 15-38 GMAC Bowl || style="text-align:right" | || style="text-align:right" |
|- style="background:#fafafa; border-top: 2px solid #aaaaaa;" | colspan="2" align="center" | Louisville: | 41-21 || 25-8 || colspan="5" | |- | style="background:#dddddd; border-bottom: 2px solid #aaaaaa;" colspan="9" align="center" | Michigan State Spartans (Big Ten Conference) (2003 – 2006) |- | 2003 | Michigan State
| 8-5 || 5-3 || 3rd-T || L 3-17 Alamo Bowl || style="text-align:right" | || style="text-align:right" |
|- | 2004 | Michigan State
| 5-7 || 4-4 || 5th || || style="text-align:right" | || style="text-align:right" |
|- | 2005 | Michigan State
| 5-6 || 2-6 || 9th || || style="text-align:right" | || style="text-align:right" |
|- | 2006 | Michigan State
| 4-8 || 1-7 || 10th-T || || style="text-align:right" | || style="text-align:right" |
|- style="background:#fafafa; border-top: 2px solid #aaaaaa;" | colspan="2" align="center" | Michigan State: | 22-26 || 12-20 || colspan="5" |
|- style="background:#dddddd" | colspan="2" style="text-align:center" | Total: || 132-86 || colspan="7" |
|-
| colspan="9" | #Rankings from final Coaches Poll of the season.
°Rankings from final AP Poll of the season. |}
[edit] Notes
[edit] External links
- Michigan State University athletics - John L. Smith - bio
- College Football Data Warehouse - John L. Smith - head coaching record
- Deseret Morning News - Smith enjoyed time in Sky - 20-July-2006
| Preceded by Keith Gilbertson |
Idaho Head Football Coach 1989–1994 |
Succeeded by Chris Tormey |
| Preceded by Charlie Weatherbie |
Utah State Head Football Coach 1995–1997 |
Succeeded by Dave Arslanian |
| Preceded by Ron Cooper |
Louisville Head Football Coach 1998–2002 |
Succeeded by Bobby Petrino |
| Preceded by Bobby Williams |
Michigan State Head Football Coach 2003–2006 |
Succeeded by Mark Dantonio |
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
|
|||||
