People have posted for DuPaix being a brilliant hire, and others posted with concerns about DuPaix as the new hire to fill the position vacated by Anae. Someone asked if he was the only one concerned in one thread. As usual, I will be encouraged that he has experience as a coach and ties to BYU and Utah and the Church - while wishing it was a blue chip of Jeff Grimes caliber returning while waiting to see how he proves himslef on the sidelines and on the practice field and in the recruiting effort over time.
So here are my thoughts on how to get various points of view that could be considered in forming an opinion about DuPaix.
When Anae Resigned, BYU released a glowing press release praising his contributions and wishing him well. Arizona issued their own presser announcing the hire making him sound like the next best thing to Norm Chow. You might read all of that and if you didn't dig deeper and were - say a AZ fan or a Ute Troll, pat AZ on the back for stealing Anae from the cougars. But if you dig deeper on CC, Cougar Board, Cougar Blue, Tribune reader comments, Deseret News reader comments, etc., etc., you would find additional views on his departure that might make you wonder, as an Arizona fan, if you should be happy or worried with the announced improvement to the AZ staff.
Fast forward. Higgins. Same thing - substitute Purdue for Arizona.
Sideways - Crowton. Same thing. Substitute LSU and Maryland for BYU and AZ or Purdue.
Look in to the future. Norm Chow. Or look back to NC State, USC, Titans(maybe), and eventually UCLA. It will be some of the same thing, although fan sentiment at UCLA and USC in particular was supportive of Chow and many viewed it a mistake that he was or would be let go. But still, the pressers don't tell the full story.
Now let's take Doman. If, in the midst of the re-evaluation, he had taken a job at UW as QB coach or anything else that was rumored, there would have been the same pressers, shined up and spit polished apples, announcing his release from BYU with gratitude and praise and his arrival at school X to take them to the next level. But the difference is - a deeper probe would have shown that fans did not want to see Doman go - at all. Hard to find a fan that wanted Doman out. There may not be even one. So, if all of that had happened, and someone did their homework, they would be pretty darn happy to have stolen Doman based on the official pressers and based on the unoffical scuttlebut.
Finally, we get to DuPaix. Sorry it took me so long. You know me. Long winded. Someone will probably ask me for cliff notes or an executive summary.
I went and tried to find Navy fan commentary about the loss of DuPaix. I could not find any. There is quite a bit of news coverage of the move, all sounding like pressers, but even the ones linked to the Navy site I found are Tribune, Deseret News, and Daily Herald. I have bad eyes and I am lazy and I might have found something if I knew where to look or just kept looking. But, since I have laid out for all of you how you can answer this question, hopefully we will all go look and see if we can find any scuttlebutt from Navy fans. Do they want their head coach fired for losing DuPaix? Do they even have an awareness of Dupaix? Are they celebrating his departure? IDK - but it would be interesting to know.
Go Cougs
