Northern Iowa Coach Throws Some Support Behind Gottlieb

Ben Jacobson’s Northern Iowa squad got stunned by Texas A&M on Sunday evening in Oklahoma City. Just a day before, Jacobson (who is coincidentally one of my favorite supposed candidates for a big time job) had actually sort of thrown some support behind the idea that Gottlieb could coach the Pokes.

“The advantages that Doug would have for a guy like that, having played there, he knows exactly what it takes to have success at Oklahoma State,” Jacobson told The Franchise. “He’s got that built-in advantage.”

This sounds a lot like what Gottlieb said in our podcast on Sunday.

“Everybody who’s won at OSU has been an OSU guy,” said Gottlieb. “Because I lived it as a player. I know what it’s like to unpack your bags in Stillwater, America and be in kind of a foreign place. I know what it takes to fill up that arena. I know how you have to recruit there. I know what it takes to be a student athlete there.

“How you foster an environment … where they become part of the student body. There’s not the close bond between the students and the players that there used to be when we were there. In order to sell a place, to really sell it, it has to come from an honest place. It has to come from your gut. I think Stillwater is special that way.

“It’s one thing for somebody who has been somewhere else to say, ‘Stillwater is great, you have to come here, the arena is awesome.’ To have been there when it was at its peak. To have been there when it was a basketball school. To be able to bring together the Coach Sutton era and a new era, I think is what makes Oklahoma State special.”

Pretty powerful stuff, right? Jacobson pointed to a lot of the same things.

“If Doug was thinking about, um, I don’t know, pick a random school — Miami — if Doug wanted the Miami job whenever it is (Jim) Larranaga decides he wants to retire, what would be the logic to putting Doug at the top of that list?” Jacobson asked The Franchise. “Because he hasn’t coached and all the things he hasn’t done yet. He hasn’t earned his way. But if you’re talking about an alma mater, the guy who played there and played at a high level, he’s stayed around the college game, then, to me, that could make some sense.”

“You’re talking recruiting, you’re talking relationships on campus, you’re talking fans and boosters,” Jacobson told The Franchise. “Those things are already built in. And sometimes that stuff can take a year or two years. You can go down the wrong path if you don’t know those, and Doug knows those.”

Yes he does. You bring Brad Underwood in and he has to learn about how the white maple is the same stuff it was in the 1930s, who the hell Joe Adkins is and which football games to bring recruits to. It takes a while to get Stillwater into the fabric of your being. Years maybe, like Jacobson said. Maybe that stuff doesn’t matter. I think it does. Other people do too. Not people on Twitter either. Other NCAA Tournament coaches do.

Maybe I’m wrong about all of this. I fully admit that’s a big possibility. But the more I think about it, the more I go down this road, the more I think it’s a home run for Mike Holder.