Jeff Bzdelik to become new Wake Forest head coach

This hiring is pretty poor.

Let’s judge him on his performance at Wake. Being a Wake fan, I hope he succeeds.

How can Wellman and Grobe get together and come up with a long-term plan for football, and Wellman appears to have no idea what to do with the basketball program? I doubt Bzdelik will do worse than Gaudio, and could do substantially better, but there’s no long-term vision with this hiring.

Keep the entire class and we have a chance. It is pretty obvious that he is a better in-game coach than Dino. It is just about getting talent here, which could be a problem.

Keeping the assistants gives us a chance to keep the recruits, especially Coach Battle.

Alright I’m in with this move, just save the recruiting class and I OK

FIRST, dino gaudio got violated at army and loyola, he didnt start winning until he inherited a team at a brand name school, but even then he took a shit in post-season play with great talent, to hell with him, hiring your mothers is a trade up…
SECOND, bzdelik is what wake needs, DISCIPLINE, anyone else tired of street ball? that texas/wake game was humiliating, all ten players on the floor looked ridiculous, like high school kids in a pick up game, like And 1 gone retarded, like the Washington Generals…bring on the Xs and Os please GOD
THIRD, most of the time, players stick to their decision even if the recruiting coach leaves, unless you’re oj mayo or calipari’s recruits, and they’re all dirty anyway… WF is a brand name, we will recruit

I know it is not “official” yet, but here is my take, given what y’all have said:

Pro on the hire: Being an alumni and long time fan, I was always weary of both Dino and Prosser’s approach to the actual X/Os of coaching. Prosser was great on the Off. side, but couldn’t coach defense. Dino could finally get the guys to play defense, but had very little clue what to do on the other side. Both coaches relied upon the talent they could recruit and the player development (hat’s off to the staff). A better, balanced approach is what I hope Wellman is seeing (which I disparately hope he is right!)

Con on the hire: Unless there is some serious gelling amongst the recruits and Bz, say goodbye to at least half of them. Dino’s approach (which he carried over from Prosser) was to highlight a style of game that could give players fast breaks and show off their athleticism. Prosser was really the first coach to be able to recruit in state because of it. The switch to (what I assume) a methodical Princeton-style is a deal breaker for guys like Tabb, McKie, etc.

Just when you thought we had a one year rebuilding period, we just settled on three…

Actually everything I read about bZ points towards a fast style of play. He uses the “Princeton” concept when the fast break is unavailable.

He had zero talent when he came to Colorado and was forced to slow the game down in an effort to keep the game close and have a miracle shot at winning. This past year, Colorado ran on ever possession when the opportunity was there.

Denver papers call his system “Princeton offense on steroids”. Works for me.

Judging from the comments, maybe we will both get what we want…Bzdelik staying at Colorado.

If he does end up at Wake Forest, I think you will like his no nonsense approach and his desire to have a disciplined team. Like oddeac said above, Colorado had zero talent when Bzdelik came into the program, in fact, seven players transferred or left the program after Ricardo Patton was fired. He has had zero senior leadership and has played exclusively with underclassmen. Last year he had one senior, this year he had one senior. When you lose seven players your first year on a 12 – 13 player roster, you are bound to struggle. Colorado has zero facilities to recruit with as well.

And like the poster said above, it is termed as a Princeton style of offense but no where near how the old Princeton teams ran the offense. It does feature the backdoor cut but it is still very much a fast break offense and players can still feature their skills in this system. In fact, Colorado was one of the more efficient offensive teams in the Big 12 this year but they were hampered by no inside presence. G Cory Higgins flourished in the offense and true freshman Alec Burks was a top scorer in the Big 12 earning second team All American honors. The Buffs took Kansas to overtime and Kansas State to the wire this year. They struggled on the road in the Bzdelik era because they were very young and playing with a lot of players that had to be brought in to fill the gaps of players leaving the program his first year.

Can he recruit at a big level? That is the question. Many feel Colorado was a big man away from being a pretty solid team in the Big 12 in 2010-2011. Bzdelik couldn’t find a big man and the team got killed inside. At the same time, the University of Colorado’s admissions office does athletics no favors something that clearly frustrated Bzdelik which maybe a big reason for the move other than Wake Forest being a better job. If he can get his players in and buy into the system of being an efficient offensive team that rebounds, I think he can be a solid hire.

What does Wake have coming back?

Bzdelik was not a stud in the NBA but he does have NBA experience and hopefully that will keep the current recruits and draw some in the future.

He may not have been a good recruiter but you can’t recruit at a military academy all that well and Colorado had little to offer (tough academic standards and a lack of good players in Colorado/a draw to outside recruits).

If this goes down, we have to give him a shot. Has he been great at his former stops? No. But at Wake, he will finally have a large talent pool available to him and will be able to show his skills as a college coach.

And if it fails, you will most likely get your wish of Wellman going down too with this hire (although everyone loves him that he has kept Grobe so far). So we all just need to relax, give Bzdelik a chance to talk to the recruits and at least coach half a season before we call this a terrible hire.

My goodness the overreaction to this is unbelievable.

I just happen to be one of the few Wake Forest graduate to grow up on the short stretch between the Air Force Academy and Denver. This means I am one of the few Wake Forest fans that has known Coach Bzdelik’s work for more than 5 days. He’s a great coach and a good man. He makes teams and players better. I am certain he will make Wake better.

As for this idea that Ron Wellman only hired Bzdelik because the two are old friends? It’s nonsense. It’s selling Ron Wellman short as an Athletic Direction and a Deacon. It’s selling Bzdelik short as a coaching talent.

I am just really happy that Wellman has finally found a golfing buddy