Getting beat down 70-14 by ARMY on national television undoes a WHOLE lot ofgood feelings about two winning seasons...
Applewhite’s failure to get a defensive coordinator is all on him. Same with Mack not dumping Manny Diaz after 2012. It was clear after Major’s first season he needed a new DC.
That said though, U of H has made it clear before Applewhite they have ridiculous expectations. Army beatdown or not, it is generally not fair to fire a coach after two years, especially given that Applewhite lost his darkhorse heisman contender QB to injury and Ed Oliver was basically a continuous internal problem the minute Herman left. Applewhite did fire his DC after this year and the winning seasons did deserve a shot at a third year.
Use Charlie Strong at South Florida as an example. He has not met expectations, has few quality wins and the trajectory of that program is not looking good with him at the helm. The six game losing streak is bad. That said, he has has two winning seasons and firing him now would be absurd. He deserves a third year.
Coaches almost always deserve a third year. Mike Locksley at New Mexico is one of the few cases where his first two years were a complete disaster on and off the field and he deserved to be fired, but even he got to start a third year.
It is not a good look for U of H to say “we want 10 wins in the first two years or you are gone”. They also fired Tony Levine after a winning season and went nuts on Herman and Sumlin after they left for better jobs. The truth is, when you have no leash, the school’s expectations are unrealistic and they do not see themselves as the stepping stone job that they are, it is not a good opportunity for a lot of coaches. If you are a coach, do you really want to go somewhere where you could be fired for going 8-5 your first two years?
The WVU HC (unless Dana just really wants to be back in Texas) and USC OC are far better than what U of H is offering.