I love Poppinga and have no real affinity for Howell. But that's the kind of hyperbolic and ignorant remark that alot of people hoping for a change spout off when talking about this issue. Both started at BYU as interns before moving on to a graduate assistant position. But Poppinga has only ever coached outside linebackers (where he played), and more recently special teams. At BYU Howell has coached not only the DBs, but the OLBs, and special teams as well. And he's got two years more coaching experience at BYU under Bronco than Poppinga. His high school resume goes back to 2002 and while there wasn't much success in terms of wins, that is still more experience than Poppinga has by far. Poppinga was still in high school when Howell was coaching it!

At some point, some guys are just cut out to be coaches and others not so much. But experience certainly plays a big role. The question is when looking for a new head coach for instance is do you hire an up-and-comer from a successful program with no head coaching experience or do you hire a guy who has flamed out of a one or two other head coaching gigs? Sounds like most on this board wanting Kalani would go with the former option. But it's hard to argue that SC hiring Pete Carroll was the wrong option either.