KC Keeler fired by Delaware

[TheMoody1]

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/2 ... ck_check=1

NEWARK – K.C. Keeler was fired as University of Delaware football coach this afternoon, he told The News Journal.

Keeler, 53, said he was called into a meeting with athletic director Eric Ziady, UD executive vice president Scott Douglass and UD attorney Tom LaPenta.

Asked if he was given a reason, Keeler said, “They just want to move in a different direction, I guess.”

Keeler was 86-52 in 11 seasons at Delaware, where he replaced College Football Hall of Famer and 300-game winner Tubby Raymond in 2002.

Keeler was a three-year starter at linebacker for Raymond and was a junior on the 1979 NCAA Division II national title team. As Delaware coach, Keeler’s 2003 team won the NCAA Division I-AA championship and his 2007 and 2010 teams lost in the NCAA final.

Delaware went 5-6 in 2012 and finished with the school’s first four-game losing streak since 1967. It was just the ninth losing record in the Blue Hens’ 70 seasons since 1940, but third in the last seven years.

The timing is odd, as Delaware is in the middle of recruiting and hosted a large group of high school seniors over the weekend. It has already received verbal commitments from nine prospects heading toward the February signing day.

[Watauga72]

Too bad for KC.

Recently watched video from that championship game. He introduced several of his starters and gave their nicknames with the standard intro "we just call player X the .....". Flacco was "the laser", Omar Cuff was "the legend", and one of their linebackers he introduced as "the lumberjack". We just called them all "the losers".

[t4pizza]

I wonder what has been going on behind the scenes up there. To an outsider like me this seems like a really odd move on the schools part, but I wonder if there are some Delaware alums that are happy with the move. Curious move to say the least. I thought he generally did a good job and appearing in 3 NCAA finals is no small task, although we fired our coach that won 3 of those things so I guess stranger things have already happened this off season.

[AppinVA]

I wonder what has been going on behind the scenes up there. To an outsider like me this seems like a really odd move on the schools part, but I wonder if there are some Delaware alums that are happy with the move. Curious move to say the least. I thought he generally did a good job and appearing in 3 NCAA finals is no small task, although we fired our coach that won 3 of those things so I guess stranger things have already happened this off season.

We didn't fire....

[ASU_MBA]

Now this is what you call "blindsided". I guess running transfer U finally caught up to KC.

[asumike83]

Some of the UD fans have been rumbling about this for a little while, not an overly surprising move but the timing is certainly odd. He's had some good teams but also had 3 losing seasons in 11 years and has missed the playoffs 4 of the last 5. For a state flagship school with a $1 Billion endowment and a $36 Million athletic budget, losing seasons should be few and far between at the FCS level.

If he were coaching here, I doubt he would have survived going 4-8 and 6-5 in the two seasons following their loss to us in the title game.

[JTApps1]

Just like Michigan they never recovered from the loss to us.

Must be the helmets.

[moehler]

the writing was on the wall, when you cant recruit anymore, and is forced to bring in alot of FCS transfers to fill posiitons, he had to realize this move was coming.

[Black Saturday]

Just like Michigan they never recovered from the loss to us.

Must be the helmets.

I guaranty you that Michigan will have recovered next time we play, if our game isn't bought out by them due to conference expansion.