There have been no candidates that Colorado State has identified for their new head coaching job, but the latest to throw his name into the hat is former BYU head coach and current Maryland offensive coordinator Gary Crowton. Crowton has also been the Oregon Ducks and LSU Tigers offensive coordinator, and when he was at LSU during their 2007 BCS title run. However, each job Crowton seems to become less and less relevant over time, but somehow gets a better job coming out of his situation.
At LSU Crowton was held back because Les Miles would rather run a a more conservative offense to go with a
stingy defense, so that job I can understand Crowton not doing as well. However, at Oregon he was let go when they brought over Chip Kelly from New Hampshire.
Crowton has contacted the school and has not heard a response, but he feels that he is a good fit for the job:
"I know that league very well because I've coached in that league," Crowton said referring to his time as a head coach at BYU when the Cougars were in the Mountain West. "I think CSU is just on the verge of becoming good again, like they were back in the day when I was at BYU and Sonny was there and they had that quarterback that kind of looked like a linebacker."
Steve Fairchild did recruit fairly well with Pete Thomas and some good defensive player, so there is some talent at Colorado State. Crowton would run a more open attack and be the anti-Steve Fairchild who ran a conservative game plan.
One thing to be concerned with Crowton is that while at BYU he tended to jerk around with top level recruits. They were able to bring in quarterback Ben Olson who was a five-star recruit, top quarterback in the 2004 class and fifth player over all, but ran him out of town. Each week Olson was told he was going to play and never did, so he transfered after one year. Plus, there was a lot of discipline problems under Crowton. At BYU there is the honor code, however the players he brought in were not up to those standards. Some players under Crowton's watch were accused of sexual assault, so there are known issues of Crowton being lax in the disciplinary action. So, that is something Colorado State officials may take into consideration with Crowton.
Looking at his track record, I would stay away from Crowton because it seems that after a few years he fades of considerably. At BYU he went 12-2 in his first year but did not have a winning record the following three years.
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