Austin is Vice President of Football Operations, GM and HC

Scott Mitchell's 2014 replacement?

fingers crossed!

That's a lot of titles.

More titles=more money

Quality football guy. Let's hope things go well and he's around for more than a year or two.

It truly is. Too many to my mind. We’ve seen what happens when one guy takes too much on to his plate (Cortez, Dunigan).

He’d better hire really experienced O/C and D/C.

He's coming into a tough situation with the team being essentially on the road all next season, with most of the 'home' games being played at a fairly primative stadium with mostly temp seating. That being said I have a lot of respect for Austin (that bastard cost us a Grey Cup in '89 after all... :smiley: ) even though I expect an even worse record next year than this year. I think we will see a glimmer of hope, instead of the dark abyss we had with Cortez. At worst he won't personally cost us any games...

Yes, EvilDoctor, I do suspect that he is aware of the uses of a challenge flag.

Do you think Burris will have enough gas left in his tank at 39, in 2014?

This is a Great Video of Coach Kent Austin in 2007 Coach of the Year

http://cfl.ca/video/index/id/10005

No kidding. Even more than George C had. And yes, for sure it = more $$. He’s boss of it all. Obie as a consultant, Mitchell on his way out of the team… what isn’t KA in charge of when it comes to the Ticats?

He’s never been a GM, certainly not VP. I hope he can handle it. And I agree fully, he needs an experienced crew of assistants. Did he not say at the press conference that he hopes to keep the current ones? Maybe that’s a good thing… continuity (for a change) and most of them seem to have been pretty well regarded.

Welcome to Hamilton, Kent. And best wishes for a long, successful and enjoyable time with the Tiger-Cats.

...but what the Cats still need is a defensive co-ordinator who can teach the guys how not lose the game in the last minute. Five wins and an overtime session with B.C. went down the drain in the 59th minute this year. Any ideas on who he might be?

I think the also need better defensive backs and linemen.

And an offensive right tackle who doesn’t get a penalty every other play.

On CHCH Austin said he will talk with Tillman and Ken Welch, maybe a hire, and he said Austin may hire LaPolice as OC.

I don’t agree that the team is essentially on the road…Guelph will be home, and they will have home field advantage there…the fans will be Hamilton fans…the stadium will be familiar to the TCs, not the other team…the players will be sleeping at home before games…(well, they should be anyway!)…all the same homefield advantages that other teams have.

It will be an adaptation, but it will be for Winnipeg too…it was for BC at Empire Field…but it will still be home. In some ways it might work to their advantage, as other teams won’t be accustomed to the smaller, more basic setting …I don’t think it will hurt as much as people might think.

I was very excited when Cortez hiring was announced. And I was happy when Taaffe was hired before that. This time, I will hold my opinion until about labour Day 2013

Have to agree with that. Home is where you play on a regular basis. From the sounds of it most of the crowd will be regular Ticat fans who are already STH's.

What about Hufnagel? Buono? Both of those guys have/had multiple titles and were extremely successful. If you want to dismiss Wally because of his experience, no problem, but Hufnagel got pretty much what Austin got today when Huf was first hired and that has worked out quite well for Calgary.

Valid point blogskee. Agreed Buono is a special case, but otherwise. . . I grant you Hufnagel, but that's one Hufnagel to two Cortez and Dunigan. We'll see.

I'm confident that we, today, have a more likely to succeed Head Coach who will get more out his players than our past two did. But I'm quite concerned about his inexperience for the VP/GM titles and his choice of friends -- particularly two who he referred to as such in his introduction yesterday.