Press Box: Keeping Hoskins right choice for Lincoln

Lincoln coach Malik Hoskins will return next season to lead the Blue Tigers' football program.
Lincoln coach Malik Hoskins will return next season to lead the Blue Tigers' football program.

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JOHN SYKES JR.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/JOHN SYKES JR. - Top Six - 23407 Greystone Manor

Malik Hoskins is finally a permanent, full-time football head coach.

After spending the 2019 season at Lincoln as an interim head coach, Hoskins had the interim tag removed Thursday by the Lincoln athletic department and will return as head coach next season.

The decision seemed like an obvious choice to me, but there was no guarantee it would go that way. Lincoln had interim head coaches with Thomas Howard in 2010 and Lee Johnson in 2016, and neither returned the next season.

When I sat down with Hoskins after Lincoln's season finale last weekend, I ended our interview with a question I knew all week I was going to ask him.

When do you get on the road and start recruiting for the 2020 season?

I asked this question because I was curious as to how Hoskins would answer. At that time, he was still an interim head coach, and there was no assurance he would be back next season after the Blue Tigers finished with a 1-10 record.

There was the possibility Hoskins would say he would wait on Lincoln's decision to name a permanent head coach.

You couldn't argue if he chose to do that. When you try to talk a recruit into joining to your program, but you can't guarantee you'll be the head coach when the player arrives on campus in the fall, you're not going to get many, if any, commitments.

Hoskins said regardless of the university's decision, his staff would be on the road recruiting the Monday after the season ended. Then, after he met with the hiring committee, Hoskins would join the recruiting trail as well. If he wasn't retained, well, then he'd head home and start looking for his next coaching venture.

A formal announcement for Hoskins won't happen until next month, because he's busy recruiting at the moment. I'd say Lincoln made the right choice.

As the 2019 season started to wind down, I came to two conclusions. First, Lincoln "had" to keep Hoskins as head coach, and second, Hoskins "deserved" to stay on as head coach.

Lincoln had to keep Hoskins for stability within the program. When Steven Smith resigned in the middle of May, the school year had just ended, and players were leaving Lincoln left and right.

They may have left because Smith stepped down, they may have left because Lincoln was rejoining the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association, or they may have left for other reasons altogether. Regardless, even though Hoskins was immediately named interim head coach, he spent his summer scrambling to keep players in Jefferson City.

Not the most ideal way to spend your first three months on the job.

If Lincoln didn't retain Hoskins, the Blue Tigers would run the risk of not holding on to players on what was a depleted roster for the 2019 season. Would you want to play for a team that had three head coaches in one calendar year?

Now here's why Hoskins deserved to keep his job and lose the interim tag:

The players wanted Hoskins to stay. I talked to a couple after a game this season, and they said they liked the direction of the program under Hoskins.

Ignore the 2019 record. Everyone knew Lincoln returning to the MIAA, arguable the toughest Division II conference in the nation, would take a toll on the Blue Tigers' win-loss record.

Lincoln played several true freshmen that likely would have redshirted this season had it not been for a lack of roster depth. Brook Bolles, Central Missouri's quarterback, was five years older than some of the Lincoln players that stepped on the field two weeks ago in Warrensburg. He'll keep those players on the roster, and this year was a valuable learning experience for them.

I didn't see any on-the-field problems, and as far as I could tell, there weren't any off-the-field problems for the Blue Tigers. That speaks volumes to the culture of the program.

Hoskins had his back against the wall for six months during a seemingly impossible season, and he's still standing. That's the kind of head coach you want to lead a program that will only get better.