It was a surprise, but not a total shock, when the Colts announced yesterday that they had fired coach Frank Reich. He had done a decent enough job in his first four seasons before the wheels fell off this year. The real shock, though, was when owner Jim Irsay announced that the interim head coach would be… former Colts center Jeff Saturday.

Saturday has no coaching experience of any kind at the college or NFL level. (He’s the first NFL head coach with no prior college or pro coaching experience since Norm Van Brocklin went from being a player for the Eagles to coach of the expansion Vikings in 1961.) He was the head coach at a high school in Georgia for three seasons and went 3–7 in his final year in charge in 2020.

The Colts had plenty of better options for interim coach already on the coaching staff. Former Jaguars coach Gus Bradley is the defensive coordinator. Former Panthers, Broncos and Bears coach John Fox is a senior defensive analyst. Special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone is viewed by people around the league as a potential future head coach. Hell, if you wanted to give the job to a Colts legend, Reggie Wayne is the team’s wide receivers coach.

But the job went to Saturday, and so Irsay had a lot of explaining to do when the team called a press conference last night. The fact that Irsay felt the need to defend Saturday as “fully experienced enough” and “fully capable” tells you a lot about this hire. But just a few minutes later, Irsay said he was “glad [Saturday] doesn’t have any NFL experience.”

“I’m glad he hasn’t learned the fear that’s in this league,” he said. “Because it’s tough for all our coaches. They’re afraid. They go to analytics. And it gets difficult. He doesn’t have all that. He doesn’t have that fear.”

It was one of several head-scratching moments from the presser. (Nick Selbe has rounded up a few of them here.) In another, Saturday told the media that he was “shocked” to receive the call from Irsay asking him to be the interim coach.

“I’ll be frank,” Saturday said, “I asked Mr. Irsay: ‘Tell me why I’m a candidate you would consider in any role to do this.’”

Whatever Irsay’s reasoning was (he said repeatedly during the press conference that he’s impressed with Saturday’s football knowledge), he never considered giving the job to anybody else.

“It wasn’t offered to anyone else,” Irsay said. “I don’t know what Chris [Ballard, the general manager] and I would have done if [Saturday] wasn’t available.”

That’s ultimately what makes this move so puzzling. It’s not just that the Colts would hire someone with zero experience, it’s that they (or, honestly, Irsay alone) would be so dead-set on hiring that marginal candidate. (You can watch the full press conference here.)

Saturday got the job over a number of more qualified candidates. That’s why “so many people in the football world are feeling defeated at the moment,” Conor Orr writes. There are more than a dozen coaches on the Colts’ staff who have more experience than Saturday. They all probably hope to be head coaches one day but had to sit back and watch Saturday walk in off the street and get the job.

The Saturday hire also places a spotlight on the plight of minority coaches. Because it’s just an interim hire, the Colts didn’t have to abide by the Rooney Rule. (They will have to when they make a full-time hire after the season.) But the hiring of an inexperienced white coach understandably opens old wounds, even if I’m inclined to agree with ESPN’s Bomani Jones when he says that being placed in charge of a mess like the Colts could actually be a step backwards for minority candidates. As many have pointed out, the Colts had a Black coach in offensive coordinator Marcus Brady who would have presumably been a candidate to take over for Reich, but he was fired last week.

Saturday might do just fine. Maybe Irsay wants him to be the public face of a struggling franchise while leaving most of the X’s and O’s stuff to the more experienced coaches on the staff. Or maybe Irsay really does believe that there was no better candidate for the job and he’s going to let Saturday run wild. That might not be the worst thing, either. The more games the Colts lose, the better their chances of drafting the franchise quarterback they’ve long been missing.

The best of Sports Illustrated

In today’s Daily Cover, Greg Bishop profiles Drew Timme, Gonzaga’s star big man with an even bigger personality.

Albert Breer outlines the two mistakes that led to the firing of Frank Reich. … Pat Forde lays out what needs to happen for each College Football Playoff contender to make the final field of four. … The Warriors are plummeting in Kyle Wood’s NBA power rankings. … Nick Selbe has a list of the five best fits for Aaron Judge.

Around the sports world

A Vanderbilt football coach will “step back” from his position pending a review of a Facebook comment he made in support of Ye. … Kawhi Leonard will be sidelined indefinitely as he continues to recover from a torn ACL. … USC was upset by coach Andy Enfield’s former school, Florida Gulf Coast. … Florida State was upset by Stetson as well. … Josh Allen is reportedly dealing with an elbow injury. … Dwight Howard has signed with a team in Taiwan. … The Angels’ GM says Shohei Ohtani won’t be traded this offseason. … Peja Stojakovic’s son, Andrej, one of the top recruits in the country, just announced his commitment.

The top five...

… plays from the first day of college basketball:

5. Akron’s blown layup at the buzzer.

4. Women’s player of the year candidate Caitlin Clark’s 20 points for Iowa.

3. Isaiah Rivera’s game-winner for Colorado State against Gardner Webb.

2. Sheldon Edwards’s buzzer beater to force overtime for Loyola Chicago against Fairleigh Dickinson.

1. Lamar Wilkerson’s late game-winner in Sam Houston State’s upset win over Oklahoma.

SIQ

Frank Reich was fired by the Colts yesterday after going 40–33–1 in his tenure with the team. Since the franchise moved from Baltimore to Indianapolis, who are the only coaches who have had more wins with the Colts than Reich?

Yesterday’s SIQ: When was the NFL’s most recent scoreless tie?

1931
1943
1956
1969

Answer: 1943. The Lions and Giants played a mess of a game in rain and mud at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium (later known as Tiger Stadium).

The Giants gained a total of 84 yards, while the Lions gashed the New York defense for a whopping 130 total yards. Giants kicker Ward Cuff missed a field goal attempt, while Lions kicker Augie Lio missed three. According to The New York Times, neither team got the ball inside the 15-yard line. Mercifully, the NFL didn’t institute overtime until 1974, so the nearly 17,000 fans were spared from watching any more of that crap.

While there hasn’t been a 0–0 game since, there have been seven games since then that have finished 3–0. As you might expect, a few of those games can be blamed on horrendous weather conditions. One of them was the so-called “Monsoon Game” in 1979 between the Chiefs and Buccaneers that was played in torrential rain in Tampa. There were five turnovers as the Bucs won to clinch their first playoff berth. In 2007, the Steelers squeaked out a win over the Dolphins on Monday Night Football on a muddy field in Pittsburgh when Jeff Reed made a 24-yard field goal with 17 seconds left to play. The most famous 3–0 game in NFL history, though, is the Patriots-Dolphins game from Dec. 12, 1982, when the Patriots had a snow plow clear a patch of turf for John Smith to attempt his game-winning field goal.

From the Vault: Nov. 8, 2004

When the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, Tom Verducci’s cover story didn’t look back at Boston’s 86-year championship curse. Instead, he looked toward the future. “Now Comes the Hard Part” was the headline. But the hard part wasn’t just repeating. It was assembling a team that was capable of doing so.

Now comes the hard part: the cold business of moving on without some of those beloved players. Two starters and two regulars can become free agents by Nov. 11—righthanders Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe, catcher Jason Varitek and shortstop Orlando Cabrera. (Boston picked up third baseman Bill Mueller's $2.1 million 2005 option last Friday.) In addition infielder Pokey Reese, outfielder Gabe Kapler, catcher Doug Mirabelli and relief pitchers Curtis Leskanic, Mike Myers and Ramiro Mendoza are eligible for free agency. (Kapler was the first to file, the day after the Series ended.)

Martinez signed with the Mets. Lowe went to the Dodgers. Cabrera followed him west, signing with the Angels. Varitek came back, though. (Of the role players Verducci mentioned after those four, all of them either re-signed with the Red Sox or never made significant contributions for a big league team again.)

Losing a Hall of Famer in Pedro and another useful pitcher in Lowe (who had been an All-Star as both a closer and a starter for Boston) was tough. But Verducci’s story also covers how Theo Epstein, then 30 years old and in his second season as GM, had already proven himself capable of building a winner in unexpected ways:

By trading former icon [Nomar] Garciaparra on July 31, the Red Sox have shown that they won't let emotion get in the way of bold moves. And Epstein and his staff have been especially adept at under-the-radar pickups, such as signing DH David Ortiz after the Minnesota Twins released him in 2002, picking up righthander Bronson Arroyo after the Pittsburgh Pirates waived him in ’03, sending cash to the Florida Marlins last year to get Kevin Millar (who was all but gone to a Japanese club) and trading a minor leaguer to the Colorado Rockies for second baseman Mark Bellhorn on Dec. 16, 2003.

The 2005 Red Sox did just fine without Martinez, Lowe and Cabrera. Epstein signed Edgar Renteria to be the team’s new starting shortstop. Matt Clement and David Wells added depth to the rotation. The team went 95–67 and made its third straight playoff appearance. In 2007, Boston won the World Series again. The hard part wasn’t so hard.

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