There is no one class that can claim to have had the same head football coach at DePauw for four straight years since 2003.
Since Nick Mourouzis retired in 2003 after 23 years of coaching, interim head coach Scott Srnka marks the fifth different head coach to lead the DePauw football program in eight years. During the coaching turnover, DePauw has a 57-24 record, and last season's 4-5 finish marked the first losing season since 1995.
It all begins with Bill Lynch in 2004. Lynch resigned from his head coaching position to take an assistant coach/offensive coordinator/tight ends coaching position at Indiana University under head coach Terry Hoeppner. Lynch assumed the head coaching position at IU when Hoeppner died in June, 2007. Lynch was fired in 2010 in the third year of his four-year contract by IU Athletic Director Fred Glass after going 19-30 over four seasons as head coach.
Lynch, as eluded to Wednesday by Ken Owen, executive director of media relations, could be a candidate to come back.
After Lynch resigned, Tim Rogers was named head football coach and went 7-2 during the 2005 season. However, following the season, vice president of Student Services, James Lincoln, received multiple reports that Rogers made inappropriate comments to students, staff and others at rival universities, according to the final documents of a May 2009 lawsuit against DePauw filed by Rogers in 2006.
In the spring of 2006, Rogers exchanged emails, which were given anonymously to Lincoln, with a candidate for an assistant coaching position. In those emails, as the lawsuit states, he described DePauw as "not the big time place I had hoped."
According to the lawsuit, Lincoln said the emails were offensive because they "disparaged DePauw's administration and expressed a desire not to be at DePauw."
Lincoln gave Rogers the choice to resign or have his employment terminated, and Rogers chose to resign.
In June, DePauw confirmed in writing that it would not renew Rogers' employment for the 2006-2007 fiscal year, reads the lawsuit. Four months later, Rogers filed the lawsuit in Putnam County Circuit Court on three counts: breach of contract, wrongful termination and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
In May 2009, the court ruled in favor of DePauw for all three counts.
In 2008, Matt Walker resigned abruptly before the start of the 2009 season and the administration did not provide any information on record as to why.
For three seasons, starting in fall 2006, Walker led the Tigers to a 22-8 record, and the future for the football looked its brightest in history.
He is now the head coach at University of Wisconsin River Falls.
Robby Long's dismissal is just as dubious and abrupt as Walker's resignation. Stevie Baker-Watson, DePauw's current athletic director, said Long was dismissed because of his failure to fully comply with the school's policies and administrative expectations.
She did not provide specifics as to what expectations Long did not meet.
Long led the Tigers - with mostly Walker's players - to back-to-back Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference championships and two NCAA Div. III championship appearances in 2009 and 2010. In both of those years, he was the SCAC's coach of the year.
Long declined to comment the day he was dismissed.