Montreal fires Tom Higgins, another mid-year move that sees Popp return to HC

The Montreal Alouettes' head coaching job doesn't come with a lot of job security, a point proved again Friday evening when team owner Robert Wetenhall fired head coach Tom Higgins a day after the Alouettes' first win in B.C. Place since 2000. According to the team's release, general manager Jim Popp will once again be returning to the sidelines midseason as head coach, something he's previously done three times. This isn't the quickest firing of a head coach (the Montreal record there appears to be 2013, when Dan Hawkins was fired after just five games; the league-wide record is either two games or no games), but it's still an unusual move, especially coming off a win and especially considering that Higgins was nominated for the CFL's Coach of the Year award last season after turning a 1-7 start into a 9-9 campaign. However, the Popp/Higgins relationship seemed unusual from the start (Popp wanted to continue on as head coach and general manager after he turned the 2013 season around, but the team decided to bring in Higgins instead ahead of the 2014 campaign), and while it worked well for a time, it may be that growing strain there led the team to do this.

The timing of this move is particularly odd. It's not leading up to a bye week (Montreal's are in Week Five and Week 12), and it's coming immediately after one of the Alouettes' more impressive wins of the year. Yes, they're still just 3-5, and yes, they beat a B.C. team that hasn't been very good either, but the run-focused scheme the Alouettes deployed Thursday night seemed like a great offensive plan, one that could help them pick up major yardage (they had 251 rushing yards against the Lions) and ease the burden on rookie quarterback Rakeem Cato. It was a big step forward, too; before beating B.C., Montreal had posted three straight losses, and all of those featured anemic offensive performances. Yes, the Alouettes still only scored 23 points Thursday, but their offence picked up yards and their defence was dominant. They looked like a team headed in the right direction, not one ready to fire its head coach.

However, it may well be that this decision was made in response to larger long-term issues. Higgins' handling of the game-day roster had taken plenty of criticism this season, and he and Popp didn't always to be on the same page about what players to bring in and how best to utilize them. Keep in mind that the initial hiring of Higgins didn't really involve Popp; he'd said that he wanted to stay as head coach and general manager, but Wetenhall made the call to bring in Higgins for the HC role. Popp and Higgins said the right things about working together, and they seemed to find ways to make the Alouettes succeed (especially after they overcame their rough start last season and after Popp received a contract extension), but there were plenty of rocky points both during last year's 1-7 start (especially when the team fired OC Rick Worman during training camp)  and during the start of this season. Maybe something in particular led to this, or maybe it was just the natural culmination of a frayed relationship that seemed problematic from the get-go, but whatever the case may be, the Alouettes have decided they're better off without Higgins than with him.

This has to hurt the chances of Montreal attracting outside coaches down the road, though. This is now the fourth time Popp has stepped in midseason, and three of those were after firing the head coach; Rod Rust in 2001, Hawkins in 2013 and Higgins now. (The other case was in 2006, where Don Matthews stepped down for health reasons and Popp came in.) Both Rust and Hawkins were fired in their first season with the team, so at least Higgins managed to last a year, but both were rookie CFL head coaches (and Hawkins was new to Canadian football entirely), so at least there was the excuse of them not fitting in to the CFL game. That's not the case with Higgins, a veteran CFL head coach and general manager in his own right. Maybe there was a good reason to fire him, maybe there wasn't, but the decision to again part ways with an Alouettes head coach midseason and return Popp to the sidelines shows that head coaching job doesn't have a lot of stability (unless it's held by Marc Trestman or Don Matthews, apparently). We'll see how Montreal does with Popp in the dual role, but it's interesting to see them going this route yet again, and doing so right when things seemed to be getting better under Higgins.