Worst College Football Coaching Hires of All Time

#29
#29
Mike Price was fired at Bama before ever coaching a game.

Kiffin, by way of forcing our hand to hire Dooley probably set us back a decade.

Ty Willingham went 0-12 his last year as Washington

Dan Hawkins took an average Colorado program and drove it into the toilet with a 19-39 record
 
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#30
#30
MurphyVol said:
Mike Price was fired at Bama before ever coaching a game.

Kiffin, by way of forcing our hand to hire Dooley probably set us back a decade.

Ty Willingham went 0-12 his last year as Washington

Dan Hawkins took an average Colorado program and drove it into the toilet with a 19-39 record
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You have to admit, the Mike Price situation has to be one of the funniest events in CFB this century though.

"Roll Tide" indeed.
 
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#31
#31
MurphyVol said:
Mike Price was fired at Bama before ever coaching a game.

Kiffin, by way of forcing our hand to hire Dooley probably set us back a decade.

Ty Willingham went 0-12 his last year as Washington

Dan Hawkins took an average Colorado program and drove it into the toilet with a 19-39 record
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There are a lot of college football coaches that were fired or quit before coaching a game.
 
#32
#32
mad4vols said:
There are a lot of college football coaches that were fired or quit before coaching a game.
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I know the Miami coach quit Temple before coaching a game but who were some of the ones that were fired beforehand? Drawing a blank
 
#38
#38
zjcvols said:
He didn’t even last a month. Then Pitt hired Todd Graham. Woof
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They actually hired Paul Chryst. Graham left Pitt to go to AZ State following the 2011 season. That’s what stared the Pitt coaching search that led to Haywood.
 
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#39
#39
Boston Vol said:
They actually hired Paul Chryst. Graham left Pitt to go to AZ State following the 2011 season. That’s what stared the Pitt coaching search that led to Haywood.
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Man Pitt had a wild ride in the early 10’s
 
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#42
#42
Derek Dooley at Tennessee

Butch Jones at Tennessee

Jeremy Pruitt at Tennessee

I don’t give a damn about the other bad hires.
 
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#44
#44
My main rule for this is no hindsight bias. Dan Mullen was bad this year, but that's "hindsight bias." RichRod flopped at Michigan, but he seemed like a good hire based on his record at West Virginia. I think the "worst hires" are the ones that should've been obvious the moment they were hired.

Derek Dooley, Tennessee. He was 17-20 at Louisiana Tech. Even if you find a good G5 coach they aren't always success at the P5 level (see Justin Fuente), but Dooley was a bad G5 coach, whose only marketable credientials were that he was Vince Dooley's son and he once worked for Saban. As we all know, he was a disaster in Knoxville and probably the worst recruiter at UT in the past 3 decades. Left the cupboard completely bare when he left.

Paul Hackett, USC. He was a bad coach at Pitt. He was the OC at Kansas City for a few years and USC decided he would make a great coach. He didn't. The one thing you can say in his favor ... he did recruit well. Pete Carroll inherited a loaded roster from him, so he wasn't disastrous as some hires, but he was a terrible HC.

Bill Callahan, Nebraska. There haven't been a lot of NFL-to-college success stories, but Callahan was an NFL-to-college nightmare story. He was not a good NFL coach; and his record was inflated due to inheriting a loaded Oakland Raiders team. But he was fired primarily because of how toxic of a personality he had. So Nebraska decided they needed him as their Head Coach. He then proceeded to go 27-22. This was back when Nebraska was still considered a top program. Callahan started their decline.

Gerry Dinardo, LSU. He went 19-25 at Vanderbilt so LSU decided he'd make an excellent hire. He went 32-24-1, but he was 6-15 in his final 2 seasons. If you can't win at LSU with all the talent in Louisiana, you can't be a very good coach. It basically took Nick Saban about 2 days to turn around Dinardo's trainwreck and he won the SEC 2 years later.

Jon Embree, Colorado. He was a Colorado alum and that's the only conceivable reason I can see that he got the job. He was never a Head Coach or even a coordinator before he was offered the job. He lasted 2 years and went 4-21.
 
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#46
#46
DiderotsGhost said:
My main rule for this is no hindsight bias. Dan Mullen was bad this year, but that's "hindsight bias." RichRod flopped at Michigan, but he seemed like a good hire based on his record at West Virginia. I think the "worst hires" are the ones that should've been obvious the moment they were hired.

Derek Dooley, Tennessee. He was 17-20 at Louisiana Tech. Even if you find a good G5 coach they aren't always success at the P5 level (see Justin Fuente), but Dooley was a bad G5 coach, whose only marketable credientials were that he was Vince Dooley's son and he once worked for Saban. As we all know, he was a disaster in Knoxville and probably the worst recruiter at UT in the past 3 decades. Left the cupboard completely bare when he left.

Paul Hackett, USC. He was a bad coach at Pitt. He was the OC at Kansas City for a few years and USC decided he would make a great coach. He didn't. The one thing you can say in his favor ... he did recruit well. Pete Carroll inherited a loaded roster from him, so he wasn't disastrous as some hires, but he was a terrible HC.

Bill Callahan, Nebraska. There haven't been a lot of NFL-to-college success stories, but Callahan was an NFL-to-college nightmare story. He was not a good NFL coach; and his record was inflated due to inheriting a loaded Oakland Raiders team. But he was fired primarily because of how toxic of a personality he had. So Nebraska decided they needed him as their Head Coach. He then proceeded to go 27-22. This was back when Nebraska was still considered a top program. Callahan started their decline.

Gerry Dinardo, LSU. He went 19-25 at Vanderbilt so LSU decided he'd make an excellent hire. He went 32-24-1, but he was 6-15 in his final 2 seasons. If you can't win at LSU with all the talent in Louisiana, you can't be a very good coach. It basically took Nick Saban about 2 days to turn around Dinardo's trainwreck and he won the SEC 2 years later.

Jon Embree, Colorado. He was a Colorado alum and that's the only conceivable reason I can see that he got the job. He was never a Head Coach or even a coordinator before he was offered the job. He lasted 2 years and went 4-21.
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Good list 👍
 
#47
#47
Cartervol said:
Lane Kiffin at Tennessee was bad, hiring Dooley right after had to be the worst 1, 2 gut punch off all time..
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Kiffin was terrible but honestly we were fine if we went with an interim and then hired a good hire. Dooley was hired by Hamilton to save his job. What’s worse than an incompetent AD? An incompetent and desperate AD.
 
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#49
#49
My Tennessee hot take is that Kiffin leaving didn’t kill us. Even Dooley was able to get a top 10 class off the back of Kiffin that year and the previous year Kiffin’s 2009 class had some talent. The problem was hiring Dooley. If we hired Sumlin we probably go 8-4 in year one. Or even if we just promoted Kippy Brown or hired Cutcliffe and surrounded him with elite recruiters Tennessee would have been fine.

But Hamilton was an idiot and panicked
 
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#50
#50
DaddyChad said:
Kiffin was terrible but honestly we were fine if we went with an interim and then hired a good hire. Dooley was hired by Hamilton to save his job. What’s worse than an incompetent AD? An incompetent and desperate AD.
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The damage was done. There was no reason to go with anyone other than Kippy Brown for the next season. The Fooley hire was just more incompetence.
 
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