How did you know?

#127
#127
BigOrangeMojo said:
1. He wasn't wanted by any other school as a HC. Much lesser schools backed off due to personality issues.
2. He had a reputation for being abrasive. I worried about culture and hiring assistants. That really became really evident with hiring Felton and Osovet into assistant roles when they weren't wanted by any other P5 program (or D1, D2, D3 program with Osovet)
3. He had reputation for questionable ethics (exits from FSU and UGA) as well as a slimeball mentor in Rush Probst.
4. His first two coordinators had no P5 coordinating experience. That plus first year HC = disaster in 2018.
5. His 2018 team couldn't make adjustments at halftime and weren't ready to start the game. This really became a huge issue in 2020 but it was evident all along.
6. His teams quit the last 2 games in 2018.
7. Georgia State

There were a lot of warning signs...
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All of this. Pruitt was woefully under qualified to be a head coach. Unfortunately we had an AD that was even more unqualified at the job of hiring. Sad state that either got paid millions to torpedo the program into the ground.
 
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#128
#128
BigOrangeMojo said:
The success rate for coaches making it to their 6th year is far less than 50%. Those that succeed usually fall into 4 categories

1. A head coach with a proven winning track record that had outperformed historic norms at prior job
2. A coach already on staff that is bumped up when a coach leaves
3. An assistant that is in high demand annually for HC jobs (Smart going to UGA, Mullen going to MSU)
4. A coach that inherits players needed to immediately run schemes (Pruitt wanted to run old-school style schemes with finesse players inherited from Butch)

Pruitt did not check any of those boxes. The success rate for all coaches is far less than 50%. The success rate for coaches that do not have these categories is much less than that).
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The question was how did you know he would fail......not if he would make it to a 6th year. The day he was hired was just a guess if he would succeed or fail. Anyone making that guess had a 50/50 chance of being right or wrong.
 
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#129
#129
ric1958 said:
The question was how did you know he would fail......not if he would make it to a 6th year. The day he was hired was just a guess if he would succeed or fail. Anyone making that guess had a 50/50 chance of being right or wrong.
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The WVU game, his first as a head coach told me he had no idea what he was doing. Any coach halfway competent wouldn't have had a team so woefully unprepared for the season opener.
 
#130
#130
ric1958 said:
The question was how did you know he would fail......not if he would make it to a 6th year. The day he was hired was just a guess if he would succeed or fail. Anyone making that guess had a 50/50 chance of being right or wrong.
Click to expand...

A 50/50 chance implies that half coaches succeed and half coaches fail. I used coaching past 5 years as a sign of success. The odds are less than 50/50 that a coach succeeds under this metric. The coaches that usually succeed at the P5 level fall into one of 4 categories. None of those categories existed here with the Pruitt hire.

So yes, it was a guess that Pruitt wouldn't succeed here but it was a highly educated guess supported by facts and historical trends. Much like with Derek Dooley, the odds here of success were much less than 50/50.

Thankfully for Heupel, the odds are much closer to 50/50 than they were with Pruitt.
 
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#132
#132
I was hopeful and optimistic but there were several warning signs that I tried to downplay. Most have been mentioned.
1. The big Curry fiasco and his picks being overturned and being fired. Made UT look like a dumpster fire.
2. Fulmer selected as AD and forced to make a quick hire. Did he even consider any current HCs???
3. Pruitt had no previous HC experience. Did he make any program better?
4. Rush to put staff together.
5. Lack of talent overall on the team, especially at the QB position.
6. It is tough to turn around a program at a power 5 school.
My orange tinted glasses tried to overlook the warning signs and focused on the stuff about him being a great recruiter, developing players, getting Chaney, knows what a winning program looks like, a HOF coach picking him, etc..
 
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#133
#133
Raebo said:
I was hopeful and optimistic but there were several warning signs that I tried to downplay. Most have been mentioned.
1. The big Curry fiasco and his picks being overturned and being fired. Made UT look like a dumpster fire.
2. Fulmer selected as AD and forced to make a quick hire. Did he even consider any current HCs???
3. Pruitt had no previous HC experience. Did he make any program better?
4. Rush to put staff together.
5. Lack of talent overall on the team, especially at the QB position.
6. It is tough to turn around a program at a power 5 school.
Click to expand...
Sadly, look at these and compare them to the White/Heupel situation.

1. New AD, old AD "retires" under a cloud and coaches are fired "with cause." Dumpster fire level: NCAA sanctions coming.
2. Coaching search is very secretive and AD White ends up "with the only coach we offered a contract" who happens to be his old football coach. 🙄
3. Heupel is an up and coming, exciting coach.... and that's much different.
4. Staff is mostly imported from UCF. I'm unsure if that's a +/-.
5. QB room IS full and seemingly balanced. LB room and much of the D is thin.
6. It remains hard to turn a Power 5, especially an SEC, program around.

We need to pray for patience...... and picking up an extra handle of Jack wouldn't be a bad idea.
 
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#137
#137
ric1958 said:
The question was how did you know he would fail......not if he would make it to a 6th year. The day he was hired was just a guess if he would succeed or fail. Anyone making that guess had a 50/50 chance of being right or wrong.
Click to expand...
This was what my intention was with the question, there were some folks unhappy with the hire from day one. They were right.
 
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#142
#142
Vollifer1949 said:
Forgive me if this this has been posted before. But for you folks who correctly predicted Pruitt would fail (I was very much on the Pruitt bandwagon) What was your clue that he would be a disaster?
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He was hired by Fulmer. And even though some thought Fulmer could walk on water, I was pretty much certain his tenure as AD as related to football would be a disaster. And not only due to what I saw as his shortcomings. He is just one character in the legacy of mismanagement that has been going on pretty much since around the time this century began. Since Doug Dickey retired, no AD has been able to wrangle the high money donors, jugheaded administrators, and others with influence over the program. One or a group of them do something stupid, or fail to do smart things as related to football. Now, though some may be holding out hope for Heupel to do well, I am slightly more hopeful concerning Danny White. He is in more of a position to do the juggling act, and influence the correct type of support that has been absent from the program that is needed for sustainable success. The focus may be on Heupel, but the big job is on White to right the supportive part of the ship that Heupel will need to right the team.
 
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#143
#143
99gator said:
The amazing thing about all of these coaching failures is that I believed each of them would leave it better than he found it.

The only guy that's a "push" in that regard IMO is Butch. It was pretty bad when he took over and I think he left behind talent that's at least as good as what he inherited.
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The big problem with Jones was not recruiting. He did that in spades. However, it seemed like he was running off players almost as fast as he was recruiting. I mean seriously, the revolving door he had going on was like a blur, and whatever oil kept it from falling apart? We should have been getting an endorsement deal for it. If it had been real.
 
#144
#144
JonGrudensAgent said:
Not that we will ever get an answer but it does beg the question of what the hell Fulmer was thinking in hiring that moron.
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Personally, I would not call what Fulmer was doing thinking. But I guess he saw plenty of himself in Pruitt, and felt his infinite wisdom would get him over the hump
 
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#146
#146
Behr said:
I didn't like the idea of CJH. I hated the fact that I had to Google him to find out everything else about him besides where we hired him from. I also hated the fact it wasn't a "Rock Star" hire like I've always hoped for and still didn't know any better from the past that it wasn't gonna happen. I had nothing against CJH. Still don't.

Yeah blah blah blah, nothing new there. As always whether I'm excited about the man or not, I am excited about the upcoming season. A blind squirrel eventually finds a nut. Right? Right? Please say yes.
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Maybe..
 
#147
#147
Behr said:
I didn't like the idea of CJH. I hated the fact that I had to Google him to find out everything else about him besides where we hired him from. I also hated the fact it wasn't a "Rock Star" hire like I've always hoped for and still didn't know any better from the past that it wasn't gonna happen. I had nothing against CJH. Still don't.

Yeah blah blah blah, nothing new there. As always whether I'm excited about the man or not, I am excited about the upcoming season. A blind squirrel eventually finds a nut. Right? Right? Please say yes.
Click to expand...
I wasnt excited when Heupel was announced. However, i like what ive seen and read to this point. I think as long as the sanctions arent truly crippling CJH will be a winner here. Championship level winning is probably not happening in the next couple of years but winning seasons should become the norm. And after 7 of 10 seasons (i think thats accurate)of that not being the case...8 win seasons are going to feel pretty good.


And a coach can recruit ar a high level here by getting us to 8 win seasons a couple of times.
 
#148
#148
Says it all..

OIP.hQIbJBVBkphHa2qShDgOeQHaFt
 
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#150
#150
Total honesty, I was a firm believer in Pruitt up until the Georgia game last year. I was shocked and dismayed when he kept bringing JG out on the field in that game and theKY one. It dawned on me quickly that he was just mortally stubborn and couldn’t get out of his own way
 
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