Rethinking Hamilton's Tenure

#52
#52
bamawriter said:
If you were capable of reading simple English, you would have noticed that I wasn't running down Fulmer at all. In fact, my only mentions of Fulmer were slamming Hamilton's bungling of his firing and noting that, tie or not, Fulmer won East 4 times post-'98 when a UT fan was trying to knock the accomplishment.

To your suggestion that Fulmer was better in the series than the Bear, it's sort of ridiculous since Bryant coached ten more games in the series, and is only slightly behind Fulmer in win % thanks to a tie turning into a forfeited loss. Fulmer did not actually coach a win in '93. But whatever makes you feel better.

As for streaks, Bryant had an 11 game streak, so that trumps all. And barring a major upset, Saban will be on 8 and counting in a little over seven months.
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Math not a strong point with you? I took out the forfeited game, so technically, Fulmer's record is one game better than I said. Plus, I didn't even mention Bryant's record against UT before he got to Bama or how he said, he learned everything he knew from Neyland.

Lighten up Francis. You are a Bama fan on a UT message board. You have to expect some of this!:hi:
 
#53
#53
Backwards K said:
Math not a strong point with you? I took out the forfeited game, so technically, Fulmer's record is one game better than I said. Plus, I didn't even mention Bryant's record against UT before he got to Bama or how he said, he learned everything he knew from Neyland.

Lighten up Francis. You are a Bama fan on a UT message board. You have to expect some of this!:hi:
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I will pose the same challenge to you that I have posed to everyone else who has trotted out the same BS quote from Bryant about Neyland: give me a citation. I will assume that you will fail like everyone else. He never said that. The closest you will find is "I never beat him, but I learned a lot from coaching against him."
 
#54
#54
Boca Vol said:
Maybe, but if UT was winning with Kiffin how much would the fans care? Just look at the BBB threads and the meltdown that's happening since it was announced tha Bruce is going to Auburn.

Fans want to win. UT can talk about academic progress and have the fans saying, "we're doing it the right way" but that thought process will go out the window when UT starts winning. It's only relevant now because UT sucks on the field....but we're winning in the classroom! :snoring:
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We're winning in the classroom?
 
#56
#56
hillsborovol said:
How about any coach at the same level as Dooley, except pick one that showed improvement and a current year winning record. Dooley may have been on the verge of getting fired when we hired him. Sumlin...?
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It was almost February. Realistically, the options for that late and sudden of a departure are pretty much either interim and wait till next year (which schools didn't start regularly doing for another few years), or - after how many nos we got - just find someone to stop the bleeding.
 
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#57
#57
Boca Vol said:
Were any of those situations related? Do you honestly think the AD is making these decisions all by himself? He's not! He's just the point person in the whole deal.

The Fulmer extension in 2007-8 was a joke! The firing of Fulmer was handled all wrong, but Hamilton didn't make that on his own.

I'm not saying Hamilton was great as an AD, far from it. But you can't place the blame on any 1 person.

I think the powers at be at UT thought (like many fans) the UT brand could sell itself. In the 1990's, it could. Today, not so much. The Kiffin hire wasn't that difficult. He wasn't doing anything and his Dad was fired in Tampa. It's easy to hire people who are unemployed. UT found that out in their last 2 football coaching searches.
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If I'm not mistaken - and I could be, it's been a while - the 2007 extension was more about balancing his contract amount/total with regards to the other coaches in the conference. He had just coached a team to a 10 win season and an SEC championship appearance but was set to make like the third or so lowest amount the next year among all the football coaches in the conference.


I'd have to go article digging again though.
 
#58
#58
Aesius said:
Interim coach would have been a better option, and that's not just hindsight. Plenty of people on here who are wiser than me suggested it in the days after Kiffin left. The realistic posters on here knew we were going to get a crappy coach, because the situation was so terrible that it was practically career suicide for a capable coach.

I actually think Arkansas did the right thing by giving the reigns to Mr. Smile for a year, although the Bielema hire looks worse and worse every day.
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Who would UT have made interim coach? Half the staff left with Kiffin.
 
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#59
#59
TrueOrange said:
It was almost February. Realistically, the options for that late and sudden of a departure are pretty much either interim and wait till next year (which schools didn't start regularly doing for another few years), or - after how many nos we got - just find someone to stop the bleeding.
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In hindsight it would've been better to hire a one year stopgap like Kippy rather than hire a program killer like Dooley who created an absolute disaster.
 
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#60
#60
KBVol said:
In hindsight it would've been better to hire a one year stopgap like Kippy rather than hire a program killer like Dooley who created an absolute disaster.
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I agree, in hindsight.

It seemed like it was another few more years before more of the bigger schools appeared to start to (regularly) handle last minute leavings as such.
 
#61
#61
TrueOrange said:
I agree, in hindsight.

It seemed like it was another few more years before more of the bigger schools appeared to start to (regularly) handle last minute leavings as such.
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Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but surely it would've made more sense in the moment to hire a caretaker for one year than hire a guy with a 41% win pct. If there had been a more proven guy maybe.... but Dooley had no history of success. Water under the bridge. Just hate that we're still paying that price.
 
#62
#62
KBVol said:
Hindsight is 20/20 of course, but surely it would've made more sense in the moment to hire a caretaker for one year than hire a guy with a 41% win pct. If there had been a more proven guy maybe.... but Dooley had no history of success. Water under the bridge. Just hate that we're still paying that price.
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But again, who do you tab as the interim? Generally it's someone who is already on staff, like Caldwell at Vandy. Arkansas was a very rare situation in that the head coach was gone, and a guy was available who'd been on the staff just a few months prior. Everyone else on Arky's staff stayed.

The Kiffin situation was totally different. Even if Hamilton had picked someone as an interim, there would be a ton of other positions that needed to be filled, and they would have been all but impossible to fill with any quality at that point. Who would have left a sure gig for an 11 month job?
 
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#63
#63
bamawriter said:
But again, who do you tab as the interim? Generally it's someone who is already on staff, like Caldwell at Vandy. Arkansas was a very rare situation in that the head coach was gone, and a guy was available who'd been on the staff just a few months prior. Everyone else on Arky's staff stayed.

The Kiffin situation was totally different. Even if Hamilton had picked someone as an interim, there would be a ton of other positions that needed to be filled, and they would have been all but impossible to fill with any quality at that point. Who would have left a sure gig for an 11 month job?
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Kippy Brown was already on staff iirc. Bite the bullet with him for year and make a good hire a year later, not a desperate hire of a guy with a history of coaching failure.

Like I said earlier, all hindsight, all water under the bridge.
 
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#65
#65
was a horrible ad and damn near killed the football program.

The contract extension he gave fulmer before he axed him shows how in over his head he was.

We also got lucky with how CBJ has worked out and am still not sold on Hart...he may have honestly gotten lucky.

But Hamilton is a fund raiser kinda Guy. Not an x and o kinda Guy that should ever be given the authority to cash checks.
 
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#66
#66
bamawriter said:
I will pose the same challenge to you that I have posed to everyone else who has trotted out the same BS quote from Bryant about Neyland: give me a citation. I will assume that you will fail like everyone else. He never said that. The closest you will find is "I never beat him, but I learned a lot from coaching against him."
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It's in this book.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/039332897X
 
#70
#70
Aesius said:
Interim coach would have been a better option, and that's not just hindsight. Plenty of people on here who are wiser than me suggested it in the days after Kiffin left. The realistic posters on here knew we were going to get a crappy coach, because the situation was so terrible that it was practically career suicide for a capable coach.

I actually think Arkansas did the right thing by giving the reigns to Mr. Smile for a year, although the Bielema hire looks worse and worse every day.
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Yeah and everyone on here would have said doing that hurt our program-hindsighted that is. But I do agree with you!
 
#71
#71
dooley2 said:
I can't give you a page number. But that's where the internet says it came from. And they can't put anything on the internet that isn't true.
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Thanks for the confirmation.

I think this is simply a case of a X statement becoming Y after it gets bounced around the net for a few years.
 
#73
#73
bamawriter, you may be right about the quote but I do know, Bryant did say this:
"Everybody thought Neyland had a jinx on us. It was no jinx. He was a better coach...."

Also, in looking at the numbers, it is surprising that Bear won 11 in a row against UT (streak started when UT made a mistake and hired a Bama alum as HC) but was 5-7-2 the rest of the time. I wouldn't have thought that.

BTW: Neyland was 12-5-2 vs Bama, Dickey was 4-2-1, Battle was 1-6, , Majors was 4-13.

From a Vols fan perspective (been watching games since 1967), I think Saban is the greatest coach in Bama's history. He has accomplished what he has done in an era with recruiting restrictions, tougher competition, tougher schedules, etc. And, that's not meant as a knock against Bear.
 
#74
#74
Backwards K said:
From a Vols fan perspective (been watching games since 1967), I think Saban is the greatest coach in Bama's history. He has accomplished what he has done in an era with recruiting restrictions, tougher competition, tougher schedules, etc. And, that's not meant as a knock against Bear.
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I think Saban is in the argument for the best ever, at any school. The game is different than when Rockne, Neyland, Bryant, and Royal were coaching. It is much harder, and Saban has done it in the hardest conference.

He's undoubtedly the best coach when one is just talking about the Bama-UT series. Whoever you want to put in second isn't close.
 
#75
#75
bamawriter said:
I think Saban is in the argument for the best ever, at any school. The game is different than when Rockne, Neyland, Bryant, and Royal were coaching. It is much harder, and Saban has done it in the hardest conference.

He's undoubtedly the best coach when one is just talking about the Bama-UT series. Whoever you want to put in second isn't close.
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Very difficult to disagree with this. I just shake my head when any of my UT brethren on here try to argue that Bama's reign is beginning a decline. Not a chance IMHO...... not until Saban retires. I think how many ever more years he coaches, you can conservatively multiply by half, and that's how many more national titles he wins.
 
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