The coaching search revisited

Absurd. Kiffin has lamented his decision in public numerous times. UT is most certainly a top 25 job. Is it easy, no. But we are in the era where Ole Miss, Miss State and South Carolina have been top 10. They have no where near the resources we do.

Mullen was the guy, but the UT bad luck kept coming. Sure the admin slow played, but what are the odds the Florida job comes open the same year and the AD is his buddy? If the UF job doesn’t open, Mullen is here and we’re likely solidly back.

5 years is bad luck, 20 isn't. Trading on some old memories of 1990s I think you can make a case that we are at the bottom of the 25 but I don't think anyone without Orange glasses sees it.

Who are we better than over the last 5 - 10? (no particular order), who are we going to jump?
Bama
LSU
Auburn
Texas A&M
Georgia
Florida
Clemson
Notre Dame
Florida State
Miami
Ohio State
Wisconsin
Michigan
Penn State
Oklahoma
Texas
Oklahoma State
Oregon
USC

Outsiders would probably argue that these have been as good if not better in that time and/or likely to do better going forward.
TCU
North Carolina
Iowa
Iowa State
Washington
Missouri
South Carolina
Kentucky
Mississippi State
 
there is no reason not to be in the top 25
Ranking the 25 best facilities in college football
# 8. Tennessee

There's a reason new head coach Jeremy Pruitt said Tennessee had some of the nicest facilities he'd ever seen during his opening press conference. The Anderson Training Center is a state-of-the-art facility that spans 145,000 square feet, but that's only the tip of the iceberg in Knoxville. By 2021, Tennessee's two-phase, $340 million renovation to Neyland Stadium will be complete and the Vols should push into the Top 5 of this ranking by then.
 
Well, and someone posted a picture of Freeze.

That is the other category. The proven winner with baggage.

Freeze’s baggage I could live with (just watch the NCAA), but Briles I couldnt

I can live with any coaches past if they win. College coaches are paid to win ballgames, I could care less about all the other stuff.
 
Hiring a coach is a crap shoot regardless of who it is. If we hired Urban there is no guarantee we would win the NC. While I think he could get the culture turned around, there's still no promise of winning consistently. And he just might start having health problems again ya know?
One thing I wonder, when we go to hire a coach, do we reach out to candidates or do they reach out to us? Or both? It would be interesting to know who contacted UT during the last search.

Interesting list
Coaches Hot Seat 2020
 
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Wait, OP, you said Matt Campbell will not win the Big 12, but he'd be a great hire for us. I'm confused. To be clear, I think he'd be a great hire too, but if he can't win the Big 12, he ain't gonna win the SEC either, so why would we want him?
 
5 years is bad luck, 20 isn't. Trading on some old memories of 1990s I think you can make a case that we are at the bottom of the 25 but I don't think anyone without Orange glasses sees it.

Who are we better than over the last 5 - 10? (no particular order), who are we going to jump?
Bama
LSU
Auburn
Texas A&M
Georgia
Florida
Clemson
Notre Dame
Florida State
Miami
Ohio State
Wisconsin
Michigan
Penn State
Oklahoma
Texas
Oklahoma State
Oregon
USC

Outsiders would probably argue that these have been as good if not better in that time and/or likely to do better going forward.
TCU
North Carolina
Iowa
Iowa State
Washington
Missouri
South Carolina
Kentucky

Mississippi State
um no
 
Wait, OP, you said Matt Campbell will not win the Big 12, but he'd be a great hire for us. I'm confused. To be clear, I think he'd be a great hire too, but if he can't win the Big 12, he ain't gonna win the SEC either, so why would we want him?
He's another mediocre coach
 
I think the important thing if things go the way I expect them to - be it at the end of this year - or next year - would be to hire a head football coach with HEAD coaching experience that has a proven track record.

And no, that doesn't have to be someone that would be way out in fantasy land like Urban Meyer.

I think a Freeze Warning would be very fun to watch here but many have reservations about him. Personally he may not have the best morals out there but who does and who am I to judge him? I would actually expect if he gets another chance in the SEC be it here or at South Carolina or Auburn he would actually be very well behaved. He knows he can't mess up like he did at Ole Miss.

But even if you take him out of the equation there's several other head coaches that would not demand a premium salary that have a proven track record of turning around bad teams and being very good football coaches and recruiters.

- Jamey Chadwell at Coastal Carolina. He played at ETSU in the late 90s and is proving to be a good head football coach. Yes, it's not at the level of some coaches but at the same time at least he has head coaching experience and has proven he can turn around a bad team or two. Chadwell went 3-9 in Coastal's first year in D1. He's went 5-7 and this year now they are 7-0. They are 25th in total offense this year and 11th in total defense.

- Billy Napier at Louisiana. He took over for Mark Hudspeth who had records of 4-8, 6-7, and 5-7 prior to Napier's arrival. His first year he goes 7-7 even making it to the Sun Belt Championship game. Year two he goes 11-3 and again makes it to the Sun Belt Championship game. Their 3 losses were twice to Appy St and a 10 point loss at Mississippi State. The team was also 10th in total offense and 18th in total defense out of the 130 ranked teams in 2019. In 2020, Napier has now went 7-1 with the loss to Jamey Chadwell's Coastal Carolina team. They beat Iowa State 31-14 to start the year. This guy will be elevated soon to a head coach at a major university. And he has turned the team around.

- Matt Campbell at Iowa State. He took over a horrible team that hadn't had a winning record since 2009. They went 3-9, 2-10, and 3-9 the previous 3 years before he started in 2016. His first year they go 3-9. Year two in 2017 they go 8-5 with wins over then #3 Oklahoma and then #4 TCU. They also beat #19 Memphis to end the year at the Liberty Bowl. In 2018 he goes 8-5 again with big wins over Oklahoma State and West Virginia. Last year they went 7-6 but had a 1 point loss against Iowa, a 2 point loss to Baylor, a TD loss to Oklahoma State, a 1 point loss to Oklahoma, they beat #22 Texas, and had a 10 point loss to Kansas State. Even though they dipped a little his team never got blown out. In 2020 they are 5-2 with losses to Louisiana in what was a big upset and a 3 point loss to Oklahoma State. Again this year they beat Oklahoma. Campbell would demand the highest salary out of any coach I would think Tennessee could realistically get - but he still is within reach.

- Doc Holliday at Marshall. The cheap gatekeeper option. This would be a great fallback option if anything were to go sideways. He's a little older now but still a good recruiter and he could be a solid head coach here for 5 or 6 years to get things back in order and make us respectable again. So far this year Marshall is 7-0 and looking very strong. They are 2nd in the nation in total defense and can also put up some points too. I wouldn't make Holliday my first choice but he would definitely be one I'd zero in on if things didn't go right. He only makes 750k a year now so we could double his salary and still get away with a "cheap" option.

- Kalani Sitake at BYU. Proven to be an up and coming coach. Beat us last year. Beat USC last year. 8-0 so far in 2020 and they just came off of a demolishing of Boise St where they beat them 51-17.

Those are 5 head coaches not named Freeze that I think could get the job done here. Also throw in a wildcard - James Franklin. Yes, Penn State is bad this year. It was going to be a major rebuilding year but the guy can coach. He may be obnoxious but he performed miracles at Vandy when he took them to back to back 9 win seasons. He beat UT 2 out of 3 times there, upset a good Georgia team in year three, and beat the dog out of Florida 34-17. His worst year at PSU until this year was two 7-6 years when he started. Then he went 11-3, 11-2, 9-4, and 11-2 last year. I think this year is an anomaly. I would still very much take him as a head football coach.

Other options I'm sure people will throw around that I don't think are realistic - but great coaches - would be Luke Fickel at Cincinnati and Tom Allen at Indiana. I think if Fickel goes anywhere he's heading back to the Big 10 to Michigan or Penn State. Ditto for Allen if he leaves Indiana. He's from Indiana and has turned them into one of the best teams in the entire country in just a few years at a school that should be mind numbingly hard to win at.

If we made a move I just don't want another assistant coach. I want someone who has head coaching experience AND that has taken teams from being so-so or awful to good. All of my candidates that I'd go after fit that bill.

your aim is way to low, much better coaches deserve this job not this list of mid American heroes.
 
there is no reason not to be in the top 25
Ranking the 25 best facilities in college football
# 8. Tennessee

There's a reason new head coach Jeremy Pruitt said Tennessee had some of the nicest facilities he'd ever seen during his opening press conference. The Anderson Training Center is a state-of-the-art facility that spans 145,000 square feet, but that's only the tip of the iceberg in Knoxville. By 2021, Tennessee's two-phase, $340 million renovation to Neyland Stadium will be complete and the Vols should push into the Top 5 of this ranking by then.
This needs to be shown to anyone who thinks we can’t afford a new coach.
 
you don’t win the Big XII at Iowa State.

Never? As in impossible? Not even with the right coach? Why would they even have a team then?
I know they never have, and it would be the equivalent of Kentucky winning the SEC, or maybe even Vandy ... I know what you're saying.

That said, Franklin had Vandy rolling pretty good and Stoops had UK at unprecedented heights a couple years ago, and they couldn't win the division. I'm not sure we saw Franklin's ceiling at Vandy, but I feel sure we have seen Stoops top out at UK. On the other hand, Spurrier actually took SC to a conference championship game.
All three programs are "you don't win the conference at" kinda schools.

I guess the point I was making (very poorly) was that the right coach can compete for Championships, even at a place where they're not supposed to.
I don't know who that guy is, but I hope he's our next hire (assuming UT will not hire a proven winner).
 
Compare UT and Texas A&M. Both hired a coach the same year. One went and got a coach who had won a NC as a HC. The other got one who had won several as a DC, one of which was under Fisher. Both have the same number of recruiting classes.

2020 A&M #6 class, UT #10
2019 A&M #4 class, UT #13

Rankings matter. But, player development also matters.

Last year - Kellen Mond , JG - very similar QB’s statistics-wise and how they’d make boneheaded plays.

This year - night and day. One has regressed, and one has improved.

A&M OL vs TN OL

A&M - primarily 3*’s - playing like 4-5*’s this year.
UT - primary 5*’s - playing like 3*’s.

A&M receivers vs UT receivers.

A&M - lost all 3 senior starting receivers. The freshman and sophmores replacing them have played well.

UT - lost 2 starting seniors. Have played reasonably well, given that there isn’t a QB to get them the ball.

Unfortunately, Pruitt is using UT as on-the-job training (learning how to be an effective HC) - whereas UT should get someone who already has that experience.
 
Always on my list is David Shaw out at Stanford. He was Harbaugh's OC there and elevated to HC when he left. Has had a significant degree of success there. a tough guy, must be a top notch recruiter to get talent to come there as Stanford is basically Vandy on the left coast. I think he would be challenged and take a job at a place like UT.

I’m a huge fan of David Shaw. And I would do cartwheels if came to UT.

But, he is entrenched in the Bay Area. There was an awesome article on ESPN.com recently about his brother’s successful but very difficult battle with skin cancer, and how David ended up being the plasma donor that helped his brother win the battle.

A really close-knit family and a great story. See below. It will make you a bigger fan.

'We're truly blood brothers': A rare cancer, a risky transplant and how David Shaw saved his sibling's life
 
Let’s rewind the clock a little.

  • How quickly we forget. The last coaching search was a mess from the get go. It resulted in an AD getting fired and Fulmer having to come to the rescue in the first place.
  • The hires from that year have been an epic fail. The “A” list were Chip Kelly and Scott Frost. I’ll cut Frost some slack because I think he had more work to do than anyone else, but it’s still a fail at this point. Dan Mullen was largely viewed as a shoulder shrug hire. Not bad, but not all that great either. Jimbo has had some success and A&M has gotten better every year. The only guy to win a championship at this point…..Mario Cristobal. Yep, Cristobal. But, there are a lot of Willie Taggarts in that group.
  • I think people need to remember what a home run hire is at this point. Once in a blue moon, you have a guy build a dominant program at a doormat. But, that’s extremely rare. You’re normal “home run hire” is a guy like Matt Campbell who hasn’t won anything, but has done as well or better than anyone else who’s coached where he is. Campbell isn’t going to win the Big XII, so judging him that way is not fair. IMO, this is the kind of candidate you need to look for. A head coach, with experience, who has overperformed where he is even if the results don’t appear to be spectacular on the surface. He's 40 years old. He's been a head coach at 2 places. His first head coaching gig was at 32 years old.

Pruitt has failed, IMO. But, why would I pass judgment that way? Is it because he hasn’t won a championship? No. Is it because he’s 0-8 against Florida, Georgia, and Alabama? No.


He has failed because he has not separated Tennessee from the “other” pack out there in the league. By failing to do that, Tennessee did not go bowling in 2018. They robbed themselves of a better bowl in 2019. What bowl do they go to at 9-3 instead of 7-5? And they are going to fail to go to a bowl game this year. That isn’t because of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. That’s because of Vanderbilt, Georgia State, BYU, Kentucky and Arkansas.


At this point, they were supposed to be clearly better than the also rans of the league and they aren’t. The other obvious thing is to start naming things Tennessee does really well or does at the level they need to. I can’t think of any.


But, the reality is the “home run hire” is a fantasy, not just at Tennessee, but everywhere.

JMO

Very good post...and you make it clear why you think CJP has failed...and I think you're HALF right....

I think CJP FAILED
 
Let’s rewind the clock a little.

  • How quickly we forget. The last coaching search was a mess from the get go. It resulted in an AD getting fired and Fulmer having to come to the rescue in the first place.
  • The hires from that year have been an epic fail. The “A” list were Chip Kelly and Scott Frost. I’ll cut Frost some slack because I think he had more work to do than anyone else, but it’s still a fail at this point. Dan Mullen was largely viewed as a shoulder shrug hire. Not bad, but not all that great either. Jimbo has had some success and A&M has gotten better every year. The only guy to win a championship at this point…..Mario Cristobal. Yep, Cristobal. But, there are a lot of Willie Taggarts in that group.
  • I think people need to remember what a home run hire is at this point. Once in a blue moon, you have a guy build a dominant program at a doormat. But, that’s extremely rare. You’re normal “home run hire” is a guy like Matt Campbell who hasn’t won anything, but has done as well or better than anyone else who’s coached where he is. Campbell isn’t going to win the Big XII, so judging him that way is not fair. IMO, this is the kind of candidate you need to look for. A head coach, with experience, who has overperformed where he is even if the results don’t appear to be spectacular on the surface. He's 40 years old. He's been a head coach at 2 places. His first head coaching gig was at 32 years old.

Pruitt has failed, IMO. But, why would I pass judgment that way? Is it because he hasn’t won a championship? No. Is it because he’s 0-8 against Florida, Georgia, and Alabama? No.


He has failed because he has not separated Tennessee from the “other” pack out there in the league. By failing to do that, Tennessee did not go bowling in 2018. They robbed themselves of a better bowl in 2019. What bowl do they go to at 9-3 instead of 7-5? And they are going to fail to go to a bowl game this year. That isn’t because of Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. That’s because of Vanderbilt, Georgia State, BYU, Kentucky and Arkansas.


At this point, they were supposed to be clearly better than the also rans of the league and they aren’t. The other obvious thing is to start naming things Tennessee does really well or does at the level they need to. I can’t think of any.


But, the reality is the “home run hire” is a fantasy, not just at Tennessee, but everywhere.

JMO

Well thought out post.....and I think you're HALF RIGHT about CJP being a failure to this point.
I also think it is too soon to even think about replacing CJP because of the main point of your post----there's NO HOME RUN HIRES OUT THERE!

I truly think CJP is the right guy, but that his offensive philosophy has to somewhat change...but not completely.
There are ways to run the ball effectively while maintaining a very effective and big-play passing game.

Jim Chaney just is NOT THE MAN to find that blend on offense.
The offensive production in those games you put forward as proof of CJP's failure was atrocious!

Our defense has played well in most games since CJP has been here....with a few exceptions.
Even in our last loss--our defense played well enough to earn a victory....but could not overcome Chaney's failure to adjust in the 2nd half.
And a very LARGE PART of that lack of offensive production is also squarely on JG's back--he's not improved....and was NEVER good.

So--IMO--CJP is going to face some harsh realities about his offensive philosophy and get us a guy who can get it done offensively in the SEC.

Otherwise, I agree with the overall premise of your post--we're not performing on par with average SEC teams right now.
 
1)Because all programs go thru ebbs and flows for various reasons (coaching, recruiting changes, conference changes, evolution of the game, etc). Every major football power has been through it

2)not at all. But all programs go thru losses to terrible teams and have average years. To act like us losing to Ga State was worse than Bama losing to La Monroe or Florida losing to Ga Southern is silly. We need to improve. No one is saying we don’t. But firing a coach every 2-3 years for another unproven coach is just roulette at this point
Then dont hire another unproven coach....the money is not only available it is financially the correct decision. The amount of money generated by simply having a competitive team will far outweigh buyouts amd salaries.
 
I couldn't take Kiffin in your shoes either.

It's one thing to take back a woman who's cheated on you. It's another thing to get on your hands and knees and beg the woman who has cheated on you to come back.

No bueno.

WHOA! The memories...
 
What has Lane done at ole miss?
he has lost to Florida, Bama by 3 TDS or more
He lost to Arkansas by 2 TDs
He’s lost to Auburn
He’s beaten South Carolina and Vandy
He beat Uk by 1 pt after they missed two chip shot FGs

The UK game is the only difference between what he and Pruitt has accomplished on the field. And I think Pruitt has underachieved as well
What has Lane done at ole miss?
he has lost to Florida, Bama by 3 TDS or more
He lost to Arkansas by 2 TDs
He’s lost to Auburn
He’s beaten South Carolina and Vandy
He beat Uk by 1 pt after they missed two chip shot FGs

The UK game is the only difference between what he and Pruitt has accomplished on the field. And I think Pruitt has underachieved as well
Ole miss played Bama close which is more than can be said about our guys. Coaches like Kiffin get something of a pass the first year. But the fact we are losing ground in the 3rd year of the Pruitt era is the major issue. Remember when Pruitt said he needed 25 new players to get results? He got 50 new players and we are going backwards.
 

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