Top 25 Worst Hires

[tennesseeduke]

CBS Sports compiled their list of the 25 worst college football hires this century. Not surprisingly, we landed two of the top 10- Dooley at 10 and Beldar at 7. (Really surprised that clown wasn’t higher than 7 considering the havoc he wrought.)

Mike Price at a tie for #1 is pretty accurate since he never coached a game at Bama. I don’t even remember the guy at Pitt who is tied with him which probably says a lot.

From Chad Morris to Charlie Strong: College football's top 25 worst coaching hires this century

So Bama is ranked #1 on this list!

 

[tennesseeduke]

Cutcliffe was at Duke at the time. Cutcliffe has publicly stated he was offered the job and
told Hamilton he would take his job. Hamilton (for reasons quite unbeknownst to anyone) said he couldn’t have full staff control and had to keep a couple coaches on staff. Cutcliffe then backed out.

Haslam influenced!

 

[IndianaVol]

Cutcliffe was at Duke at the time. Cutcliffe has publicly stated he was offered the job and
told Hamilton he would take his job. Hamilton (for reasons quite unbeknownst to anyone) said he couldn’t have full staff control and had to keep a couple coaches on staff. Cutcliffe then backed out.

Thanks - wasn't recalling all the details.
I wonder who the coaches already here were that Hamilton was bent on keeping???...Chaney? Gran? Garza? Reaves or Cregg?
Or was that just Hamilton's way of keeping some "control"?

Crap part here is if it did come down to Chaney, he likely would have been retained under Cutcliffe.
All accounts I've ever heard they respected each other deeply and think they would have made a hell of an HC/OC team.

 

[#1fulmerite]

Thanks - wasn't recalling all the details.
I wonder who the coaches already here were that Hamilton was bent on keeping???...Chaney? Gran? Garza? Reaves or Cregg?
Or was that just Hamilton's way of keeping some "control"?

Crap part here is if it did come down to Chaney, he likely would have been retained under Cutcliffe.
All accounts I've ever heard they respected each other deeply and think they would have made a hell of an HC/OC team.

I have always wondered if it was strictly a financial pill the next coach would have had to swallow? Who, besides Cutcliffe stayed?

 

[OrangeBeachVol]

I never figured out if Hamilton was just really bad at hiring coaches or was just Haslam's puppet. For whatever the reasons he was a disaster AD.

 

[#1fulmerite]

Besides Tubberville, has there been another SEC coach that left one school for another and fared well? Curry was at Kentucky for a long time but, didn’t have much success.

 

[zjcvols]

Thanks - wasn't recalling all the details.
I wonder who the coaches already here were that Hamilton was bent on keeping???...Chaney? Gran? Garza? Reaves or Cregg?
Or was that just Hamilton's way of keeping some "control"?

Crap part here is if it did come down to Chaney, he likely would have been retained under Cutcliffe.
All accounts I've ever heard they respected each other deeply and think they would have made a hell of an HC/OC team.

The only two coaches that stayed were Thompson and Chaney. I think it might have been Thompson because he was such a key cog in recruiting. That is just IMO though.

 

[eaglevol]

We probably would have had three worst hires in the Top 10 if the Greg Schiano hire had gone thru.

 

[Boston Vol]

Thanks - wasn't recalling all the details.
I wonder who the coaches already here were that Hamilton was bent on keeping???...Chaney? Gran? Garza? Reaves or Cregg?
Or was that just Hamilton's way of keeping some "control"?

Crap part here is if it did come down to Chaney, he likely would have been retained under Cutcliffe.
All accounts I've ever heard they respected each other deeply and think they would have made a hell of an HC/OC team.

Kippy Brown was the one that Hamilton said had to stay on staff. Cut wanted to bring Scottie Montgomery with him instead. Hamilton was adamant that Brown had to be on the staff, so Cut to Hamilton to kick rocks. Of course it turns out that Brown left Tennessee after the phony interview Hamilton gave him for the HC spot.

 

[wmcovol]

He did a decent job while here. He just left us for his Alma mater.

Kiffin left Tennessee for Fresno St?

 

[SpookyAction]

To be fair, I think Hamilton’s hands were tied due to Kiffin bailing at such a late date. All the big names/competent coaches were already taken and the pickings were slim as I recall. And Dooley was the slimmest of slim pickings. But maybe my Partheimers is kicking in and I just can’t remember the other choices.

Pickings were slim for sure. It seems like we are consistently forced to poach a Head Coach or elite player. Hamilton alienated a couple of good ball coaches during the Kiffin search, too.
Gary Patterson is the main answer. I think He would have killed it here.

When Gruden was down to enjoy all the attention, it became a maelstrom of suck. I was actually hoping for Bill Cowher. Seems silly now.

Patterson was the best coach who would have said yes.
I remember Muschamp said no. He was America's Sweetheart until he got a HC job. I think he was the man who recommended Derek Dooley to Mike Hamilton. It always struck me as weird for Hamilton to take advice from someone who thought they were too good to be our HC.

 

[YankeeVol]

The 3-7 season was also during the shortened COVID year and was an SEC-only schedule, so at least he won 3 conference games that year. IMO the worst season in school history was 2017 under Butch; winless in conference play for the only time in school history.

I'd have Dooley ahead of Pruitt on this list. It's a low bar, but Pruitt at least got the team off the mat after starting 0-2 in 2019 and won 7 regular season games and then a bowl game, admittedly against not great competition (but we weren't good either). By comparison the high point of Dooley's tenure was probably beating NC State in the 2012 season opener, or beating Vandy in OT in 2011. That makes me sick to my stomach to even type that.

They each brought their bad mark to the table. The worst overall coach of the three was Dooley. The single-worst season was under Butch (2017). The single-most embarrassing loss was under Pruitt (Georgia St).

It's 2017. We've only lost 8 games once. That has to be the worst season.