Worst College Football Coaching Hires of All Time

#51
#51
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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Derek Dooley was a really poor recruiter. He covered it with some talent from the Kiffin year.
 
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#52
#52
zjcvols said:
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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We basically lost an entire class though as that class Kiffin recruited fell apart. But I do agree with a good hire we would’ve been fine.
 
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#57
#57
Out of the blue here......

But John Palermo was hired at Austin Peay in 1990. He was the DL coach at Notre Dame. Went 0-11 and scored 98 points.
He went on a “recruiting trip” right after the last game and never returned to Clarksville. Took a job as an assistant at Wisconsin. Jack A$$

That was a wild time at the Peay

Also was DL coach at UT in 2012

John Palermo - Wikipedia
 
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#58
#58
peaygolf said:
Out of the blue here......

But John Palermo was hired at Austin Peay in 1990. He was the DL coach at Notre Dame. Went 0-11 and scored 98 points.
He went on a “recruiting trip” right after the last game and never returned to Clarksville. Took a job as an assistant at Wisconsin. Jack A$$

That was a wild time at the Peay

Also was DL coach at UT in 2012

John Palermo - Wikipedia
Click to expand...
But did he stick a recruit with the bill at a restaurant like Tubberville did at Texas Tech?
 
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#59
#59
BUBear said:
But did he stick a recruit with the bill at a restaurant like Tubberville did at Texas Tech?
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Knowing Palermo like I did, he never even took a recruit to dinner......;)
He was a douche......arrogant to no end. Always, “This is howND does it.”
 
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#60
#60
zjcvols said:
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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1000x this. Going with an interim, or getting Cut, isn’t a hindsight thing…you had talking heads and others advocating for it because it was such an awkward time to be hiring a coach. If Hammy didn’t hire Dooley, he would have hired someone like him in terms of lack of experience and depth because those were the only types of coaches interested in the job. The carousel was already over that year.

Of course, this is Hammy we’re talking about, so even if he named Kippy or Chaney interim and had a year to do an actual search, he probably would have botched it anyway. That year would have given him time to overthink it, or he would have made the interim guy the full time guy if they had a decent season.
 
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#65
#65
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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If you had not hired Kiffin then Dooley would have never been in Knoxville. So I am sticking with Kiffin as the absolute worst hire in NCAA history. His midnight elopement to USC did more to hurt our program than all the administrative actions combined.
 
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#66
#66
salutethehill said:
Yall that are saying Dooley over Pruitt are crazy.
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Well, Dooley had a much worse resume. It should have been really obvious that’s the wrong thing. But in the end, we all know, Pruitt had half Dooley’s IQ.

this is a great thread. Mike Price has to be #1 for comic value, but I must say he didn’t have time to hurt their program.
 
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#67
#67
Ellis Johnson at Southern Miss was crazy. He inherited a team that went 12-2 and won a conference title the previous season, then he lost every single game the next year and was fired. Their program hasn't really been the same since.

The consensus at the time seemed to be that it was a pretty good hire. He had been an SEC DC at a multiple places before that.
 
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#69
#69
I know hindsight is 20/20 and he won a NC, but Jimbo to FSU was the beginning of the end in Tallahassee. He burned that program down, pice by piece. That is the one mistake Bowden ever made.

He will do the same wherever he goes.......
 
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#73
#73
IluvdoubleD's said:
of all time Charlie Weis was the worst. I said that when he was hired, I said it when he was fired again and again. I still say it today. Charlie Weis was a buffoon wrapped in a farce.
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Rarely do I agree with you, but Weis is one of the worst hires of all time, and he can claim the title at both Notre Dame and Kansas.

Gerry Faust has got to be really high on the list. In what world should a coach move directly from high school to Notre Dame?
 
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#75
#75
The criteria for "worst" is kind of subjective. Let's face it, the coach who follows Satan at Bama who goes 9-3 will be the "worst" ever coach.

I didn't see a mention of Zook who would fall into the "worst" since he took a program that historically achieved high marks and was mediocre.

Mike Riley at Nebraska deserves a mention.

Didn't see Joker Phillips at UK... of course, it's UK and they really didn't have football during his time.

And can't mention Kentucky without Hal Mumme lol

Charlie Strong at Texas never really was able to get anything going (I've always considered him the Derek Dooley of Texas)

Lovie Smith (thankfully his plane is still circling) was a huge hype and complete lackluster performance at Illinois.

Tim Beckman, Art Briles and DJ Durkin all have levels of "worst" in them... going from bad to worst.

I'll get slammed for this, but Kirk Ferentz deserves a mention. Literally at Iowa for two decades in the weak West division and only gets two Big 10 Championships in his tenure?
 
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