Available Coaches

#128
#128
DiderotsGhost said:
Gruden is a pipe dream. The guy doesn't even want to coach; he's happy as a broadcaster. It's not like he hasn't received lucrative offers to get back into coaching already.

Realistic options:

Dan Mullen. If this guy can win at Mississippi State, he can win at Tennessee and on a bigger level.

Gus Malzahn. Probably too early to grab him as he has only had one season at Arkansas State. Also a bit risky, since one season isn't long enough to judge, but should at least be on the list.

David Cutcliffe. We were dumb not to have hired him the last time. He only needs one more win to make Duke bowl eligible. Duke is the toughest place to win amongst all the BCS conferences. Also would like to see him come back and lure John Chavis back as co-head coach.

Gary Patterson. Successful at TCU.

Dave Doeran. Don't know much about him, but he's done pretty well at Northern Illinois.

Willie Taggart. Head coach at Western Kentucky. Worked under Jim Harbaugh at Stanford. Only at WKU for three seasons, but has turned an embarassingly bad program into a winning one. His record is not spectacular, but unlike Dooley, he turned a poor program into a good one, whereas Dooley took an average mid-major program and turned it average.

Charlie Strong. Great DC, who's having success at Louisville as HC. Only issue might be that he's been a weak recruiter and it's not clear that he's a great program building guy. Almost like the anti-Dooley.

Rex Ryan. A long-shot, but he seems like the type of guy that might have more success at the college level than the pro level. I think guys would line up to play for this guy, and he knows defense. A more realistic option than Gruden.

Steve Mariucci. Former NFL coach. Still only 56 years old.

Tony Dungy or Herm Edwards. I decided to lump Dungy and Edwards together. Both are long-shots in my view, but Dungy might be intrigued by the possibility of coaching again and having a positive impact on young men's lives. While it's unclear whether Dungy wants to coach again, I think Edwards definitely does --- just unclear whether he'd be willing to coach at collegiate level or he wants to stay in the NFL.

In any case, those are the guys that come to my mind.
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Rex ryan would be my second call. Rex would get the team fired up.
 
#129
#129
I've been reading a Texas board, because I think they'll be looking for a coach this year too. Some of them are talking about Gruden too. They have much deeper pockets than us!
 
#130
#130
Please, someone please tell me what all the fuss and hoopla is about John Gruden! He has a combined record of 95-81 with one Super Bowl win with the Tampa Bay Bucs, which he inherited from Tony Dungy.

With Oakland, he posted a 38-26 regular season record over 4 years and with Tampa Bay he posted a 57-55 record over 7 years. He has never coached a team that had less than 4 losses. In 11 years as head coach, his best records were 12-4 only twice...one of those being with Tony Dungy's Tampa Bay team.

Is this the kind of record everyone wants for our next coach? Who cares if he is a UT graduate...can he win or is he mediocre? His record says mediocrity to me.
Can he recruit? Yes, he can probably recruit very well, but we have coaches not that bring in good talent and can't coach them. Just because you can recruit great doesn't mean that equals wins on the field. Look at the talent we are fielding right now? The talent is there, but the coaching is lacking.

If we want a coach who can make the ugliest faces, then he's our guy. I agree he has a better record than Dooley had when he was hired, but not by much and at this point I hope our administration doesn't settle for mediocre if an when they start looking for another coach.
 
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#132
#132
volnavy said:
Please, someone please tell me what all the fuss and hoopla is about John Gruden! He has a combined record of 95-81 with one Super Bowl win with the Tampa Bay Bucs, which he inherited from Tony Dungy. With Oakland, he posted a 38-26 regular season record over 4 years and with Tampa Bay he posted a 57-55 record over 7 years. He has never coached a team that had less than 4 losses. In 11 years as head coach, his best records were 12-4 only twice...one of those being with Tony Dungy's Tampa Bay team. Is this the kind of record everyone wants for our next coach? Who cares if he is a UT graduate...can he win or is he mediocre? His record says mediocrity to me. If we want a coach who can make the ugliest faces, then he's our guy. I agree he has a better record than Dooley had when he was hired, but not by much and at this point I hope our administration doesn't settle for mediocre if an when they start looking for another coach.
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If you can't out coach those around you, you have to out talent them. If you give a DECENT coach better talent, he can win some games he is not expected to. Gruden would be an instant success on the recruiting tail. Kids would love his fire and the way he breaks down the game. As you said, he does have a superbowl ring as well. I seriously doubt he would come to UT to be a head coach as I have no doubt he has had several offers to coach in the NFL of late.
 
#133
#133
LebanonVolunteer said:
If you can't out coach those around you, you have to out talent them. If you give a DECENT coach better talent, he can win some games he is not expected to. Gruden would be an instant success on the recruiting tail. Kids would love his fire and the way he breaks down the game. As you said, he does have a superbowl ring as well. I seriously doubt he would come to UT to be a head coach as I have no doubt he has had several offers to coach in the NFL of late.
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Yes, he does have a Super Bowl ring, but that ring belongs to Tony Dungy as it was his team that he built up. Gruden just inherited what Tony made. Heck I would go after Tony Dungy before I would go after Gruden. Gruden would definately bring more talent to Tennessee, this is true, but his coaching record is seriously lacking at a mere .540 - that's barely over 50% winning. That's mediocre and I'm sick of medicrity at the University of Tennessee.
 
#134
#134
volnavy said:
Please, someone please tell me what all the fuss and hoopla is about John Gruden! He has a combined record of 95-81 with one Super Bowl win with the Tampa Bay Bucs, which he inherited from Tony Dungy.

With Oakland, he posted a 38-26 regular season record over 4 years and with Tampa Bay he posted a 57-55 record over 7 years. He has never coached a team that had less than 4 losses. In 11 years as head coach, his best records were 12-4 only twice...one of those being with Tony Dungy's Tampa Bay team.

Is this the kind of record everyone wants for our next coach? Who cares if he is a UT graduate...can he win or is he mediocre? His record says mediocrity to me.
Can he recruit? Yes, he can probably recruit very well, but we have coaches not that bring in good talent and can't coach them. Just because you can recruit great doesn't mean that equals wins on the field. Look at the talent we are fielding right now? The talent is there, but the coaching is lacking.
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Are you kidding me?

This is like saying Mike Krzyzewski isn't good enough to coach your high school basketball team because he hasn't had a season with less than 2 losses and he's only won one national championship in the past decade.

Gruden is a pipe dream IMO, but saying that a guy *ONLY* went 12-4 in the NFL one season isn't exactly the best argument against making him a college coach. And it's true Dungy probably deserves credit for his SB win, but Gruden did manage to take the Oakland Raiders to the AFC Championship Game with a quarterback no one had even heard of a few years earlier.
 
#135
#135
61 Pete Carroll - Seahawks
59 Jim Tressel
52 Bob Stoops - Oklahoma
52 Gary Patterson - TCU
51 Bobby Petrino
49 Jon Gruden
48 Chris Petersen - Boise State
45 Mike Gundy - Oklahoma State
42 Bret Bielema - Wisconsin
41 Dana Holgorsen - West Virginia
40 Dan Mullen - Mississippi State
37 Pat Fitzgerald - Northwestern

If we couldn't land one of those guys then I guess...

59 Mike Riley - Oregon State
56 Art Briles - Baylor
52 Charlie Strong - Louisville
51 Jerry Kill - Minnesota
50 Larry Fedora - North Carolina
50 Jim Mora - UCLA
47 Todd Graham - Arizona State
43 Mark Hudspeth - Louisiana Lafayette
42 Sonny Dykes - Louisiana Tech
40 David Shaw - Stanford
40 Dave Doeren - Northern Illinois
36 Willie Taggart - Western Kentucky

I'd rather get someone from the first list. Sure, might have no chance in hell of landing a couple of them but you have to at least pick up the phone and call. The day Tennessee gets rejected by 12 coaches, some of which are unemployed and coach at schools like Boise State, TCU, Northwestern and Miss State... that would be embarrassing. And people say Tennessee doesn't have the money but they'll have even less if they keep losing. If you consider it an investment to get a proven coach with a winning track record, you should net a return. How much longer are people going to keep buying tickets, filling up their gas tanks, buying overpriced food/drinks etc. to see a team that's 5-7, 7-6, 6-7, 5-7 and 3-3 over the past 5 seasons? You can say people are bandwagon fans if the stop showing up but some people didn't have the time or money when Tennessee was winning. At least they had the incentive of watching good football and having a fun night. Those same people, I wouldn't blame them for saving their money instead of wasting their time and money to be miserable.

Just consider getting a proven coach as an investment. The alternative is losing money regardless because the fans get sick of spending time and money to watch the team lose. 26-30 over the past four and a half seasons. If they won't break the bank to win, they can't expect fans to break theirs to watch a bad product.
 
#139
#139
LocoVol said:
Carroll - why would he leave NFL gig, so no.
Gruden - will never ever ever happen.
Tressel - on a NCAA show cause, so no.
Chip Kelly - Nike U will match any offer.
Peterson - #1 on my list as he was last 2 hires. There's a reason he won't leave Boise.
Petrino - too much baggage.
Stoops - interesting, but ZERO reason he leaves Big 12 that he owns for SEC pressure cooker.
Mullen - cant stand him. NCAA issues also rumored.
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See above.

Strong - #2 on my realistic list. Good SEC ties and seems very compotent.
Smart - likely our next HC if Hart is truly running the next HC search.
 
#140
#140
dooley2 said:
A lot of people say he wouldn't come, but Gruden would be my guy.

People argue that he's a crappy coach that got fired in the NFL. That's true, but he has a Super Bowl ring, and that's a great recruiting tool. He's also on Monday Night Football, which is a great recruiting tool. He knows what NFL talent looks like, which is a great recruiting tool. He also evaluates quarterbacks for ESPN, in his very own segment, which is a great recruiting tool.

If Gruden were hired he'd bring the elite talent here, which honestly is about 80% or more of the battle. He would need to hire a decent staff, but given his connections, that shouldn't be too hard. The only concern is how expensive it would be. Need Thunder and Big Jim to really help us here.
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Nobody disagrees that Gruden would not be the dream hire, how can we get him?
 
#141
#141
DaphneVol said:
Serious question, why would Chip Kelly come to UT? He's contending for a BCS bowl/championship every year at Oregon...
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I'm not so sure Chip Kelly could win in the SEC with the style of offense he plays. They have exceptional speed for Pac 10 but nothing special for SEC.
 
#142
#142
DiderotsGhost said:
Are you kidding me?

This is like saying Mike Krzyzewski isn't good enough to coach your high school basketball team because he hasn't had a season with less than 2 losses and he's only won one national championship in the past decade.

Gruden is a pipe dream IMO, but saying that a guy *ONLY* went 12-4 in the NFL one season isn't exactly the best argument against making him a college coach. And it's true Dungy probably deserves credit for his SB win, but Gruden did manage to take the Oakland Raiders to the AFC Championship Game with a quarterback no one had even heard of a few years earlier.
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Gruden would be a pipeline to the NFL. Like Calapari is at Kentucky. A pipeline to the NBA.:yes:
 
#145
#145
biggestvols said:
I'm not so sure Chip Kelly could win in the SEC with the style of offense he plays. They have exceptional speed for Pac 10 but nothing special for SEC.
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Chip Kelly would also put much more emphasis on the offense than the D the D is the only thing that sets SEC apart from others and speed at skill position which oregon has
 
#147
#147
Serious Q: is the Gruden hype built upon fact his wife was a UT cheerleader? Any actual quotes where he has said UT was a job he would be interested in? Seems like he is in a dream job now. Millions Of $$ to work a few months a year discussing his passion, football.
 
#148
#148
If we can't get a "slam-dunk" hire and have to settle for another "diamond in the rough," then I'm down with Willie Taggart from WKU. As a former Western student, I saw how awful our program was before Taggart, and it is a night and day difference now. Taggart comes from the Harbaugh coaching tree and runs that West Coast style offense with lots of motion pre-snap and an optimal use of tight ends. He's also done a great job in recruiting good players from Florida to dadgum Bowling Green, KY, lol.

If I were a big-time school, though, I'd want to see at least another season from Taggart before I'd hire him as my guy. For Tennessee, he's on my list, but way down.
 
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#149
#149
DiderotsGhost said:
Are you kidding me?

This is like saying Mike Krzyzewski isn't good enough to coach your high school basketball team because he hasn't had a season with less than 2 losses and he's only won one national championship in the past decade.

Gruden is a pipe dream IMO, but saying that a guy *ONLY* went 12-4 in the NFL one season isn't exactly the best argument against making him a college coach. And it's true Dungy probably deserves credit for his SB win, but Gruden did manage to take the Oakland Raiders to the AFC Championship Game with a quarterback no one had even heard of a few years earlier.
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Okay, first off it was two seasons, out of ELEVEN, that he had a 12-4 record. One of those I don't count (Tony Dungy) so let's just say he had one season in his tenure where he didn't lose more than 4 games. His other records? 8-8, 8-8, 10-6, 7-9, 5-11, 11-5, 4-12, 9-7, and 9-7. Would you be happy with that?

I DO understand, believe it or not, that coaching in the NFL is harder than coaching in college - Pete Carroll, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban could tell you that.

Derek Dooley took La. Tech to their first bowl game with a bunch of nobodies too but that's not justifiable enough to hire him as a Head Coach for an SEC team, so saying that Gruden took Oakland to the AFC Championship game with a QB nobody heard of is not justifiable either bud.
 
#150
#150
I think Dooley has built the talent level to a point where most coaches would at least consider the TN job.

The timing of the HC search with the lack of SEC caliber talent had to hurt on the last search.
We now have talent thanks to Dooley,
Too bad he has not been able to utilize it.
 
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