i was surprised to see most people had chosen no but all the comments were geared to bashing MH. so i'll play devil's advocate and defend him...
under his tenure we made a profit relying solely on private funding. only a handful of schools across the nation accomplished that. what i mean is the man could raise a ton of money and wasnt afraid to pour it back into UT. as seen when we renovated all our major sports stadiums. and the coaching contracts we provided.
his three mistakes were also the coaches he signed. its easy with hind sight to see how big those mistakes were, but think back to when we first got rid of phil... were you not a little bit impressed that UT landed a former NFL coach, a future HOF DC, the Ogre (undisputed recruiting king) and i could go on.. our staff was Loaded. we had the only NFL coaching experience in the SEC East. did kiffin do some stupid things to get us penalized thru the year? absolutely. Kiffin claimed he did it for the media coverage. will we ever know for sure? No but hes managed to stay out of the constant media glare at usc. and no one, NO ONE could have seen that first year bail out coming. the only comparable thing is petrino leaving the ATL Falcons a note when he bailed for Ark. not to mention Bama did something similar to their coaching staff, just paid out a lot better for both Ark and Bama.
on to BP.. this ones easy.. great coach. brought the program way way up. set a school record of 6 consecutive NCAA appearances, 3 straight sweet 16s and our only elite 8. he's the 6th fastest coach to 400 wins, 2nd fastest ut coach to 100 wins. but hes also one of two things: a wuss thats too scared to take his licks. or a common senseless idiot that doesnt know when he's caught. can you really blame MH for his lies?
the only legit complaint is todd raleigh the base ball coach. we didnt even make the SEC tourny once during his 4yr run. bad move mike. cant defend you here
so would i punch Mike for hiring Raleigh? nah. he hired two coaches with alot of potential to make our top two atheletic programs better and that was the two worst decisions he made. he also hired dooley, and the jurys still out on that one. he said he had a three year plan so judgement day isnt far away... i would ask Mike for some his 8 lifetime tickets to football and basketball games tho.
this is kind of a loaded question anyway.. like asking OSU fans if they'd punch Tressell, or PSU fans if they'd cold-cock.. i dunno take your pick of that disaster.
