His recruiting was overrated - or inflated - by his being given the green light to do “whatever it takes” by Ole Miss’ administration and their boosters.
He would not be given the green light here.
I’m not saying it makes him a *bad* candidate. But, to me, it levels the playing field when you compare him with other candidates.
And to be quite honest I don’t think he *helps* Tennessee when he would have to go into a recruits living room and explain why he was buying hookers for recruits.
yeah, i keep going back and forth.
i think the thing with FReeze is the fact people get enamoured with the name, and what hte potentail reaction, positively, would be for getting a big name like that.
but it comes with some baggage. and you have to wonder how the egos get managed....i don't think pruitt wants/needs/is necessarily a micro manager, but he has a certain way he wants things done. Freeze has run a program before. that dynamic can either work really , really well, or it can be recipie for a disaster. no way to know which way it goes, my gut says, Freeze has probabl been humbled quite a bit, and likely understands what he would have to do in order to truly be considered for another HC gig at some point in the future.
which leads me to my next issue...and i'm not saying this is or should be the thing that drives the decision, but it has to be considered, but what kind of life expectancy do we want/expect out of an OC? ideally, we want all of our coaches to do well enough that they are sought after and promotable.
but we don't want that to happen every year, do we? unfortunately, we are just at a point in this program's history, where some semblence of continuity and consistencey are needed. i think we have more resources devoted to our staff now than we ever have, and if after 3 or 4 years, we start to see that positive attrition you want to see, then you may be in a positon to have developed staff members where you can promote from with in, and hire from outside when opportunities present.
we're not there yet. so a guy like Lindsey or Enos maybe makes sense moreseo than Freeze, just from that angle alone? then you have guys like Weinke, Osovet and others that in a year or two are in line for those next round of opportunities ont he staff......
probably putting to much in to this train of thought at this point. but i think if you were going to draw it up, that's the model you'd like to build.
all that to say, i don't know who would be the best candidate, there's a lot of considerations to make. first and foremost, does it make us better?
