Who a big time school "should" hire - historical context

[UTRavens]

Since so many people think so many candidates are not up to Tennessee standards, I decided to see if history agrees with them.

These are the programs I would consider "big time" based on history and resources: Notre Dame, Florida, Georgia Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama, LSU, Florida State, Miami, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, USC. If you want to debate on who should or shouldn't belong on the list that's fine, but that's not really the point.

Here is a complete list of the hires those programs have made since 1995, and their resumes leading up to the hire. I divided them into three categories: 'home run hires' - big name guys who would be on Gruden's level, 'super up and comers' - with a track record of massive success at a lower program, 'up and comers' - other college head coaches or coordinators whose resumes most people on this board would reject for UT's job - and 'coordinators', with successors from within left out.

Home Run Hires

2012 - Ohio State: Urban Meyer (two national championships at Florida)
2007 - Alabama: Nick Saban (national championship at LSU)

Super Up and Comers

2009 - Notre Dame: Brian Kelly (top 25 all 3 years at Cincinnati, capped by perfect season)
2008 - Michigan: Rich Rodriguez (made several BCS bowls at West Virginia, nearly reached title game)
2005 - Florida: Urban Meyer (stock soared very quickly with two years of success at Bowling Green and two huge years at Utah)
2001 - Ohio State: Jim Tressel (won four national championships at Youngstown State)
1998 - Texas: Mack Brown (longtime UNC coach who elevated them to an elite level in the mid-90s)
1996 - Georgia: Jim Donnan (won a championship at Marshall, who was 1-AA at the time, and reached three other title games in just six years)

Up and Comers

2011 - Miami: Al Golden (elevated Temple program from rock bottom, culminating with back to back 4 loss seasons)
2011 - Michigan: Brady Hoke (slowly elevated Ball State before 12-1 season in 2008)
2010 - Tennessee: Derek Dooley (LOL)
2010 - USC: Lane Kiffin (uh, see below)
2009 - Auburn: Gene Chizik (two years of nothing at Iowa State)
2009 - Tennessee: Lane Kiffin (college assistant until one year plus a few games with the Raiders as HC)
2003 - Alabama: Mike Price (longtime Wazzu coach who mixed occasional big years with mediocrity before coming up big in 2001 and 2002)
2003 - Nebraska: Bill Callahan (longtime NFL assistant before two years - one good, one bad - with Oakland as HC)
2002 - Notre Dame: Tyrone Willingham (mostly hovered around .500 for half a decade with Stanford before a big year in 2001)
2001 - Alabama: Dennis Franchione (quickly elevated TCU to a big year in 2000, tenure at New Mexico prior was long but eventually bore fruit in 1997)
2001 - USC: Pete Carroll (washed out twice as NFL head coach, never a college HC)
2000 - LSU: Nick Saban (around .500 every year at MSU before 9-2 season in 1999)
1999 - Auburn: Tommy Tuberville (four years around .500 at Ole Miss)
1995 - LSU: Gerry DiNardo (four losing seasons at Vanderbilt, all were 4-7 or 5-6)

Coordinators

2012 - Penn State: Bill O'Brien (OC for Patriots)
2011 - Florida: Will Muschamp (hyped DC at Texas for several years)
2008 - Nebraska: Bo Pelini (highly regarded LSU DC)
2005 - Notre Dame: Charlie Weis (highly successful OC with New England Patriots)
2003 - Alabama: Mike Shula (longtime NFL assistant, but his one gig at OC failed)
2002 - Florida: Ron Zook (former Florida DC, coordinated for Saints in 2001)
2001 - Georgia: Mark Richt (longtime OC at FSU)
1999 - Oklahoma: Bob Stoops (DC for Florida and Kansas State)
1998 - USC: Paul Hackett (successful OC as Chiefs, previously failed as head coach at Pitt from 1990-92)
1996 - Oklahoma: John Blake (Cowboys DL coach who used to work with Oklahoma earlier in the '90s - not a coordinator)
1995 - Miami: Butch Davis (DC for Dallas Cowboys in 1993 and 1994, DL coach before then)

What can we learn from this? A few things:

- Obvious winning coaches are obvious winning coaches. If you're opposed to a long shot like Bob Stoops, don't kid yourself. But this applies to a lot of other guys, too. Mike Gundy would be a very safe bet for success. Guys like Gary Patterson have no reason to be distrusted, either. They won at their places, they'd win here.

- You wouldn't think that coordinators were such a popular picks for the biggest programs, but they are. The results are mixed - huge successes, huge failures, and everything in between. At the very least, it establishes that a hiring of Kirby Smart is not suicidal, though still not preferable IMO.

- However, highly successful DCs in the SEC have a strong track record as head coaches, at least at these big time schools. I'll probably do more research into SEC DCs for another post, because I was a bit surprised by this.

- There's a surprising lack of traditional up and comers, which makes our assessment of these guys (who make up most of the names UT fans are bringing up) surprisingly difficult.

 

[duuuuuuuuuuuuude]

Great post.

The takeaway for me is that good coaches -- genuinely good coaches -- can compete at any level. Where you are today is less an indicator of how good you are than how you compete wherever you are. Tressel at Youngstown State drove that home for me. I'd rather have a guy who got it done in the MAC, or the FCS, than someone with a middling record in the SEC.

 

[UTRavens]

Great post.

The takeaway for me is that good coaches -- genuinely good coaches -- can compete at any level. Where you are today is less an indicator of how good you are than how you compete wherever you are. Tressel at Youngstown State drove that home for me. I'd rather have a guy who got it done in the MAC, or the FCS, than someone with a middling record in the SEC.

Yep. I think people here just get a bit too paranoid when they realize what's at stake. They try too hard to discredit success.

And if we're going by the standards a lot of fans have here, roughly 9 of those 33 hires would have been approved by our fan base. Our standards are too high, and that is NOT a negative statement about our program.

 

[MSCE09]

Thanks man. Awesome job!

 

[fcsecfootball]

Best post I have seen on here in a while. No emotions, few opinions, no speculation. Shows there are several paths to success, we were just forced into the least successful group historically by circumstances last time around. A better head start should bear better fruit this time.

 

[tm3]

IMO our program is at such a critical state now we desperately need a hire from behind door #1, and cannot afford to go lower than door #2

 

[RichRollin]

I think like you, that being...winners are winners. I don't care where they coach. Losers are losers. That's why I never understood the Golden talk. Brian Kelly and Tressell won big at the D-2 level and it translated to great D-1 careers. I'm telling you guys...Kelly's OC/QB coach/recruiting coordinator at ND fits that mold. Chuck Martin is gonna be a big time coach. 2 D-2 NCs in as a HC, 74-7 record, D-2record 40 straight wins. Dude is a champion. Our fans would riot if we hired someone like that. And truth be known, when he gets his chance, he's probably gonna have a career similar to Tressell and Kelly. His D-2 win % was better than theirs.

 

[chetsteadman87]

This has to be the most sane thread on this site, great info. With the recent success of SEC linked coordinators I have to think Charlie Strong is a not "best of both worlds" but a "pretty good of both worlds" if you can follow that convoluted statement. Success as a D coordinator, great recruiter, moderate success (including a BCS bid) at Looey. Not saying he's my first choice, but he would be an exciting hire in my book.

Honestly my first choice is James Franklin and before you start lighting the keyboard on fire, just go read his twitter (jamesfranklinvu). He reminds me of early Bruce Pearl, just a Vandy man through and through and a capstone figure for not only a pretty darn good football team, but the school as a whole. This is of course a double edged sword, because it's going to take a really incredible offer to lure him from what some people are calling the Stanford of the South (traditionally academic focused school with surprisingly good athletics).

Mike Bobo is another name, and Kirby Smart but both seem to be biding their time as unofficial HCs in waiting (and Bobo is a UGA grad). The point, already well established by others in here, is that UT can find success by hiring a well respected and hungry coordinator (a la Muschamp at UF, Mullen at MSU, and Sumlin at A&M, only a few years removed from OC at Houston). Despite the grumors and grumbling, I trust that our athletic department understands the gravity of this hire and will act accordingly. I don't expect a Dooley 2.0 or even a Kiffin 2.0. If not Fisher or Gundy or Stoops, there are plenty of names I would wholeheartedly support hiring IMHO.

Sorry for the book, just hashing out my own thoughts on paper

 

[pcolavol]

Great post....I like guys like Doeren, Jones, Hazell .....winning coaches, not golden

 

[Red Forman]

Very good post. I was wondering about the history of coaching hires myself. Thanks for saving me the legwork!

 

[warrior]

Yep. I think people here just get a bit too paranoid when they realize what's at stake. They try too hard to discredit success.

And if we're going by the standards a lot of fans have here, roughly 9 of those 33 hires would have been approved by our fan base. Our standards are too high, and that is NOT a negative statement about our program.

Our standards should be as high as Alabama's if we want to compete with them. They are/were our rival.

 

[BurnieVeazey]

I like more chances to test the minimum 2 9 win seasons test.

HCs who pass the test:
Urban Meyer
Nick Saban
Brian Kelly
Rich Rodriguez
Jim Tressel
Mack Brown
Brady Hoke
Jim Donnan
Mike Price
Pete Carroll
Dennis Franchione

HC who did not have multiple 9 win seasons before becoming HC at their particular school:
Al Golden
Derek Dooley
Gene Chizik
Lane Kiffin
Bill Callahan
Tyrone Willingham
Tommy Tuberville
Gerry DiNardo

Now which group would you want to pick from if you wanted the highest chance of success? This eliminates Strong, Fedora, Franklin. Golden, et al. For the love, can we stop talking about those guys and concentrate on people that have won before? Prior success makes you 9 times more likely to win the BCS championship! If we want long term success, prior success is the most likely indicator of a good coach.

 

[warrior]

Yep. I think people here just get a bit too paranoid when they realize what's at stake. They try too hard to discredit success.

And if we're going by the standards a lot of fans have here, roughly 9 of those 33 hires would have been approved by our fan base. Our standards are too high, and that is NOT a negative statement about our program.

I van promise the fan base would have approved of those types when Dooley was hired. THEY EVEN ACCEPTED DOOLEY...for a while. Till it was clear he was inept and a jerk to in state recruits. Speaking of which. That story was broke by the same guys that broke the one on Gruden last night I believe.

 

[oregonvol]

Your "Up and Comers" list is sort of random. Was Carroll an up and comer? Not really. And we know Dooley, with his 4-8 final season in the WAC, doesn't fit any definition of the term.

Also, I would argue that Saban was a "Super Up and Comer" when LSU hired him. He took over a Michigan State program that went 0-11 the year before. He beat a top 10 ranked Michigan team in his first year. His first four years, he had them at or above .500, going to bowl games, and regularly upsetting top 25 teams. By his 5th year, he had built them into a top 10 ranked team that was stocked with future high NFL draft picks. That's an amazing job and most people around the country noticed it. He was heavily talked up by the national media when he took the LSU job and pretty much every commentator at the time agreed that was an excellent hire.

 

[UTRavens]

Your "Up and Comers" list is sort of random. Was Carroll an up and comer? Not really. And we know Dooley, with his 4-8 final season in the WAC, doesn't fit any definition of the term.

Also, I would argue that Saban was a "Super Up and Comer" when LSU hired him. He took over a Michigan State program that went 0-11 the year before. He beat a top 10 ranked Michigan team in his first year. His first four years, he had them at or above .500, going to bowl games, and regularly upsetting top 25 teams. By his 5th year, he had built them into a top 10 ranked team that was stocked with future high NFL draft picks. That's an amazing job and most people around the country noticed it. He was heavily talked up by the national media when he took the LSU job and pretty much every commentator at the time agreed that was an excellent hire.

I described in the OP that they're basically the coaches who would be "unwanted" by a good number of people here. It's hard to otherwise fit them all into any specific category.

Saban was not on that tier. .500 for four years, even if the program was in rough shape at the start, is going to leave you with plenty of doubters if you're doing it for that long.

 

[Panthro]

Interesting. Makes me want Greg Roman on the list even more, now.

 

[UTRavens]

Shamelessly bumping my own thread. 1% less stupidity on the front page is still progress.