College Football Coaching Carousel
I am not sure if there is a more captivating sport right now than college football. There is the on-field chaos: Who will be the four teams in the College Football Playoff? And then there is the coaching merry-go-round that has been at the epicenter of the sporting world for the past 48 hours. There has been a glut of coaching changes, but I want to focus on three of them in particular.
Chip Kelly to UCLA. He has always belonged in the college game. Yes, his shtick worked briefly in the NFL with the Eagles, but he never savored the same success in Philadelphia that he did in Eugene, Oregon. Now back in the Pac-12 where he is very familiar, I expect the Bruins to thrive with Kelly at the helm.
Dan Mullen to Florida. I love this hire for the Gators. Mullen was on Urban Meyer’s staff when the Gators won two National Championships so he is well aware of what it takes to excel in The Swamp. The 45-year old offensive wizard has been uber-successful at Mississippi State especially when you consider the lack of resources at his disposal and the stout competition that he faced. Assuming that he can recruit well in-state, I see no reason why Florida cannot return to its glory under Mullen’s tutelage.
Greg Schiano. The Ohio State Buckeyes Defensive Coordinator was hired by Tennessee on Sunday, and then he wasn’t in what might be one of the most bizarre sequence of events that I can remember. I think Schiano did a masterful job at Rutgers last decade, but I see him as more of an NFL coach than one at the collegiate level. With that being said, I find the way that Tennessee handled this situation to be reprehensible. There is zero proof that Schiano had any knowledge of the treacherous acts of a former Penn State coach. None. But because Volunteer fans were not satisfied with the hire of Schiano (they wanted Jon Gruden) they all took to social media to state their dismay under the pretense that they didn’t want someone associated with the Penn State debacle as the face of their program. In a matter of hours, Schiano went from hired to, in essence, fired. He lost out on an opportunity to not only become the coach of a prestigious program, but he also forfeited a contract that would have reportedly paid him in the neighborhood of $20 million. I feel bad for Greg Schiano. I really do.
