College Coaching Carousel: Day 2
Yesterday, I talked about the firings of Todd Graham, Bret Bielema, and Mike Riley. The last 24 hours since I posted, we've seen a few other moves happening: Kevin Sumlin fired (not surprisingly) at Texas A&M. Dan Mullen hired at Florida. Tennessee hiring, and then going back on its decision to hire Greg Schiano. Currently, the biggest rumor is Jeremy Pruitt to Mississippi State. And rumors are heating up about Jimbo Fisher finding a new home in College Station as the new Texas A&M head coach. This has been probably the craziest I've ever seen the coaching hires.
Welcome to College Football Today. If you cannot get it together in a matter of a couple of years, you are in major trouble. Ask Mike Riley and Charlie Strong about that.
So let's look at the DONE DEAL moves. So no Jimbo Fisher/Jeremy Pruitt comments until anything is official.
KEVIN SUMLIN FIRED AT TEXAS A&M: Writing was on the wall since the UCLA game when the Aggies blew that monstrous lead. But really you have to figure after Sumlin's 2nd year at College Station he remained under the gun. The quick strike, no huddle spread that knocked Alabama off their feet in 2012 was quickly figured out and in 2 years the Tide dismantled the Aggies 59-0. Players transferred out of College Station and it seemed like boosters just lost all faith. Every year it seemed, Texas A&M would start 5-0 only to lose to Alabama and then fall apart. This year was no different, though after the UCLA implosion the Aggies did put up a fight until, yes, the Alabama game. Doesn't help either when you went 1-11 against Alabama and LSU in that time (losing the last 10 on them) and your only claim to greatness was taking all 6 meetings with your new "rival" Arkansas. It just seemed the minute something went awry at Texas A&M the Aggies crumbled every time. And that DOES fall on the coach. He will get another job somewhere, quite possibly a spot in another Power 5 school (say maybe one of the ACC places say if Dave Clawson leaves Wake Forest). Or he may head to Memphis if Norvell lands a nice gig.
DAN MULLEN HIRED AT FLORIDA: Looking back, it may not have been surprising like I originally thought. The Gators wanted the home run hire of Chip Kelly and was turned down. Then they wanted a triple hire of Scott Frost and was probably turned down for the idea of going home to Nebraska. So this is a "double" for the Gators in Mullen. I've made my opinions heard on Mullen. Is he a terrible coach? Not by any means. But is he a national championship caliber coach? No. Mullen had one amazing year at Mississippi State in 2014 and while they haven't been a bottom feeding team the last few years with the Bulldogs, they haven't been wowing many, save for a couple of wins vs. LSU. He has yet to win those big games and went 0-9 vs. Alabama. The good news is, he won't see Alabama anywhere near as much, but will have to contend with Georgia, who seems to be firing on all cylinders now. And if he has problems with the Bulldogs like he had with the Tide, Florida fans will not be anywhere near as forgiving as the Mississippi State fans were. Had he kept on losing to Ole Miss yearly, he probably would have left Starkville earlier as well. The other thing is he is not a great in-game decision maker. That has to be something of great concern if you are in Gainesville.
GREG SCHIANO HIRED THEN UN-HIRED AT TENNESSEE: Regardless of how you look at it, everybody was on an extreme side of the Schiano hire. There was no middle ground in this. You are either for the hire (most college "experts" loved the hire) or against the hire (the fans, both Tennessee and around the nation). Of course it involves the fact of Schiano's possible involvement in the Jerry Sandusky case. But the question was, how much did he know? The one thing I will say is that today, if you are caught up in a scandal of anything related to that, or what we see with Hollywood and the Feinstein scandal or the scandals of Roy Moore/Al Franken, then you're pretty much doomed. That's how it is. For me, that is concerning and I'd stay away from that. And while people are ripping the Volunteer fan base for their actions in the last 24 hours, I do applaud the fact that Tennessee would rather prefer to be more of a "hey, we may stink but we don't want a guy who may have taken part hiding up a major scandal" program. For me, I look at it at a different extreme: Schiano isn't very good as a head coach. Everybody keeps praising Schiano for his job at Rutgers. He had one great year when the Big East was voided of Miami and Virginia Tech. He was awful in his first four years. And then when those schools left, the Big East was a shell of itself. And even then he wasn't too hot with what he was doing. He wasn't a major upgrade over Butch save for probably not acting like a clown on the sidelines. So the hire of Schiano was a disaster in that case and probably keeps Tennessee near the bottom of the SEC East. It was probably a bullet dodged for the Vols.
-Fan in the Obstructed Seat
