2013 College Football coaching carousel

Well, if you win the SEC, you're at least going to be playing for the national title in most years.

 

And if you read various comments pages, the fans aren't crying about him leaving...

 

Beilema always looked like a big meathead dumbass with his clock management, and looked even worse this year when Chryst left and took some quality assistants with him.

 

There's at least this fanboi who is sad to see him go. The program has never been in as good of a position as it is right now.

 

Jim Leavitt turned Alabama down in the search where they wound up with Mike Price, after Franchione left for Texas A&M in late 2002. The USF president, forget her name, infamously declared "eat your heart out, Alabama!" to open the press conference where they announced Leavitt's extension. Alabama then beat USF by three touchdowns in Mike Shula's debut in 2003 (after Price had been fired before coaching a game).

And I don't think you can say any search where they wound up with Saban was "botched," but it was definitely strange. Steve Spurrier and Rich Rodriguez were both reported by reputable news outlets as having accepted the job (no one remembers that about Spurrier now). There were a lot of Alabama fans who got so frustrated that they wanted Gene Stallings to come back or for Joe Kines to be named interim coach for a year until some better candidates became available. Rodriguez definitely took it and backed out, regardless of what he or anyone else says now.

I remember we (Alabama beat writers at the time) all thought RichRod was coming and had all written it, and we were all hanging around the athletic department waiting for a press conference to be called. The SID took several of us to lunch at Pizza Hut and we were all sitting around laughing how we'd "dodged a bullet" that Rodriguez was going to be the guy and not World Class Jerk Nick Saban.

Then we went back to the office, and about 15 minutes later, the SID came out with a statement from Mal Moore saying Rodriguez had turned the job down. Someone at the Charleston paper had broken that he was staying while we were eating pizza.

 

Is Arkansas a better job than Wisconsin?

How do you define better?

Arkansas has more money. It has better facilities. It plays in a better conference.

Wisconsin has better job security. Better fans. Better game-day atmosphere. It's easier to win there.

What separates the two jobs? $$$$$$$

 

One of the marks of building a quality program is that it becomes bigger than any one person. You get good assistants, good facilities, good administrators and the program continues to thrive even after one coach leaves.

That said, college football has changed a lot in my lifetime. No longer are we likely to see the lengthy runs of successful coaches (Royal, DeVaney, Osborne, Switzer, McKay, Bryant, Dooley, Hayes, Paterno, etc.) at one school. On one hand the gap between the haves and have nots is still pretty wide. But the group of "haves" is larger and it seems to rotate. Right now, Alabama, Oregon and Ohio State are on top in their respective conferences. Check back in five years and I suspect you may find a different color of robe sitting on the throne. Sort of like musical chairs.

So I guess the keys are (1) to maximize your time at the top in terms not of length but what you accomplish and (2) when you fall off, not to fall too terribly far as to make the climb back up too steep for the next guy.

 

Bielema is a good coach, but he's replaceable. He's not Steve Spurrier or Nick Saban or Les Miles or Urban Meyer... I would not be surprised for a second if Wisconsin is better next year than they were this year.

Has Childress' name been mentioned? He's a dickhead, but I could see him doing well there... I doubt it would happen.

Bevell would make a lot of sense. Good ties to the school. Has done well in the NFL. Brett Favre loves him, Russell Wilson loves him...

 

I think that's a choice for each individual as to what makes a job good. I left a larger paper for a smaller one some years back simply because I wanted to live in a certain place. Money was equal. Few people understood at the time and it sort of blew up in my face when the new place changed management after I had been there less than a year.

But it was a place I had on my radar for several years and when the job opened, I went for it.

 

If you go outside the current staff Bevell would seem to make a lot of sense. On the surface.

 

What are the best coaching jobs outside of the SEC?

1. Ohio State
2. Notre Dame
3. Oregon
4. Texas
5. Oklahoma
6. Nebraska
7. USC
8. Florida State
9. Michigan
10. Wisconsin

I'm sure I'm forgetting someone... I think Stanford is a really great job, but the program hasn't been good for long enough to make the top 10. Obviously, Penn State would have been there until a year or two ago...