2013 College Football coaching carousel

Shanahan is president or executive VP of football ops, forget which.

 

And Cowher never had full control in Pittsburgh. He did win the power struggle with Tom Donahoe, though.

 

I was down in the Bay Area the last couple of days and was surprised about the names I saw attached to the Cal job. Hue Jackson, Mike McIntyre, Gary Anderson, Justin Wilcox, Greg Roman...
Those are the kind of names I'd expect to see if this was Cal 10 years ago. But the conference and the Cal program has changed and coaches know that outside of four jobs in the Big 12 and Big 10, or Florida State, you either want to be in the SEC or the Pac 12.
They should be able to get a current successful coach from a BCS conference or at least a coach in the top 25. People were surprised about Leach and RichRod (and they were out of work) - figure the conference will only have one opening this year and with the on-going realignment, it's only going to get tougher to compete outside of the power conferences.
Cal isn't a top-tier job, but it is top-half among the Big 12, Big 10 and SEC.

 

I would love to hear why Hue Jackson's credentials are worse than Lane Kiffin's.

 

His dad isn't/wasn't a respected defensive coordinator?

 

Here is what is often overlooked about Lane Kiffin... The guy is a recruiting machine. If memory serves, he even did pretty well during his one year in Tennessee...

Kiffin was also run off by Al Davis, which (at least at the time) made him look a bit more sympathetic than getting fired by Reggie McKenzie.

I don't know a ton about Hue Jackson, but when I was covering the NFL, when you talked to GMs about which assistants would be the next good head coaches, his name was always mentioned... It's hard to gauge anything about most coaches based on a year in Oakland. Hell, it seems like the only coach in the last 20 years who can clearly say his tenure in Oakland was a success is Gruden.

 

Hue Jackson was 8-8 with the Raiders. Lane Kiffin was 5-15 with the Raiders.

And that recruiting from Kiffin, which was dirty as all hell and still brings up the occasional minor infraction for the Volunteers, sure looks overrated now.

 

The funny thing about Hue Jackson, if he wasn't the Raiders coach when McKenzie took over he might have been McKenzie's first call.
I think McKenzie figured he needed a clean sweep if he was going to reboot the franchise.

And yet, I have to think there is something about Jackson that has kept him from climbing higher. He'll get promoted to an OC position, the head coach will be fired and he'll go back to coaching running backs or qbs his next year somewhere else. You figure if he was a highly thought-of OC, he wouldn't be coaching secondary in Cincinnati this year.

 

Maybe. Some of it has to do with timing... Ron Rivera went from being one of the hotshot assistants interviewing for every HC opening out there to the LB coach in San Diego almost overnight. If he had been fired/not renewed a few weeks earlier, he almost certainly would have gotten a DC job somewhere.

It's not uncommon at all for a coach, after being fired as a HC, to linger on a staff as a generic assistant or position coach for a year or so before a coordinator job opens. Sometimes that comes with a "special assistant" or "assistant HC" tag. Mike Sherman did that in Houston. Marty Mornhinweg did that in Philly, Singletary is doing that in Minnesota. There are definitely others...

 

No surprise, but John L. Smith officially out at Arkansas:

http://www.arkansasrazorbacks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=6100&ATCLID=205763060

 

I read somewhere when he took the job that part of why he took it was because he wanted to coach defense for the first time. That indicates he may be pursuing head coaching jobs and saw this as a good stepping stone.

 

McIntyre and Anderson would both be good choices for Cal. Not sexy names but they're very good coaches.