2013 College Football coaching carousel

While I don't agree that Embree's firing had anything to do with race, I do think there is some merit to the argument he and other have put forth that it's difficult for black coaches to get a second chance. Tyrone Willingham is pretty much the only black coach who's been hired at a second school after getting fired from a high-profile job.

Guys like Randy Shannon, and Sylvester Croom haven't gotten so much as a sniff since losing their first head-coaching jobs. Meanwhile, the David Cutcliffes and Ron Zooks of the world get second chances.

When Embree said a black coach who was 5-19 at his previous school (as Gene Chizik was) would have never gotten the Auburn job, he was absolutely correct.

 

In hindsight, Colorado should have pulled a Kansas State and hired McCartney in 2010 and had him groom his replacement (presumably Embree or Bieniemy) for 2-4 years down the road when they would likely inherit a much better team.

Embree was the lowest-paid BCS coach, which is pretty embarrassing at a school that was one of the nation's better programs (consistently in the top 25) up until about 10-11 years ago.

 

There's truth to that, although using Chizik as the example might not be the best plan. That guy never should have been allowed to interview for the Auburn job, much less get it...

Turner Gill is the head coach at Liberty, for what it's worth... Croom is old enough that I could see him being very content to go back to be a RB coach in the NFL where he is regarded as one of the better ones around...

 

Colorado was 2008 Washington State bad. They were non-competitive.

Considering some of the unsavory characters Mac had terrorizing Boulder when CU was a contender, the school needs to decide if they really want to commit. I think Mangino or Petrino would be perfect for this rebuild.

 

I didn't know much about Turner Gill except that he had a winning season at Buffalo and he is immortalized for not converting a 2-point conversion 30 years ago.

His stint at KU was odd. There was a sense that Mangino was too mean so they hire a player's coach, who presides over a defense now giving up 55 points a game. Back to fat hardass coach on Weis.

Kansas truly believed they were a player after 2007. Yet what they were was an 8-win team that avoided OU, Texas and Texas Tech, all while Snyder was in retirement.

They thought they would be a Top 20 team but just a flash in the pan.

 

Two bad examples there.

You could argue Zook was in a position to fail from Day 1 in Gainesville and deserved another chance. He did lose Grossman and a bunch of players off Spurrier's last team. I thought he was the wrong choice from the get-go, but whatever.

Cutcliffe should never have been fired at Ole Miss. He had one really bad season and, guess what? It's the season after the best quarterback in the country left. His firing (and hiring Eddie O) set that program back a decade.

 

And RichRod was a Dumpster fire waiting to happen in Ann Arbor. The way he handled the whole Alabama* thing and then the way he tried to welch out of his contract at West Virginia were, combined, one ginormous red flag.

 

Dooley at UT was in over his head from the get-go, and was hired from a small school after posting a losing record, so I'd argue he turned out exactly as he could have been expected.

Hawkins at CU is probably my biggest surprise -- he came with a great track record and came to a school with a history of winning!

 

What Hawkins did at CU was make Gary Barnett look like a freaking genius. Barnett has strict recruiting restrictions and wins the Big 12 North, Hawkins gets the recruiting restrictions lifted and runs the program into the shitter.

Zook was doomed to fail at Florida. I just remember LSU coming into Gainesville during Zook's first year there and just beating the shit out of them.

 

Hawkins brought the BS that sold the Boise State program to Boulder. The brain that made it successful stayed in Boise.

 

It's interesting that Hawkins and Barnett both haven't worked since leaving Colorado.

Embree will be a NFL assistant next season.

 

Naw, I think the vast majority of KU fans knew 2007 was the kind of season that only happens once in a generation, but 2005 and 2008 fit the definition of what a "good" season is to KU and why Mangino was a good fit if he could do that consistently.

KU did luck out not having OU on the schedule that year, but don't tell me the 2007 Kansas team wouldn't have been a fairly heavy favorite against 2007 Texas. The Horns weren't that good, but KU had a knack for not getting Texas on the schedule when it was beatable.