Who are the worst college football hires of the last 30 years?

That said, I think one could argue that eight SEC jobs are in the top 30.

 

I would put Tennessee above Auburn. I but no doubt, eight of the top 30.

 

Auburn, Tennessee and Arkansas are all really close. All great jobs.

 

Until USC went on probation, I would have argued that was the best job in the country. All of the resources and the recruiting base and while obviously while there is pressure to win, it's not the way it is at Florida, Notre Dame, Alabama or even Nebraska, Oklahoma or Texas. Hell, LSU and Auburn could be in that category as well.

 

Dennis Franchione at Texas A&M. Still have nightmares about his tenure...

 

They're probably still paying him.

 

Any hire in which a former coach at a big-time program is coming back in faint hopes of resurrecting his career is the worst kind of hire.

Fred Akers at Purdue. Ray Perkins at Arkansas State. Those tend not to end well for anybody.

 

Spurrier at South Carolina seems to be working out OK.

 

My field of knowledge is in the Mid-American Conference and the worst three of the last decade or so in the MAC are:

- Brian Knorr replacing Jim Grobe at Ohio
- Tom Amstutz replacing Gary Pinkel at Toledo
- Stan Parrish replacing Brady Hoke at Ball State

In all three instances there were obvious reasons not to hire any of the three. Knorr was a great guy but completely overwhelmed by a DI job. Amstutz was coasting off Pinkel's recruits and lacked ambition (I wouldn't hire a coach at a mid-major unless I believed he wanted to win quickly and move up) and Parrish was okay at Marshall when they were I-AA, but awful at K-State. He can sure coach up a quarterback, but he's just not a head coach, in my opinion.

 

He's not a disaster, but he's been mostly a .500-level coach. Not what South Carolina hoped for, I'm sure.

 

If South Carolina wants better than what it has right now, it's being extremely unrealistic.

 

Yep. You need to realize who you are.