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

The next hire at Minnesota.

 

Well you know all about the murderous violent mobs at EMU football games. Sometimes there are literally dozens of frenzied fans in the stands.

 

It's hard-knock life in Ypsilanti, you know. All those disgruntled kids that couldn't get into U of M.

In the MAC Category, I nominate Mike DeBord. Hired almost solely because he was an assistant (offensive line coach) in A^2, the offense under Mike was run it into the line three times and cry for the most part.

 

IIRC, DeBord was actually the OC at U-M for several seasons. You are completely on point about his 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-turf-pellets offense.

Supposedly the grand scheme was that DeBord was going to go to CMU, earn his head-coaching stripes while turning the Chips into a MAC juggernaut, then return in glory to U-M when Lloyd Carr elected to hang 'em up.

Ooops.

 

By that criteria, Bill Curry at Alabama retires the trophy. Bobby Bowden came to a Birmingham hotel room ready to shake hands and become the new coach. Instead he walked in and found an interview panel. You can still see the skid marks pointing towards Tallahassee.

 

john thompson at east carolina?

 

Butch Davis at UNC

 

Al Groh at UVa.

 

A couple doozies:

Hal Mumme-New Mexico State
Mike Locksley-UNM

 

Dan Henning at BC was pretty damn bad, especially coming off Tom Coughlin.

Kragthorpe at Louisville.

Schnellenberger at Oklahoma.

Bobby Williams at Michigan State.

John L. Smith at Michigan State.

 

Keith Gilbertson and Ty Willingham at Washington

Paul Wulff at Washington State

Paul Hackett at USC

Rick Neuheisel at Colorado, Washington and probably UCLA.

Dave Kragthorpe at Oregon State.

Gerry Faust at Notre Dame.

Dennis Erickson at Idaho.

 

Walter Lewis (Bama's first black full-time starting quarterback) was on that panel. Rumor has it, his question to Bowden was "why haven't you had a black quarterback at Florida State?"

You can't really blame Bama for hiring Shula, who was about the only person they could get to take the job following the Price debacle. Jim Freakin' Leavitt turned them down, for god's sake.

So I guess you could add Mike Price at Alabama to the list.