College Football
Mercifully the Iowa Hawkeye football season has ended and I’m fairly certain we can all agree that 4-8 sucks. I’ve covered the Kirk Ferentz thing as much as I care to at this point and since it doesn’t look like there is any sort of movement regarding the staff I’d like to talk about the silly season, it’s coaching carousel time in college football. There are already quite a few big time jobs open, some medium sized jobs and other smaller jobs which I probably won’t talk about. Here are some thoughts.
Auburn: Fired Gene Chizik two years after he won a national championship, couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy. I’ve never been a Chizik fan, mostly because I think he’s arrogant and yes partly because he was ISU’s coach, but I also believe he cheated to win the national championship. I have no proof and who knows if the NCAA will ever find any reason to strip Auburn of that national title but if they ever do it will surprise me as much as the day the NCAA strips Kentucky of their basketball championship under John Calipari. Talk about “what have you done for me lately”, granted Chizik did just lead Auburn to the worst record ever two years removed from a national title and he went winless in the SEC but damn that’s a quick trigger.
Rumored replacements: Come on this is so obvious who should get this job. Bobby Petrino. Auburn once tried to replace Tommy Tuberville with Petrino when he was at Louisville and this is a match made in heaven. A guy who once left the Atlanta Falcons before completing his first year to the school that fired a national championship coach two years later, what could possibly go wrong? This has to happen these two deserve each other.
Tennessee: Fired Derek Dooley after three seasons after he replaced the one-and-done Lane Kiffin. How bad has this job gotten that the obvious front runner David Cutcliffe chose to stay at Duke instead? The good old days of Phillip Fulmer seem like a distant memory and that was only four years ago.
Rumored replacements: They are lucky this is an SEC job and there are only 14 of those out there. The usual suspects as far as SEC replacement coaches are Alabama defensive coordinator Kirby Smart, Louisville head coach Charlie Strong and Arkansas St. head coach Gus Malzahn and these three should just get together and decide who gets which job. My favorite rumor for Tennessee is Jon Gruden, I will be absolutely stunned if Gruden takes a college job. Maybe it would be a good thing because his intense style might play better to guys that only have to put up with it for 4-5 years and then they are gone. My question is does Gruden really want to put up with boosters? Um…hell no. Recruiting? No way. And this isn’t Tennessee 10 years ago you actually have to recruit and convince kids to come there now.
Arkansas: Fired Bobby Petrino in the spring for his “spring fling” and hired John L. Smith who proceeded to take a preseason top 5 team and go 4-8. Turns out that 10 month contract they gave Smith was two months longer than necessary. Time to right the ship.
Rumored replacements: Gus Malzahn should be the first call and Charlie Strong should be the second or vice versa. These two are options 1 and 1A first guy to say yes can have the job. Gus Malzahn is a high school coaching legend in the state and won a national championship at Auburn as the offensive coordinator for Cam Newton. He brings instant credibility in the state and stability because he would not be looking to go anywhere else. Charlie Strong is from the state of Arkansas and has proven to be a fantastic coach not just as head coach at Louisville but also as a defensive coordinator at Florida. The fallback option should these two turn it down should be UAB head coach Garrick McGee.
Kentucky: Wait I said I wasn’t going to talk about the smaller jobs. Next.
Purdue: This is sort of a medium job. They fired Danny Hope after he went 6-6 this year. I never understood why they hired him in the first place. Was it because he looked like a thinner version of Joe Tiller? I think it was the mustache. Here’s the thing, they hired Hope before Tiller left and made him the “coach-in-waiting” until Tiller retired, has this ever worked? In the history of coaching has this ever panned out? Is Jimbo Fisher at Florida St the best success story (the only success story) and they had to force Bowden out to get Fisher into the job so they didn’t lose him if I recall correctly.
Rumored replacements: The most likely legitimate candidate is Northern Illinois’s Dave Doeren. He was the defensive coordinator at Wisconsin before taking the Northern Illinois job so he knows the Big Ten. The Boilermakers could do worse, oh yeah, they already have. The dark horse for this job should be Fresno St. head coach Tim DeRuyter, he deserves a better job. Also Michigan St. defensive coordinator Pat Narduzzi should get a look.
California: Fired Jeff Tedford after 11 seasons. Okay so he went 3-9, this guy built Cal football but everyone saw this coming. Another “what have you done for me lately” firing except he never won a national title. Tedford is the best coach Cal has ever had; seriously name another coach in Cal history. Some team is going to get very lucky hiring Tedford to take over their program.
Rumored replacements: Who wants this dead end job? How about a couple of guys with dead end jobs in smaller conferences, Tim DeRuyter from Fresno St. or Mike MacIntyre from San Jose St. Good luck gentlemen you have to compete with USC and a rejuvenated UCLA for the best California talent and your chief rival Stanford happens to be on a roll.
Colorado: They fired Jon Embree, best career move ever…for him. This job has turned into a black hole. Supposedly their first call was to Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun, do yourself a favor Coach Calhoun hang up.
North Carolina State: They fired Tom O’Brien and they apparently want James Franklin from Vanderbilt, NC State is not a step up from Vanderbilt at the moment. Hang tight Coach Franklin there will be a better opportunity for you than NC State.
Boston College: Fired Frank Spaziani, maybe they should rehire Tom O’Brien.
There are other open jobs but I don’t really know anything about or care to know about UTEP, Idaho or whichever directional Michigan school’s coaching searches. I do know that there are some good smaller conference head coaches like Gus Malzahn, Dave Doeren and Tim DeRuyter who deserve to move to major conference jobs. There are up-and-coming coordinators like Kirby Smart and Mark Stoops who will get interviews and possibly job offers and there are guys like Charlie Strong and James Franklin that coach in major conferences but deserve a shot at big time schools. I called this the silly season before because inevitably someone will make a move that is laughable. Last year it was Arizona St. hiring Todd Graham to his fourth or so “dream job”, this year I can only hope it is Auburn hiring Paul Rhoads to replace Gene Chizik just so I can watch the Auburn faithful lose their minds. It should be fun watching Colorado fumble around trying to get someone to take that job; I think Rick Neuheisel is available. I hope Kentucky realizes they are an SEC job in name only and I hope good coaches realize that NC State, Colorado and California are not the premier jobs their Athletic Directors are making them out to be. I love the ridiculous rumors, Gruden to any college job, Rex Ryan to Kentucky (yep I read that somewhere) Bob Stoops to Iowa (wait that’s more wishful thinking than rumor). The funny thing about ridiculous rumors is that once in a while Charlie Weis actually takes the Kansas job. Let the carousel spin.
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