Mailbag!

Hey Brian,

To what extent do you think Paul Johnson's success this year implementing his option offense at Georgia Tech was a product of his coaching ability? Do you think RichRod could have had the success that Johnson had at Georgia Tech? Or would Johnson have had a better season for Michigan this year than RichRod did? While I have full confidence that RichRod will bring us to the promised land one day, I just don't see how you could completely attribute our season this year on lack of talent/players not meant for the system, when Johnson faced similar issues at Georgia Tech.

Thanks for considering the question,
Harry

I can't properly answer these questions without doing an in-depth survey of Georgia Tech's recruiting and retention similar to the one I did for Michigan in the "what talent?" post, and I'm not inclined to do that. I know, however, that a large part of Johnson's success is this guy:

That's Josh Nesbitt, and that lustful howl you hear is Mike Leach pining loud enough for you to hear thousands of miles away. (hhhhhyarrrr!)

Nesbitt was a linebacker-sized four-star dual threat quarterback in the class of 2007—he was part of the same class Steven Threet was. And while his year wasn't unbelievable or anything, grab him off GT and insert him into Michigan's starting lineup and how many more games do they win? Especially if you replace the Big Ten with the ACC and Notre Dame with Gardner-Webb?

Eh… probably three or four, which still brings them up short of GT's 9-3 record and status as likely the best team in the ACC. Paul Johnson's done a tremendous job and was an excellent hire.

Rodriguez… eh, not so much. I'd like to clarify my position on Rodriguez's culpability for this year's struggles: it's not "he has none." It's "I don't have any idea how much he has." I think there's a reasonable case to be made that this was a 3-9 team given the roster composition and injury situation under just about anyone. I can understand people who think that's being too kind.

What I do think: we're here now, down at 3-9, and Rodriguez has proven he can pull programs out the fire before. I'm pretty confident he can do it again.

This showed up in the inbox titled "Why I drink":

( The reader noted that a hat tip should go out to This Is Indexed.)

This is not relevant but I have to get it off my chest, as they say:

Brian, doesn't it seem like Tennessee is making the same mistakes that Nebraska, Notre Dame and Syracuse made by hiring NFL coaches? Lane Kiffin, really Vols? How did it come to this guy down in Knoxville?

Absolutely. What on earth made Lane Kiffin a hot coaching candidate? Even if you don't hold his tenure with the Raiders against him, and you probably shouldn't, you're hiring a guy whose main accomplishment was not screwing up USC's offense the year after Norm Chow left. Once the Chow-taught guys exited, USC's offense sank considerably.

His main assets are a reputed ability to recruit (which would be great if he was your offensive coordinator) and his 68-year-old father showing up as a defensive coordinator. Which, okay. How long, exactly, is Monte Kiffin going to keep coaching? Minnesota just made the same hire, basically, by picking Brewster. And I guess that's fine if you're Minnesota, but Tennessee should be able to get someone more proven.

Also stupid: Clemson hiring a WR coach instead of going on a search. The only program out there who seemed to know what they were doing was Syracuse, which was pursuing Chip Kelly, and now Kelly is the coach-in-waiting at Oregon so they're SOL. I don't understand why someone hasn't thrown stupid money at Brian Kelly, even if he is a legendary jerk.

Update: Clay Travis, Tennessee fan guy, is also kind of leery.