OT: What are the 10 Worst College Football Coach Hiring Decisions of the 21st Century?
According Yahoo's Pat Forde's 100 minute Twitter session with 366 voters, the answers are:
10. Bill Callahan - Nebraska
9. Ron Turner - Florida International
8. Paul Pasqualoni - Connecticut
7. Greg Robinson - Syracuse
6. Mike Locksley - New Mexico
5. Ellis Johnson - Southern Mississippi
4. Derek Dooley - Tennessee
3. Lane Kiffin - USC
2. Steve Kragthorpe - Louisville
and finally...
1. Rich Rodriguez - Michigan
Entire article below. Your thoughts?
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ncaaf--forde-yard-dash--judging-lane-kiffi…
October 2nd, 2013 at 3:54 PM ^
He did not say one thing about Lloyd Carr's coaching milestones so how is he "so wrong"?
The guy was an absolute disgrace in his post-coaching career and losers who have nothing in their life but Michigan football deny it because the saintly Uncle Lloyd image makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside. It could not be a more obvious fallacy.
October 2nd, 2013 at 8:26 PM ^
The guy was an absolute disgrace in his post-coaching careerYeah, that whole business of raising millions of dollars for Mott Children's Hospital was downright shameful. Let's ignore all the stuff that we know he did for a fact and focus only on unconfirmed rumors.
October 1st, 2013 at 10:22 PM ^
I actually think we should wish ill will upon every player who wasn't good while at UM also. I just hate anyone who wasn't successful at Michigan. May they all fail after they leave Michigan
October 1st, 2013 at 11:00 PM ^
RichRod was a good guy (kept Denard out of the Illinois game when his job was on the line) but was lost without Jeff Casteel and was a poor fit for Michigan.
Lane Kiffin is a total douchebag and failed with top-notch talent.
October 2nd, 2013 at 12:34 AM ^
Tired of the RR is a good guy meme. Sorry but I can't forgive him for this :
"I want to know what we're doing defensively, and always have some input. But those guys spend a lot more time watching that film, studying that. They've got expertise. I can give them my two cents worth, and I hope it's worth more than that. Vince Lombardi could come, too, and [it's] not going to fix some of the problems we have on defense."
This exemplifies Rich Rod to me. He threw his players under the bus every chance he got in order to deflect criticism about his coaching.
October 2nd, 2013 at 5:14 AM ^
I agree with Rich Rod. The way Lloyd and his cronies were sabotoging recruiting for Rich was almost comical.
However, the way Rich ignored the defense was inexcuseable.
October 2nd, 2013 at 1:05 PM ^
If RR knew he was gonna to ignore the defense, it is downright criminal to hire GERG, Tony Gibson, and Adam Braithwaite to be his proxy.
October 2nd, 2013 at 8:29 PM ^
The thing I don't understand is why he apparently ignored the day-to-day workings of the defense, yet insisted that GERG run the 3-3-5 anyway. His thought processes on the defensive side of the ball just did not make sense.
October 1st, 2013 at 9:11 PM ^
easy call, RichRod set this program back 5-6 years. Bad, bad, bad hire. still feeling the effects. too big of a moment for him.
October 1st, 2013 at 10:46 PM ^
He got fired and a year later we won our first BCS bowl in over a decade. And his predecessor has won 77% of his games with mostly the guys he brought in (i.e. is doing better than the guy who was here from '95-'07).
I don't know how we have survived that massive roundhouse to the cock RichRod gave us.
October 1st, 2013 at 10:58 PM ^
We survived the slow descent into the football-program equivalent of crippling dementia precisely because RR gave us that roundhouse to the cock. And a badly-needed one it was too. Lloyd was a great guy but he was letting the program get so destructively comfortable in its ways that it was getting to be painful to watch. We were at the point where we could usually count on beating Illinois. Yippee. RR lost a lot of games but that was the price to pay to jolt the program out of the apathetic, pizza-snarfing, lazy-shuffling, moving-back-to-Mom's-basement days of the end of the Lloyd era.
I'll never be convinced the program was headed in the right direction in the 36 months or so before Lloyd retired. Rodriguez might not've been successful on the win-loss column but he gave the program a badly-needed swift kick in the ass.
October 1st, 2013 at 11:36 PM ^
October 2nd, 2013 at 12:20 AM ^
Great fricking post. Right on.
October 2nd, 2013 at 2:05 AM ^
So you are saying that to suck was a necessity and RR gave us the perfect level of shitiness...exactly what the program needed. Ha, this is ridiculous. Could have hired a shit coach for that. As for Lloyd, he was the old boys network/nepotism, entitled nature of the football program personified. The first half of his tenure was great, the second half not so much. Eternally grateful for the national championship, hard to forgive him for Appy State. In his last 7 or so years it's hard to find a coach that did less with more talent than Lloyd.
October 2nd, 2013 at 8:36 AM ^
No, I'm not saying that sucking was a necessity. I'm saying that getting rid of the attitude that we'll win because we're Michigan so we don't need to put in the effort - that was a necessity. The losing was not what brought us out of the doldrums. Rich Rod was what did that. Barwis did that. RR and his staff looked around and saw a lot of entitlement and not enough of an effort or buy-in - from the players to the facilities to the admin - to continue to be an elite-level program.
It's possible the losing did even help a little bit - you don't know what you've got til it's gone, etc. But that outsider perspective, coming from someone who knew how to win with less, was exactly what Michigan needed. RR brought in guys who wanted to be at Michigan, not Justin Borens who felt they deserved to be at Michigan. This quality happens to be what makes Hoke so good.
October 2nd, 2013 at 11:41 AM ^
This is a nice narrative but none of it came to fruition. He knew how to "win with less" but went 3-9 in his first year at Michigan. The reality is he is a great offensive mind who knew how to win in the Big East with one offensive system. All the nepotism and Michigan arrogance/entitled attitude you speak of from the Carr years is dead on. But your RR narrative holds no water because frankly...he failed as well. If you want to say he was a necessary part of a process of change that is fair, but this feel good story of him coming in and showing us "modern competitive football" allowing us to find Hoke is a fantasy.
October 2nd, 2013 at 7:33 AM ^
and I'm glad we're past the painful part, and thankful it was only a few years.
That swift kick (and the Hoke hire) has definitely reinvigorated the program and the fan base.
October 2nd, 2013 at 9:17 AM ^
True. I found myself caring a lot more about UM football after App State and Oregon embarrassed us back-to-back how we hadn't been embarrassed in my lifetime. I cared even more when RR arrived with the dream that he'd modernize us and help us to unto others as Dennis Dixon and Oregon had done unto us. Alas it wasn't to be, but I agree - no pain no gain. We're gaining now (assuming Coach Funk kindly removes his head from his ass and manages a way to find competence out of young linemen).
October 2nd, 2013 at 8:41 PM ^
I'll never be convinced the program was headed in the right direction in the 36 months or so before Lloyd retired.
Hang on a minute. Only 12 months before Carr retired, we won 11 games and were three points away from a spot in the national title game. Even in the "horrible" 2007 season, we still won nine games in spite of injuries to Henne and Hart and beat the Heisman Trophy winner in the bowl. There is a lot of revisionism going on here. Yeah, there was one awful game but that's all it was - one game. (And really, it's not like App State was the worst team to ever beat Michigan - they were 2-time defending FCS champs, probably better than a lot of FBS teams.)
October 2nd, 2013 at 10:38 PM ^
October 2nd, 2013 at 12:43 AM ^
Wow, you give Rich Rod the credit for Hoke's 77% win percentage, while simulatiounsly taking a shot at Lloyd Carr for winning slightly less than that from 95-07. Nice job ass clown. It's too bad that Rich Rod's "guys" were only good for a 40% win percentage while he was here.
October 2nd, 2013 at 9:18 AM ^
This should be the ass clown thread. Everyone is using that odd term in their post.
October 2nd, 2013 at 4:22 PM ^
Yep. Next time I'll use Penis Juggler or Ballsack Mime to mix it up.
October 1st, 2013 at 10:59 PM ^
and doesn't count here. The "hiring decision" was a great one at the time. The outcome was poor. Richrod would be #1 in bad fits or flops or failures-vs-expectations but if you go back to 2007, everyone thought that RR was an excellent hire or a great "hiring decision"
October 1st, 2013 at 9:15 PM ^
Or what about Mike Price and his brief stint at Alabama?
October 1st, 2013 at 10:01 PM ^
George O'Leary was just more of an egg on the face of the athletic director and the man really.
October 1st, 2013 at 9:15 PM ^
Can't say I disagree wiht most of those, but I think Notre Dame hiring Bob Davie is underrated as a bad hire.
October 1st, 2013 at 9:34 PM ^
There's also Gerry Faust.
October 1st, 2013 at 9:40 PM ^
Not having Gerry Faust's hire at ND undermines the quality of the OP list. That was without a doubt one of the worst hires of all time.
October 1st, 2013 at 9:45 PM ^
Gerry Faust was not hired (at ND) during the 21st century.
That said, he was a terrible hire. A nice, caring guy. But a terrible hire.
October 1st, 2013 at 9:16 PM ^
I will say, the UM fanbase loves nothing more than bitch about bad things that happened to them years ago. If there is a more self-hating group of fans who just so happen to root for the winningest f'ing program in CFB history, I'd love to meet them.
October 2nd, 2013 at 7:34 AM ^
We were screwed. Not over it.
October 1st, 2013 at 9:19 PM ^
October 1st, 2013 at 9:20 PM ^
The only thing about Rich Rodriguez that was a bad fit at Michigan was that he didn't win.
If he hadn't left his DC back in the holler in West Va, and had managed to field a defense, we'd be enjoying his folksy ways and talking about what a great coach he is.
Sometimes things don't work out as planned, and people fall on their rear ends. But that doesn't make it the worst coaching hire of the 21st Century.
Ridiculous article.
October 2nd, 2013 at 12:08 AM ^
October 2nd, 2013 at 12:22 AM ^
Not just lacking in defense. His special teams were brutal, too.
October 2nd, 2013 at 1:37 AM ^
October 2nd, 2013 at 10:22 AM ^
Saved us from stuff like this-
At least we run smart fakes now, and know what our players are doing. And don't throw them under the bus when they don't work.
October 2nd, 2013 at 10:19 AM ^
And every bad coaching hire ever, was that they didn't win?
October 1st, 2013 at 9:22 PM ^
This is a thread about a Pat Forde's twitter poll from 366 of his voters. I mean, whatever man
October 1st, 2013 at 9:24 PM ^
October 1st, 2013 at 10:09 PM ^
October 1st, 2013 at 10:13 PM ^
the article states:
Lane Kiffin (3) at both Tennessee and USC.
October 1st, 2013 at 9:25 PM ^
Not only was that a dumb hire in hindsight, it was an abysmally stupid hire in foresight, which should vault it right onto the list.
And there should be a separate list for Gerry Faust and Muddy Waters.
October 1st, 2013 at 9:26 PM ^
Illinois can't afford to be choosy but hiring Ron Zook was always a bizarre move, I thought. He couldn't win at Florida with all the players Steve Spurrier left behind. What made Illinois think he was going to do great things in Champaign?
Not that I didn't love watching him win in Columbus in 2007, but otherwise, nothing to brag about.
October 1st, 2013 at 11:01 PM ^
maybe they hoped he could recruit well enough and coach decently enough to be a moderate success in the big ten?
October 1st, 2013 at 9:27 PM ^
to come back to after a pleasant run and evening in general.
October 2nd, 2013 at 7:53 AM ^
...We're really exploring new, insightful territory with regards to this topic. It's going nothing like the other 87 threads we've had about this in the past....
October 1st, 2013 at 9:27 PM ^
Where is "Charlie Weis - Notre Dame?".
I'd expect it to be in the bottom five on that list.
October 1st, 2013 at 10:34 PM ^