pete thamel's nytimes tressel article: three marquee jobs?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/sports/ncaafootball/buckeyes-trials-w…
Ohio State, even with probation all but inevitable, will always sit alongside Florida and Texas as one of the country’s three marquee jobs.
Where does that list come from? What about Michigan, Notre Dame, Alabama, USC, etc.?
Edit: I changed the title to attempt to clear up some misunderstandings based on people's apparent inability to read and comprehend simple English sentences. Thamel very clearly states that there are 3 marquee jobs, which he identifies as OSU, Florida, and Texas. I made this thread to raise a question about what basis he has for that statement. I mentioned Michigan, along with multiple other schools, to provide some examples of what I thought he'd missed. If you can contribute to the discussion, please do. If you can't comprehend simple English sentences, please note that many others have already weighed in with the patently false claim that Thamel didn't purport to give an exhaustive list. Thanks.
You can't live in the past. (Exhibit A: Notre Dame.) Michigan has not done a whole lot the last five years. Historically, it has been a marquee position, but it doesn't stay that way forever.
Remember, USC was down for a decade (about 20 yrs ago,) OSU was down when Cooper was there, Florida was nothing in the 60's and 70's, FSU was worse.
Conversely, ND was good, once upon a time. So was the University of Chicago, if you go back far enough. So was MSU in the 50's. Things change.
We will know soon enough where Michigan stands.
It's a valid point, but OSU wasn't really down when Cooper was there. He fielded some really strong teams, but just couldn't beat Michigan.
While Cooper was coach, OSU won three conference co-championships, finished #2 in the country on two occasions (coming within 60 seconds of a NC in '96), and had five seasons of ten wins or more. His record in Columbus was 111-43-4, and while they weren't at the apex of college football during his tenure, it's a bit of a stretch to say that's being "down."
His biggest shortcoming was not being able to beat Michigan, and that's why he was fired.
well that is quite ironic that its here in new york, where the local radio god mike francesa has always said that the michigan job is the best job in the country. and try to understand how little exposure they have to the big ten, relative to the midwest. francesa's insight, in that regard, is very impressive. speaking of which... to this day i wonder what he had said, when he was speaking of the RR hire... i caught the tail-end of the show and could have swore he said that RR was a bad fit, but could never verify it.
There are about 15–20 marquee jobs in the country, depending on how you count. To suggest there are only three was obviously a mistake. On the other hand, his obvious purpose was to give examples, not to provide an exhaustive list. Michigan lately has been less prominent, and if he were going to give a few “for-instances,” it was not crazy to leave Michigan out.
What links these three, besides their marquee status, is that the Florida job was recently vacant, the OSU job is vacant now, and the Texas job is likely to open up in the next few years (Mack Brown is 61). None of the other marquee jobs is expected to be vacant in the near future, other than Penn State, where there is an internal heir apparent.
How all of you intuit what his "obvious purpose" was is beyond me. Writing one thing but meaning another is the kind of stuff that gets freshmen killed on papers, and there's no justification for assuming that professional writers are doing it. Once you've spent enough time writing, you start to choose every word with purpose.
Michigan's inbred coaching tree, terrible treatment of "outsiders," and Brandon's bumbling have taken Michigan off of the "marquee job" list. Everybody now knows that only people from inside the "tree" will be welcome at Michigan, and everyone else will be sabotaged from within.
The proof is in the pudding. The biggest names in coaching are being discussed as possible replacements for Tressel. The names being discussed for Michigan were not "A-list" names. Jim Harbaugh? About the same resume Tyrone Whittingham had coming out of Stanford. Les Miles? Puh-leeze.
It's no accident that Michigan hired a coach with a 47-51 record but a "Michigan coaching pedigree." David Brandon has devalued the Michigan job in the eyes of the rest of the coaching profession, and it is now a "b-list" job.
National Championships create "marquee jobs." One in fifty years isn't enough to get Michigan on the A-list. No matter how hard we pound on our chests. The biggest redeeming factor in all of this is that Brady Hoke and Greg Mattison know the clock is ticking. Maybe next time, Michigan will be back on that list.
When he says "one of the marquee jobs", I don't get the sense his list is meant to be exhaustive.
he didn't say what you say he said. he very clearly said that there were 3, as i've pointed out multiple times. what is with the total lack of basic reading comprehension among so many people on this thread?
I guess we're just not worthy of your posts. Next time tell us what to think right up front, so we won't annoy you with comments espousing the wrong opinion.