Todd Graham Fired
- Thread starter Babe the Blue Ox
- Start date
There’s a certain Gilligan’s Island feel to this, or perhaps a Dante’s Inferno quality . . .
You think Graham's situation is a dumpster fire of hellish proportions...go follow the timeline of what is going on at Tennessee right now. I'll be shocked if they don't have to hire an entire new athletic department after this fiasco.
Graham was unable to deliver on his promises.. no sympathy here...
Tennessee unfortunately expects every coach to be able to outrecruit and outcoach Saban...
Wouldn’t be surprised if they make a run at Stoops.
I don't know what Graham promised at ASU, but expectations there, and in a lot of places, are really unreasonable. right now, there are maybe 5 programs in the entire country that can reasonably expect to be in the national championship picture every year...Florida State, Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State, and Oklahoma. Everyone else hopes to be there but there's too much instability around those programs because of donors and unreasonable expectations (Texas, Auburn, Georgia, LSU are prime examples of this). Texas A&M and Tennessee are prime examples of places that expect way too much and who have fired very successful head coaches (RC Slocum, Phil Fulmer) because they lost one particular game every year. ASU went 7-5 this year, beat a highly ranked Washington, and beat arch-rival Arizona...and that still isn't good enough for a head coach to keep his job?
Tennessee had all but hired Greg Schiano...a guy by all accounts is a really good football coach, a good college football guy, who has produced a good number of NFL caliber defensive players (McCourty twins to name a couple) and a couple of donors/fans gripe to the AD and all of a sudden he's not the guy? Who is Tennessee going to get that is better? Especially now that they treated Schiano, a guy who is generally liked by most in the profession, like crap? Same at A&M? Who wants to go to a place that fires Kevin Sumlin after a 7-5 year. A lot of those losses were 1 possession game and only one (LSU) was an embarrassment. Hey A&M, you're not going to beat LSU, Auburn, and Alabama every year. The SEC West could arguably be the toughest conference in college football.
If I were A&M recruits, I'd say see you later and look to a place where the coaching situation is a little more stable.
Who’s gonna take thes jobs?
I don’t know names but don’t kid yourself on the size of the coaching ego. There are only 127 FBS jobs. Only around 60 of them in P5 conferences. And as you say only a few that can win it all. The coaches will be lined up for those jobs.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Florida makes a run at Gundy or Stoops. I think Patterson is in play. Iowa States Coach... even some NFL coaches.. les miles...
Edit .. didn’t realize that Florida had hired Mullen when I wrote this.
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They need new fans, too. Truly one of the most deprived things that has ever happened in coaching and fan reactions. People will believe anything. I wonder if we are entering a “fake news” world in everything.
If A&M lands Jimbo Fisher, wish is very likely, you may need to replace FSU and A&M in you list.
Mullen is a good hire for Florida. Nebraska is obviously going after Frost, but it sounds like their AD is actually going to chill a bit and let UCF play out their AAC Championship game and I also wouldn't be surprised if Frost coaches the NY6 bowl game should they win.
I haven't heard Gundy's name floating around. Is he in play for any jobs? Is that because nobody wants him or he's made clear he's not moving?
Pat Jones says he was in play at Florida and turned them down. Pat Jones says a lot of things.
Pat Jones floated around the notion that Florida had contacted Gundy. He mentioned it to some reporters on Saturday and then Lauren Rew (The Franchise) mentioned Jones told her about it was well. Gundy can make more money at other places. There are few places where he can be "home", have facilities as good as anywhere else in the country, and have as much support as he does. The only thing he has to deal with (which every coach at a top program has to deal with) is Daddy Warbucks trying to tell him how he should coach.
But this was their year and they lost three games. I don’t think OSU will ever do better than him because no one will want to stay there if they win. But I think he could do better somewhere else. Good on him to stay, but they may have hit their ceiling.
Gundy has the same problem 95% of the coaches in the country have including Lincoln Riley and Urban Meyer, in that they coach 18-22 year olds who, despite how hard and well you coach them, don’t play to their talent level every single week. They look past lower teams and get caught every now and then. And sometimes they flat out get out-coached by a savvy old guy with inferior talent. Riley and Meyer limit taking losses in these situations because they simply have better players than 98% of the other FBS teams. OSU has good talent but not the best talent meaning they can’t make any mistakes when they play OU or teams like that.
I think he's working on the premise that Boone Pickens won't be around forever. He's weathered the storm this long and as much as I hate to say it has done a great job in Stillwater.
If I got fired and was told I’ll be paid $12.5 million. I think I’d do a happy dance right then and there.
Jimmy Johnson has repeatedly said that OSU will never be an elite program no matter how much money they spend. The location and recruits' perception of the fan base will always deter the elite players from going there until they are allowed to pay unlimited amounts of money. Without elite players, especially on the defensive side of the ball, they will be tied to 10-3. JJ is a tool, but I don't think that is a reason to not agree with him on this point.
Their ceiling would have been the conference championship, Fiesta Bowl win and finishing #3 in the country in 2011.
Prediction: OSU will be looking for a new head football coach come this evening.
If I was in that line of work and saw that Todd Graham just got $14 million guaranteed in jackass money, I'd be on the first plane out of Stillwater.
And by jackass money, I mean that word out of Tempe is that all of the staff will be retained and no candidates who wish to change staff will be entertained.
So basically they are happy with everything he did, they are just paying him $14 million to call him a name I shouldnt type here and tell him to pack up his things. You gotta love mega boosters.
So basically they are happy with everything he did, they are just paying him $14 million to call him a name I shouldnt type here and tell him to pack up his things. You gotta love mega boosters.
Billy Ray Cyrus would be a good fit for Gundy at Tenn as OC.
Tennessee is seriously smoking something funny these days. Wonder if Walter White moved to Knoxville?
Tennessee football is like buying a new car because you want something shiny even though your previous car was working just fine. You end up with a lemon...so you buy another one for more...which is also a lemon...so you buy another one for even more...and it turns out to be a lemon so you now you're going to upgrade from the Volkswagen to the Audi although Knoxville is really made for the still working SUV you had to start all this on. Keep on throwing $ at a problem instead of facing the reality that maybe you just needed to fine tune the original.
This ends in a disaster for Tennessee.
I heard Gundy is mulletting over the offer, taking in consideration that he might be able to save some money by wearing some of his orange OSU shirts at Tennessee with a simple UT emblem slap on.
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If that’s true, he would be stupid to turn down...
Three years of 4 loss seasons and he will have $25 million in the bank plus a buyout... that’s a lot of squirrel.
