**But USC SHOULD have gone after the coaches at Boise State, TCU, Utah, or BYU. Instead they are trying to get the band back together with a new frontman who's a younger clone of their first. That didn't work for Creed/Alter Bridge.
**Tennessee is going to have to get over it. This was predictable. If they didn't have an overblown sense of entitlement, there wouldn't have been any dumbass riots. They will probably have to hire David Cutliffe back from Duke or find a coordinator or coach at a much, much smaller school since none of the top coaches would be dumb enough to want to walk into that situation **
**End of Summary**
(continued from Part 1)
Lane Kiffin is not the bad guy here...
...Well, unless you live in the state of Tennessee. They almost had a riot last night and they had Kiffin trapped in his office until the cops escorted him out around midnight. There are probably some death threats or assassination plans being made. Does the PAC10 play the SEC in any big bowl games? *Checking the internets* Apparently not. So, the only way for USC to play Tennessee is in the National Title game or perhaps the Sugar Bowl if USC were to come in 2nd in the PAC 10 and be BCS eligible that year.
The bad guy here would be the vague concept known as "The Game". As in, Don't Hate The Player, Hate The Game.
Do you remember what I said about FSU being a better coaching destination than Tennessee earlier? So is USC. Better weather. IN a Top 3 recruiting SOURCE state. An "easier" conference situation (I don't know how the hell Alabama and Florida keep getting to the SEC title game unscathed. Its pretty unbelievable when you think about the amount of coaching and player talent in the SEC.) The 2nd largest city in the country. I mean, did you see the people from Tennessee on tonight's American Idol? Lovely people. But umm... not really a cosmopolitan demographic. Lane went to college at Fresno State. And he was on the USC staff during the height of their recent/current? dynasty.
Let me just ask everyone who is upset at Lane Kiffin ONE simple question...
If you were Lane Kiffin, would you pass up the chance to go to USC as head coach to stay in the SEC?
Or, if I say it the way I'd say it if I wasn't being politically correct blogger guy "How many of you mf'ers are going to sit there and pretend you wouldn't have done the exact same shit? Be for real."
Did Lane "break" promises he made to people at Tennessee? Yeah of course he did. Guess what? That's the way the college football coaching game is set up. There is a hierarchy of jobs and USC is at the top of the pyramid. Tennessee isn't far down.. perhaps even in the 2nd group depending on how wide your pyramid is. No worse than level 3. (Personal learning Sidenote - Kimberly told me that she heard that out of 100,000 people in Kansas City 6,100 have "The Clap". I told her that sounded way worse than if they had said it the way people normally would = 6.1%. 6100 sounds much more impressive than 6.1%, even if you're told the sample size since no one wants to do the math.) Said another way, there are 119 Division 1-A/FBS/top level of college football coaching jobs available based on access to recruits, media impressions, facilities, alumni expectations (realistic) and support. USC is NO LOWER than #3 or 5 on that list no matter who makes it. Its not possible.
Hey, why don't we briefly talk about the best jobs in college football. Stewart Mandel, SI's top college football writer, tackled the subject in his highly enjoyable book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls". The top 3 on this list of MINE could be interchangeable given that they are the top jobs in the 3 top recruiting states (Texas, California, Florida), but I made choices. Louisiana has MEGA talent in the state but their expectations at LSU are ridiculously high and there's too much pressure on the coach (2 national titles recently just made it worse).
1. Texas
2. Florida
3. USC
4. Miami
5. LSU
6. Oklahoma
7. Oregon
8. Michigan
9. Ohio State
10. Florida State
11. Arizona State
12. Miami
13. UCLA
14. Georgia Tech
15. Georgia
16. Nebraska
17. Illinois
18. Arizona
19. Penn State
20. Alabama
Notre Dame would probably come in at...#25 on my list. Or hell, maybe #40. They have a LOT of money to throw around but since you can't really pay players and they enforce academic standards on recruiting, I doubt they'll ever be who they want to be. In fact, if they join a conference they'll lose their uniqueness and won't even be in the conversation annually. The best thing going for Notre Dame football is their journalism program and history. The media is full of Notre Dame grads so anything they do well gets boosted higher than other programs. The old days there are gone, however. They'd have to convince all the smart kids who can play college football to come there, and that's not happening. Some of those smart kids will still go to football factory SEC programs to "win" and some will realize the NFL dreams are too slim and dangerous to pursue when they can be surgeons and make millions anyway and go to the Ivy League. There are also similar schools (high academic standards, decent football programs) like Cal (also known as The University of California at BERKELEY), Stanford, nearby Northwestern, Michigan, Virginia, Vanderbilt, UCLA, North Carolina and even Duke. Moving on...
Where would Tennessee come in on this list? Somewhere between 21 and 30. The SEC is tough as hell, especially the SEC East. Florida. South Carolina has Steve Spurrier. Georgia. The sleeping giant of Kentucky. Plus three games against the SEC West (Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, Ole Miss) and another in the SEC title game.
Did I add that Tennessee fans have a little bit of a sense of entitlement about their place on the hierarchy? Yeah, they do. Phil Fulmer won them a national title and they made him quit. It wasn't QUITE a Bobby Bowden situation but it wasn't far off. Tennessee has 6 national titles in their "history". The one Fulmer brought in 1998 was their first since 1967. The one before that was in 1951. That's not exactly a "current" program when it comes to domination. Any number of schools USED to be good 50 years ago. Tennessee isn't currently good. I guess that's what made losing Kiffin cause them to throw a mass dumped girlfriend tizzy. He represented what they wanted to be. Younger and more recently relevant. Lots of excitement and energy. Some arrogance. No feeling of inferiority to UF or Alabama. I could go on.
For him to dump them, it really felt like all the things they hoped they'd become together are gone forever... u know... drama queen stuff.
Why does Tennessee even care so much? Kiffin is an unproven coach and - REAL TALK - the best thing about having Lane Kiffin as coach is that he comes with his DAD, Monte Kiffin, one of the top defensive minds in the history of football. Ever heard of the "Tampa 2" defensive or the "Cover 2" - yeah... that was Monte Kiffin. Apparently, Lane gets his ambition from his mom - Monte was only a head coach for 3 years at NC State and hasn't really sought out more opportunities to do so.
Tennessee could hire any number of more "qualified" head coaches as they are indeed a Top 30 destination for coaches. But for them to think that they are BETTER than USC and that Kiffin wouldn't go if they came calling - well...that's a bit silly.
Personally, as far as USC goes, I can see why they went and got Kiffin. The MAIN reason USC has been successful this past decade is that Pete Carroll is a strong defensive mind AND a MASTER recruiter. And he kept his staff full of other top recruiters. In fact, Carroll himself is the reason USC is at the top of the destinations for coaches list now.
Kiffin to them is a younger version of Carroll - you know, when you add in his DAD for another few years - AND since he was on the staff during their run through the 2000s, he knows the people there, the coaches in California, their ways, etc etc. For USC, Kiffin makes the most sense on paper. Steve Sarkisian, who left a year ago to become the head coach at the University of Washington, would also make sense, but he doesnt come with Monte Kiffin in a package deal, AND Kiffin had Ed Orgeron on staff at UT. Orgeron himself is a master of recruiting, making it a 3-person package deal.
I guess for USC, the biggest question in my mind would be the choice of Lane Kiffin as head coach with his lack of experience as such. His short stint with the Raiders didn't work out and he didn't have a large body of work to review at UT. BUT... and I will give USC some credit for this, they realize what they have now. USC is THE destination for West Coast football players and a Top 5 destination for blue-chippers nationwide. Texas is great and Austin has pretty women, but it doesn't have the beach. Florida is great but its in Gainesville. Miami would be a better destination if it weren't a private school. Baton Rogue can't compare to Los Angeles. USC is a big recruiting destination and in college football THAT'S ALL YOU REALLY NEED to be successful, make BCS games and bring in $50 to $100 Million in revenue.
So I get that USC is "staying the course" and bringing the band back together. With ironic timing, the Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL are trying to bring back together the band of the New England Patriots dynasty in the mid 2000s by hiring Charlie Weis and Romeo Crennel as coordinators like they were the last time the Pats won the SuperBowl...but they don't have Bellicheat leading the show. Can USC (who is reportedly trying to get offensive wizard Norm Chow to come back) bring their old band together with a new leader and have success? It will interesting to see BOTH version 2.0's at work.
Do I think USC made the RIGHT choice?
No, not really.
I am admittedly a bit of a USC fan. I like the way they do things. They work hard and the players are allowed to also have fun without being under a damn military regime like Nick Saban has going at Alabama. So I was concerned they'd mess up the hire and get someone who doesn't know how to recruit kids to USC the right way (effective way = good and smart kids). Other than added benefits like Reggie Bush got, I can't recall the players getting arrested and doing dumb stuff on a regular basis (like Florida and Tennessee's kids seem to do and Miami's used to) and ending up in the news.
But I think what they may have wanted to do is take the program to the NEXT level. To me, that next level would mean taking what you have and doing much, much better. And you would need someone with EXPERIENCE at improving a program to do that. I'm talking Gary Patterson of TCU or Chris Peterson of Boise State. Bronco Mendenhall of BYU and Kyle Whittingham of Utah also come to mind. These guys have shown both the ability to coach up the players they already have, and recruit talent to destinations that aren't "first choice" Top 30 programs. And they consistently get their teams in the Top 25. Heck this year all were in the TOP 10 at various points.
Let me explain what that means. That means they get 2 and 3 star recruits, with the occasional rare 4 star or 5 star (1 per class, MAX) sprinkled in, and produce teams that on the field compete and regularly destroy schools who have their choice of student-athletes. So that means they know how to evaluate talent as well.
Now, there are a lot of situations (see: Florida State, Chris Rix, once again) where a "can't miss" 5-star recruit doesn't pan out or doesn't develop. When I said in Part 1 that Mack Brown at Texas can't coach, what I meant is that given the choice of talent he has available to him, it seems like he'd be able to win more national titles than the one he has this year (and the one he got screwed out of with last year's BCS bullshit selection of an Oklahoma team he beat and this year's injury to Colt McCoy - did you notice the Longhorns STILL almost pulled off the comeback against the #1 team in the land in the title game? That's because they have so much talent). The fact that Texas underperforms so often given their advantages make me think that Mack Brown isn't as great at developing talent as the 4 coaches of smaller schools that I mentioned.
To prove my point, let's look at Urban Meyer. Where did Urban Meyer come from? Utah and Bowling Green before Utah. He ran through the ranks and coached up players he didn't recruit to high achievements using his offensive system and also left some pretty good players behind for Whittingham at Utah. Utah crashed the BCS party before Boise State made their annual go of it in the last 4 years.
What I am basically saying is - one of those 4 guys is probably the "next" Urban Meyer and if you gave them a platform like USC to show what they can do... Watch out. They ALREADY HAVE TOP 10 TEAMS without the recruiting, booster money, facility, and location advantages... come on son. Make your next move your best move.
Should Kiffin under-perform, I'm sure one of these guys, or whoever is the "next" Gary Patterson, will be summoned in. At least I hope so.
As for Tennessee... yeah Kiffin was bringing in some top recruits and took his dad and Orgeron with him, but its not impossible for you to make a good hire. Mike Wilbon mentioned David Cutliffe. He would make sense given the 2 decades of coaching he's put in at Tennessee over the years.
And umm... Tennessee also ran a national coaching search last year. They couldn't get any of their top targets to show any interest in the job. Except maybe Mike Leach, but he's umm... no longer viable. At least not for a couple years. Everyone gets a 2nd act in America.
Tennessee's silly belief that they are and should be at the top of the college football food chain means that they are not going to be able to get a Nick Saban or Urban Meyer to leave a good or even a "decent" gig and come there. They are going to have to find a coach who really wants out of his "okay" situation, believes somehow he can compete in the SEC, and is delusional enough to believe that the experience will work out (I don't see how it can with Meyer and Saban and LSU around) or be good for him in the long run. OR someone who loves UT already. Soooo... yeah I guess we should expect David Cutliffe to be named head coach in Knoxville really soon.
I wouldn't expect any of the 4 guys I mentioned that USC SHOULD have hired to want to go there...its not the 5th best (at worst) job in country, its the 5th best job in the SEC. But they don't realize that... so they had a riot. Get over it...
Last random thoughts for the
Dr Hak Out!
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