Thoughts on the Hot Seat
I really wanted to start off with a college football post, and I didn't want to do my preseason rankings just yet, so I waited before launching this rocket until I could find good football material. And I think I have -- coaches on the hot seat.
I saw this nice story in the AJC about a roast for long-time UGA broadcaster Larry Munson. One of my best friends is a Dawg alum, so I've heard plenty of bootlegged Munson clips over the years. His "hobnail boot" call may be one of the best football play-by-play calls ever. (And that's a list Munson would show up on a couple of times.)
But the most intriguing detail in the article, to me, was that former Bulldog Coach Jim Donnan showed up. No word on what the reception was. Donnan was fired after several decent seasons in which he beat everyone except the schools he really needed to beat -- Florida, Georgia Tech, and Auburn. Looking at it now, it's hard to say that UGA didn't make a good decision trading Donnan for Mark Richt. But Georgia got very lucky finding him. Too many schools make the quixotic hope for perfection the enemy of the pretty good. I have nothing against a school aiming for national titles. But I think a lot of schools are fooling themselves if they think they deserve something better than 9-3 every year. It's just not realistic to think that you can fire a Frank Solich and get a replacement the caliber of a Mark Richt.
One big reason for that is that good, smart coaches don't want to go to a school that's willing to run off a 9-3 coach. It's one thing to have high expectations; it's another to work for a bunch of spoiled babies. My Dawg friend said one time that he thought Georgia's 1980 national championship was, in some ways, the worst thing that could have happened to Georgia, especially the fans, because it spoiled them into thinking that they deserve that kind of success every year.
We see that kind of attitude in many places with one modern national title and outsized expectations because of it. Clemson, Florida, Washington, Colorado...maybe a few others I'm forgetting. I'm tempted to put Notre Dame in there, given that its last title came in 1986 or so. But places like ND and Nebraska get a bit of a pass because of a decades-long tradition of success. Similarly, Duke's Coach K is never going to feel a hot seat, but what will the expectations be of his successor? See Matt Doherty or Mike Davis for a cautionary tale. (Isn't it funny how many of these one-hit-wonder national titles ended up being tainted by hints of scandal? At the least, a lot of those coaches later left their schools on probation...)
This wasn't intended to be a basketball post, but the school this got me thinking about is NC State. Their 1974 and 1983 national titles in basketball gave them crazy expectations for any coaches who followed Jim Valvano. (Of course, Valvano's personality was another hard act to follow.) And so, last season, they ran off Herb Sendek, who won more than NC State could realistically expect and was nothing but hated for it. Now they're going to do the same thing with football coach Chuck Amato. Amato could have nine 8-4 years out of the next ten and it wouldn't be good enough, even though it's crazy for Pack fans to expect State to win 10 or 11 games every year in that conference.
I'm not saying Amato is a great coach or anything -- he's fine, but nothing special -- but State is also delusional if it thinks it can run him out of town and land a mega-star name. I'm sure the latest speculation is that Steelers Coach Bill Cowher will ride in and save the day. Pack faithful make much out of the news that Cowher is contemplating retirement and that his family has moved to Raleigh. The odds that Cowher will leave the NFL champions for the Wolfpack are only slightly better than the odds he'll ask me to play tailback. It's like those UNC fans who wanted to get rid of Carl Torbush because they thought they could get Steve Spurrier or someone on that level. Having Mack Brown at the helm spoiled them. I hope they're happy with John Bunting. I think a lot of this could apply to Tennessee, too. They have no business running off Phat Phil Phulmer on the slim hope that they can find someone to do better. Who's going to do a better job at UT than Fulmer? Johnny Majors?
I don't agree with the notion some sportswriters have -- that it's poor form to speculate on coaching vacancies before they exist. I know that this scuttlebutt can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But the fact is that a lot of schools have expectations that their coaches just aren't going to meet this year. I think it's worth critiquing that, although my sense in many cases is that those expectations are irrational.
I saw this nice story in the AJC about a roast for long-time UGA broadcaster Larry Munson. One of my best friends is a Dawg alum, so I've heard plenty of bootlegged Munson clips over the years. His "hobnail boot" call may be one of the best football play-by-play calls ever. (And that's a list Munson would show up on a couple of times.)
But the most intriguing detail in the article, to me, was that former Bulldog Coach Jim Donnan showed up. No word on what the reception was. Donnan was fired after several decent seasons in which he beat everyone except the schools he really needed to beat -- Florida, Georgia Tech, and Auburn. Looking at it now, it's hard to say that UGA didn't make a good decision trading Donnan for Mark Richt. But Georgia got very lucky finding him. Too many schools make the quixotic hope for perfection the enemy of the pretty good. I have nothing against a school aiming for national titles. But I think a lot of schools are fooling themselves if they think they deserve something better than 9-3 every year. It's just not realistic to think that you can fire a Frank Solich and get a replacement the caliber of a Mark Richt.
One big reason for that is that good, smart coaches don't want to go to a school that's willing to run off a 9-3 coach. It's one thing to have high expectations; it's another to work for a bunch of spoiled babies. My Dawg friend said one time that he thought Georgia's 1980 national championship was, in some ways, the worst thing that could have happened to Georgia, especially the fans, because it spoiled them into thinking that they deserve that kind of success every year.
We see that kind of attitude in many places with one modern national title and outsized expectations because of it. Clemson, Florida, Washington, Colorado...maybe a few others I'm forgetting. I'm tempted to put Notre Dame in there, given that its last title came in 1986 or so. But places like ND and Nebraska get a bit of a pass because of a decades-long tradition of success. Similarly, Duke's Coach K is never going to feel a hot seat, but what will the expectations be of his successor? See Matt Doherty or Mike Davis for a cautionary tale. (Isn't it funny how many of these one-hit-wonder national titles ended up being tainted by hints of scandal? At the least, a lot of those coaches later left their schools on probation...)
This wasn't intended to be a basketball post, but the school this got me thinking about is NC State. Their 1974 and 1983 national titles in basketball gave them crazy expectations for any coaches who followed Jim Valvano. (Of course, Valvano's personality was another hard act to follow.) And so, last season, they ran off Herb Sendek, who won more than NC State could realistically expect and was nothing but hated for it. Now they're going to do the same thing with football coach Chuck Amato. Amato could have nine 8-4 years out of the next ten and it wouldn't be good enough, even though it's crazy for Pack fans to expect State to win 10 or 11 games every year in that conference.
I'm not saying Amato is a great coach or anything -- he's fine, but nothing special -- but State is also delusional if it thinks it can run him out of town and land a mega-star name. I'm sure the latest speculation is that Steelers Coach Bill Cowher will ride in and save the day. Pack faithful make much out of the news that Cowher is contemplating retirement and that his family has moved to Raleigh. The odds that Cowher will leave the NFL champions for the Wolfpack are only slightly better than the odds he'll ask me to play tailback. It's like those UNC fans who wanted to get rid of Carl Torbush because they thought they could get Steve Spurrier or someone on that level. Having Mack Brown at the helm spoiled them. I hope they're happy with John Bunting. I think a lot of this could apply to Tennessee, too. They have no business running off Phat Phil Phulmer on the slim hope that they can find someone to do better. Who's going to do a better job at UT than Fulmer? Johnny Majors?
I don't agree with the notion some sportswriters have -- that it's poor form to speculate on coaching vacancies before they exist. I know that this scuttlebutt can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But the fact is that a lot of schools have expectations that their coaches just aren't going to meet this year. I think it's worth critiquing that, although my sense in many cases is that those expectations are irrational.
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