There is a view in coaching ranks, though, that he has learned a LOT from Urban Meyer so Schiano 2.0 isn't the same coach as the one that left Rutgers for TB.


There are now reports that Schiano is asking for compensation for Tennessee backing out of the deal. Hiding behind the debunked Sandusky story could also be problematic.

Given what has happened since the news broke, it looks like that will happen anyway.

I would say that this is Tennessee being Tennessee, but this all has such an Atlanta fan feel to it I just feel bad for the fans. I agree with Jon (mark the time and the date), even without the Sandusky thing they should have known this was a bad hire. There are some good coaches with better resumes out there that Tennessee should have been looking at way before Schiano. This was as bad a reach down hire as Gruden was a ridiculous over-reach.

Politicians gonna politician

Our Tennessee standards mean something, and a Greg Schiano hire would be anathema to all that our University and our community stand for. I sincerely hope that these rumors are not true, because even serious consideration would be unacceptable.

— Eddie Smith (@RepEddieSmith) November 26, 2017

And yes, Curry is gone. I'll be shocked if he is not gone by tomorrow.

Ole Miss hires their interim... WTF?

Been hearing rumors that Patterson will transfer and now this? Weird.

Either they already know the program is dead or they just put it in the grave for at least five years.

I referenced HS coaches earlier but this clown would be a step backwards for probably 1/3rd of the schools in Georgia alone.

Take with a grain of salt, but a friend of mine messaged me and said that local media said that Schiano is owed a buyout due to the terms of the agreement that was signed.

There aren't that many guys that could make Bret Bielema look like an upgrade ... leave it to Ole Miss to hire one of that select number.

I don't understand how Tennessee thinks they can do better. Schiano took the laughing stock of college football into an annual Big East title contender and put a lot of guys in to the NFL. RU was ranked a few times during his tenure, even though he always managed to choke it away in the end. He recruited in the south all the time and was also the DC of Miami, so it's silly to think he can't recruit in the SEC. Anyway, he's a dick and I hate the way he left RU, but TEN seems a low-level job these days and I think it's crazy that guys like Franklin get good jobs, while a rumor will keep Schiano from this one. I think he dodged a bullet.

Nice. I'm glad he'll be paid for being screwed

When a significant portion of the fanbase is convinced they're getting Gruden I don't think it's a surprise they're disappointed in Schiano.

And the Tennessee job has definitely slipped from what it was 20 years ago but they still pull 100k fan, have great facilities, tradition, and play in the more winable SEC division.

Realistic estimates were that 60,000 showed up yesterday.

Hell, I went to Rutgers and the fact that Schiano had the school ranked 3rd in the country at one point is, IMO, the greatest miracle in college sports (I still have difficulty believing it). As bad as Rutgers is now, they are miles ahead of where they were when Schiano took over the program. I am not sure what Tennessee thinks it can do better. I'd take him over Gruden any day.

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Once. In a decade. He eventually found his level, look at the last five seasons as an indication. That's gonna equate to around .500, at best, with an SEC schedule -- and that's IF he could recruit at all there -- that wasn't going to end any better than the last coaching experiment.

You are underselling the job he did there.
An SEC head coach said earlier today, its easier to win 2 national championships at SC, Arkanas or Kentucky than win 10 games at Rutgers.

Congrats UT... You might have just earned Larry Fedora instead of Sciano...lol


Seriously though, why is no one calling Dave Clawson

Lane Kiffin on the way back......

They're going to be stuck with Brady Hoke on an interim deal if they owe Schiano $20 million

They might be anyway.

I think Brad Childress and Tennessee deserve each other.

But that 10 wins wasn't the norm, that was an outlier produced in part by some really fortunate scheduling. (They caught several non-conference P5 teams having really bad seasons).

Set aside his first four seasons, can't hold building from virtual scratch against him. The next seven seasons produced zero conference titles, only a pair of 2nd place ties. That's not going to cut it in Knoxville.

He got screwed for the wrong reasons here but he should never have been part of the conversation in the first place.

2017 College Football Season thread
 

Before Schiano was hired in 2000, Rutgers had only 2 seasons with a winning record since 1980. They hadn't been to a bowl in 1978. Schiano had 6 winning seasons (and bowl games in each of those six years) in 11 years (which includes the first 4 years fixing the program). Since then they have had winning records in only 2 out of 6 seasons (2 of the 3 seasons right after Schiano left - it can be argued his recruiting played a role there).

I'll put it in these terms: think of what James Franklin did at Vandy and then imagine a turnaround at least twice as shocking.

I mean what he did was so shocking that the NFL came knocking at his door (granted he didn't do well there, but to be hired indicated the Bucs thought he did an incredible job).

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Not often when you see a guy who was in line to be the returning starter (and possibly be a 2.5 year starter by the time he graduated) up & leave.

Demry Croft of Minnesota Golden Gophers transferring

+1

Dude, at some point you are going to realize that the power of the "SEC schedule" doesn't exist. SEC East is the worst division in the Power 5 and it isn't close. Witness 2nd and 3rd place South Carolina and Kentucky getting destroyed in non-competitive matchups this weekend.

If anything, being in the SEC East would give him a much easier path, as currently constructed. Outside of Georgia, there is not a single team I would put in a top-40 ranking of college football.

As a fan of a SEC East team I won't try to argue it is some sort of juggernaut but they sure like to come out of the woodwork and bag on the SEC when it's convenient don't they? Using only this last weekend as evidence and then ignoring that Vanderbilt beat Kansas State, Georgia beat Notre Dame, Tennessee and Georgia beat Georgia Tech, South Carolina beat NC State. I mean is the Big 10 Wisconsin division a powerhouse? Either of the Pac-12 divisions? Miami's ACC division? The Big 12 outside of OU/OSU/TCU? (<---The entire conference) Not even close huh? Mizzou did get blown out by Purdue early in the year but I will love to watch whatever equivalent power 5 mid tier team draws them in the bowl.

As for the SEC... 8 of the last 11 national championships. Compared to 1 for the Big 10, 2 for the ACC, and zero for PAC-12/Big 12. Explain to me again why the best football in the country isn't being played in the SEC?

Unless they're utterly incompetent, they aren't going to owe Schiano a hefty buyout. It's possible they owe him some sort of earnest money or break fee, but I'd be shocked if this were more than a hundred thousand or so.

Would be disappointed to see Fedora leave UNC. :)

Also fixed the second part for you.

Aren't we talking about the Tennessee admin here?

The success at Rutgers speaks for itself, but if that was all there is to it, and if that warrants consideration for him getting a big-time head coaching job, why couldn't Schiano get hired for a spot like that in the last 4 years? There must be more to him schools don't like that Tennessee didn't see, whether it's Penn State or something else. Maybe there wouldn't be these weird protests about his hiring if it happened immediately after the Tampa Bay years. I was looking back 3-4 years ago and it looks like was rumored for fairly big jobs and everybody seemed not to think those jobs were so crazy for him. It's not uncommon for a hot college coach to triumphantly return to college after failing in the NFL. Now, though, he sparks protests in the streets when he gets hired.

I did say "outside of Georgia", so you've got 3 solid wins there. NC State outgained SCAR by twice as much but managed to lose that game, so I'm willing to chalk that up to a fluke... or the Doeren effect, whichever you'd like. Georgia Tech finished with a losing record, so sure if you want to count those as good OOC wins that's up to you.


Yes, it's not close. Iowa blew out Ohio State. Purdue CRUSHED Mizzou in their matchup of 3rd place teams in each division. Pac 12 South is not very good, I will grant you. Miami's ACC division has Virginia Tech at least. The Big 12 has 3 teams. SEC East has only 1 good team and then some straight up garbage.


How many of those national championships came from the SEC East?

The SEC West is solid, so I'm not talking about the conference as a whole. Just the East.

I'm not sure if I want to defend Schiano's time at Rutgers as to why he is solid, or beat him up for why he didn't do more and point out why any fallen P5 program like Tennessee shouldn't hire him. It's probably better off being broken into two (maybe 3) parts.

Schiano the program builder deserves an A+. Top to bottom he built/rebuilt everything. He's a tireless worker, sells a vision, gets a ton of effort out of his kids, can keep the marginal ones in check, academic ratings got strong, parents love him, etc. Unfortunately Kyle Flood ripped that all apart quickly and Ash is now faced with doing many of the same things over again but that's a different story.

His W/L record was fluffed up with smart OOC scheduling and the post-ACC defections. But at the same time, he never got the most out of his best teams. The 2006-2009 and 2011 teams all had much higher ceilings than where they finished up. Too many WTF losses mixed in there and the fucking guy never figured out how to defend the spread. He also couldn't keep an OC for more than a year because not only was he a micromanager and drove his guys crazy, but he couldn't even commit to an offensive style or trust them on their own.

There has been a lot of PR push about how he learned from his mistakes both in college and the NFL, and he's easier to get along with, but I'll need to see that to believe it. That being said, what happened yesterday was a bunch of bullshit and anyone who chose to focus on Sandusky vs his actual record and the potential poor fit (legit) were pretty pathetic.

I think he's best suited at a low level P5 program without the ridiculous expectations that UT fans seem to have, or a G5 school looking to make noise. He would fit great post-Frost at UCF.

Although like ISid I would absolutely think he'd do a better job at Tennessee than Jon Gruden. Zero doubt in my mind.

I think he had some fatigue after his stint in the NFL. There were not a ton of good jobs open and he went to be DC with Urban Meyer until something else good opened up. I honestly think people underestimate just how bad RU football was. I was there from 94-98, we'd show up at games in the 2nd quarter and be down 4 scores, and we'd leave early in the 3rd quarter down 50+ usually. We had a few competitive games here and there, but we were one of the worst teams in college football. The fact that he got us ranked a few times and we went to 6 straight bowls, and eventually got a B10 invite despite few people in the area caring about college football is mostly because of Schiano. I reckon there are more, or at least as many RU players starting in the NFL as Tennessee.

This is specific to Tennessee and those fans being completely fucking nuts. As for the rest, he interviewed for jobs like Miami and USC a couple years ago (how strong of a candidate he was at those places will always be a debate) and when those didn't work out, decided his best route back to a premier job would be to work as Urban's DC, with all of that talent at his disposal, instead of taking a low level P5 job or doing a lot of work at a G5 school. Meyer typically wants his assistants to commit to working for him for two years so last year he may not have been as proactive in looking but that's just a guess. Still though, can't fault the strategy as it did technically get him a P5 job that I thought he had no shot at when this all started.

If Addazio didn't hang on with BC this year, that would have been an absolutely perfect spot for him.

The other thing I don't understand is why Jon Gruden is considered the holy grail of coaching by so many college fanbases. He's basically Jon Fox but with much less college coaching experience. Is it because he's handsome and hasn't had to deal with failing anywhere the last 10 years?

I think the idea of a charismatic Super Bowl winning coach coming into town and taking over your program rightfully seems amazing. But it doesn't happen because, well, he makes more money with a job 100x easier, and then he becomes this White Whale for fanbases to obsess over and landing him becomes a bragging point. Fast forward another 10 years or whatever and it just builds and builds.

I'd be amazed if anyone advocating for Gruden to coach their team can guess within 5 years the last time he coached in college.

And I have no problem giving him that credit. Problem is, in UT's situation, they just went through a cycle with a guy like that.

Bitch Jones did rebuild from the rubble that was there when he arrived, problem was that a) there's really nothing to show for that effort, and b) he simply wasn't much of a coach on Saturday (nor the other days of the week either apparently)

The current situation calls for someone that can actually coach, at least until they figure out whether there's anything on campus to work with.

You said none of the divisions are close to as bad as the SEC East and I said some of them are just as bad. (The Big 12 is the entire conference don't forget) We also have to decide are we going early in the season (Vandy good, South Carolina good, UK good) or now where I think Mizzou could hang with most non top-10 teams in the country.

Last 20 years so you don't say I am nitpicking at 11:
SEC : 10
SEC West: 7
SEC East: 3
Big 10: 2
Big 12: 2
ACC: 4
PAC 12: 2

I'm not even sure what the context of the argument is, but aside from Georgia this year, if you can't acknowledge the SEC East has gone downhill in the last 10 years, I'm not sure what the point of a discussion is. The West has won 8 straight SEC title games and all but one of those have been blow outs.

Pac 12 South underachieved massively this year. Even with that, I still think they would play the SEC East even. I think Georgia beats USC going away, but the rest would either be close or lean the Pac 12's why.

I'll bet similar comparisons can be made for most of the P5 divisions. Jon is misplaced in trying to prop up the SEC East this year of all years. It's a pretty bad division.

Agreed, and it's why I thought he wouldn't sniff a shot at the job when the rumblings first started a week or so ago. I had read that he was on the list as sort of the lowest possible candidate, thinking that meant they would consider if they struck out on everyone else. Almost like a placeholder to lock in a few years of 6 or 7 wins vs taking a shot at someone who was just as likely crash and burn as he could be a home run. I think Schiano can coach...but at a ceiling of about a B- level at a job like Tennessee.

I will say that Schiano's game-day coaching was not awesome...

Good at coming up with blitz packages and using them timely. Aggressive on specials, specifically with punt blocking. Never saw much in the way of mid-game adjustments though, save for the 2006 Louisville game which was night and day after halftime with how they were able to get after Brian Brohm.

There's probably nothing that describes his hit or miss approach than when he called a timeout before halftime to set up a punt block against West Virginia, deep in their own territory, only to not realize that WVU put their offense back on the field. The "gunner" Chris Henry was completely uncovered at the snap and walked in for like an 80 yard TD. We still had timeouts left too. It was probably 12 or 13 years ago, but I'll never forget it.

In actual football news, it's been said elsewhere but this weekend is basically an 8 team playoff. Four games matching up Top 10 teams is pretty crazy. Apparently last time that happened was 1973.

One of the most bizarre things I've seen. The video still gets posted on the wvu boards any time Schiano is mentioned.

Because I'm a glutton for punishment...and not just because of the picture quality of the early 2000s.

You can hear the guys on the field start to yell once they realize how they've been set up to fail :lol:

I would have laughed a lot harder at that if UK hadn't done basically the same thing against UF twice in the same game with their D still on the field. And lost by 1.

The question is when did Schiano figure it out? Why not call TO? Even if you can't call consecutive TO's, the penalty would be better than the TD.

The funniest of that video is of him apparently calling for the FG block unit to take the field like his opponent just scored a 1 yard TD. Business as usual.

I did some quick googling to see if I could find a quote but came up empty. I doubt there was a legitimate reason. Just think he didn't expect to see the offense out there, got flustered by it and wasn't thinking clearly.

I thought maybe the ESPN game recap would've had something but there was just this. Talk about underselling the story...

"With the Mountaineers facing a fourth down, Rutgers called a
timeout with four seconds left, thinking West Virginia was going
to punt. But it backfired as Rasheed Marshall tossed an 83-yard
TD strike to Chris Henry as time expired to make it 17-3 at the
intermission."