Agreed. Kirby Smart need to go somewhere else first and get experience like McElwain.
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That gives us a template to judge him by.
I think Ray Perkins was the wrong hire because he'd never been a college head coach. His pro resume was rather misleading, but he'd only done a year at MSU as an assistant. Curry was a better hire than Perkins precisely because he'd been at a tough place at Georgia Tech and improved their standing. True, he was a mediocrity, but he was a better risk than Tampa Bay Ray.
Stallings is the one coach we've had whose template was a tad misleading. He had been a head coach at aTm two decades earlier but had spent a TON of time in the NFL. An argument can be made that Stallings benefited from Curry's recruiting and then was aided by Auburn's concurrent probation. At the same time, he DID turn out to be the right hire - and even though is college head coaching experience was decades earlier, he had done it. DuBose was a disaster on every level. Anyone who did not see what was coming with him has never paid attention to coaching hires. Fran - despite the end of his tenure - was probably the right idea for a transitional coach. His entire career had been climbing upward and never leaving footprints. He never demonstrated the ability to recruit - and we now know he couldn't.
Shula, well what needs to be said? No head coaching experience at ANY level, surely the most unqualified head coach we've hired - perhaps in the history of the school. And the results bore this out.
Look at who has been successful lately:
Saban - previously at several colleges, including an SEC school and the NFL
Spurrier - USFL and then Duke college experience and on to Florida
Miles - good at Okie St, better at LSU
Meyer - very good at BGSU and Utah before Florida and now Ohio St
Mack Brown - before he began imploding, he did well at Tulane and UNC and then had a great run at Texas
Jim Tressel - although it was not FBS, he DID have college experience prior to tOSU
There are a few exceptions, of course, but look a little closer:
Bob Stoops - his national title looks more like being lucky than anything else
Pete Carroll - now appears his entire team was a bunch of pros
Larry Coker - inherited a great situation and blew it to pieces
Mark Richt might qualify as one of the exceptions but then again we are talking about a guy who has won a grand total of TWO SEC championships in TWELVE tries. (By comparison, DuBose and Chizik combined had two SEC and one national title in only half the time - if you count the years they won these as the end. And NOBODY would say either guy is a better head coach than Richt). And Chizik himself is proof that prior head coaching experience is no proof of success - although common sense would tell you that a guy who is 5-19 at Iowa State is not exactly moving things in the right direction.
Based on the law of averages, we need somebody who has prior HEAD COACHING experience at a reputable place and has done well. A guy for the future might well be Bill O'Brien at Penn State (who turns 44 today and is five days older than I). Just look at what he has done thus far in that bubbling cauldron.
That said - let's not worry about this for say another 8-10 years.
I always thought Muschamp was overrated anyway.