Well, this week certainly dealt a big blow to the egos of USC and Tennessee (among others). Both schools were turned down multiple times before finally having to settle on hiring new coaches that have losing records for their coaching careers.
The situation is a little more dire for Tennessee, in my opinion. They are hiring a guy who is used to having complete control over his program. He was the athletic director and the football coach at La Tech. They might run into some power struggle issues there. Maybe. I am also going to throw out the guy is just not a good football coach. He was coaching IN THE WAC, and couldn't get to 6 wins in 2 out of 3 years. They went to ONE bowl game in THREE seasons. Keep in mind, they are playing teams like New Mexico State, San Jose State, and Idaho every year, plus Nevada, Hawaii, and Fresno State which are respectable programs, but come on. 6 wins, that's all you need: and he did it ONCE. They hired him after attempting to lure a BCS conference assistant coach from Texas and a head coach from Duke who coached at Tennessee for a decade (and whose daughter attends the University). This hire came after talking with two non-BCS coaches who could have (at least) TRIPLED their salaries. What does that say about your program that you can't triple someone's salary and get them to come coach?
As far as USC goes, I am sure Kiffin was at least 4th on their list, and possibly even lower. I'm not going to go into his (lack of) resume. Analysts have hashed that out all week. Seriously, this is USC, and the best they can do is a guy who went 7-6 in one year in college football and an atrociously bad stint in the NFL? He went 3-6 against teams that played in bowl games with the wins all coming at home against the likes of the mighty Ohio Bobcats, Spurrier's middle-of-the-pack Gamecocks, and Georgia's rebuilding Bulldogs. Is he going to be able to take the Trojans through the Pac 10 unscathed? Consider that next year they have 5 road games against teams that played in bowl games this season. And in 2011 they travel to the likes of Washington, Oregon, Notre Dame, and Cal.
Speaking of Notre Dame: another prestigious school making a coaching change this off-season. They probably got the best available college coach, I give them that. But, Brian Kelly? The guy has never won with his own players. He did well enough at Central Michigan for 3 years to get a BCS job at Cincy. He did a great job in his 3 years at Cincy (with a bunch of stupid thugs who could not in a million years get into Notre Dame). He is Charlie Weis with more head coaching experience. It's going to be a long, hard road back to the top for Notre Dame. I think Brian Kelly is a great coach, but he is not the kind of guy that I believe can succeed in the long-term at Notre Dame. There are a lot of schools he could succeed at, but not Notre Dame. They will not play in a BCS game in the next 4 years, count on that. Can he survive beyond that? I'm not so sure he will. The natives must be extremely restless by now.
And what of the BCS coaches who didn't get a snuff at any other job this year? That's got to sting their egos as well. Gundy at OK State: never interviewed. I'm sure there are several others who were successful and would have wanted to move to bigger schools and never even got looked at. Ouch. A guy with a losing record from Louisiana Tech got the nod over you. That hurts.
Oh well, the void at the "top" of college football makes more room for the Boise States, TCUs, Utahs, and BYUs of the world.
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