Oh my, the coaching search is on in College Football and we’ve got some early storylines to cover. Dan Mullen has been hired as the new head coach of the Florida Gators, which I see as a very good hire considering Mullen had a lot of success there before. Mississippi State is probably going to zero in on Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt. Kevin Sumlin and Bret Bielema have been let go by their respective programs and will probably have new jobs relatively soon. And Jim Mora was fired by UCLA and Chip Kelly was hired quickly after so that flew under the radar.
And then there is the Greg Schiano incident, which is nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Schiano is the current defensive coordinator for Ohio State but has been around many programs including Rutgers, Penn State and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He is a good coach no doubt about it but there are many questions revolving around his reputation.
Schiano was linked to all the stuff happening with Jerry Sandusky at Penn State. It was reported that Schiano saw first-hand what was going on when it was decided to be swept under the rug. Schiano wanted to keep his job so he kept his mouth shut.
University of Tennessee fired Butch Jones and started looking for a coach. Of course, they probably started with Jon Gruden but got nowhere fast with that. So, the AD decides he wants to hire Schiano, word gets out and fans and students absolutely lose their minds. The outrage and backlash was so brutal that the AD pulled out of the agreement and decided not to hire Schiano. So now the Volunteers are back to square one with actually looking for a new head coach.
College Football is a crazy product with crazy fans and boosters. This is not the NFL, this is a product for the fans. I applaud UTK’s fans and students for creating so much backlash that the AD basically just gave in. That is what I call dedication. I personally don’t know the Greg Schiano situation, he is the only one that really knows since he was there and we were not.
Make of this what you will but these are the facts that are known at the moment.
