Gheorghemas: Day Nine

On the Ninth Day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me: 

Nine college coaching vacancies* 
Eight Films Explaining

Seven Books for Reading

Six random time-wasting recommendations

Five (Green and) Golden Things

Four songs by “the Chairman of the Board” on his birthday

Three Beauties

Two Types of Stories

A Bald Guy with two Pupp-ies

*There’s more than that, but we’re focusing on mid-season firings. Work with me here. 

The college football coaching carousel spun earlier and faster this season, thanks in no small part to the confluence of an expanded playoff format, increasing eight-figure payouts from television revenue, and administrators and fanbases with the patience and judgment of meth addicts. A handful of big names suddenly found themselves looking for their next gig before Halloween, while their former employers got a head start on searches and buyout clause structures for successors. 

The biggest names to get turfed early were James Franklin at Penn State and Brian Kelly at LSU, who were owed a combined $104 million in buyout settlements. Mike Gundy lasted only three games into his 21st season at Oklahoma State, where he was the school’s winningest coach. DeShaun Foster at UCLA and Brent Pry at Virginia Tech also were canned just three games into the season. Twenty-five percent of the Southeastern Conference had mid-season coach openings, with Billy Napier at Florida, Hugh Freeze at Auburn and Sam Pittman at Arkansas joining Kelly in the unemployment line. Alabama Birmingham demonstrated that lower tier D1 programs can be just as trigger happy, firing Trent Dilfer after a 9-21 record over just two-plus seasons. 

Now, that’s not to say that any of the pink slips were without merit. Several coaches underperformed relative to their surroundings. A couple reached their sell-by dates. Some were poor fits that weren’t evident until they were on the job. All tried to navigate a shifting landscape at schools whose aims rest somewhere between aspirational and delusional. 

It brings to mind a line from former Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley – he cribbed it from Secretary of State and President Whisperer Henry Kissinger – about the proper time to fire a coach: What must be done eventually should be done immediately. 

The culprits, in many ways, were money and opportunity. The money that schools receive from massive TV and media rights deals, along with out-in-the-open salaries and expenditures for players and roster makeup, and the exposure and accompanying riches from a playoff format that’s 12 teams on its way to 16, have accelerated the demand for immediate results. Even schools that don’t have access to Power 4 Conference resources get swept up in the wave. Factor in what might be called The Cignetti Effect and here we are. 

It’s simplistic to say that Curt Cignetti ruined coaching hires for everybody else, but it’s not entirely inaccurate. He immediately transformed Indiana from one of the dispirited programs in the history of college football to national relevance and back-to-back playoff appearances. Every other administration and fanbase with an itch says, “Why can’t we have that?” and now grades on an even more demanding curve. 

The current cycle also further deepens the fiction of major college football as amateur undertaking, where plenty still argue that players should not be compensated beyond scholarships and meager stipends. Hundreds of millions of dollars are part of the equation, however, for facilities, salaries, players and sometimes for coaches given the heave-ho. When the Darjalians from the nearby Canis Major galaxy take over our decaying planet, they’ll look at American sports and emit a series of grunts and squeals that roughly translate to: “Christ on a bike, your species can be astonishingly shallow and petty. You devoted more time and resources to *that* shit than taking care of fellow humans? It’s a miracle you ever climbed out of caves and trees.” 

This year’s coaching churn swept up both well known and more obscure figures. Franklin is viewed by many of his peers, according to acquaintances in the coaching profession, a bit like a cryptocurrency hawker. He’s an able recruiter who would have trouble constructing a ham-and-cheese sandwich while standing behind a deli counter. He was successful by many metrics, going 104-45 with major bowl appearances and helped lift the Nittany Lions program from the hangover of the Jerry Sandusky scandal, as well as a near miraculous stint at Vanderbilt where he made the Commodores competitive. Coming off a semifinal appearance in last year’s playoff, they began the season 3-0 and ranked No. 2, with national championship aspirations. But a double-overtime loss to No. 6 Oregon dropped Franklin’s record to 4-21 vs. top-10 teams, and successive losses to UCLA and its own interim head coach and Northwestern prompted the Big Hats to pull the plug. Penn State brass decided that a $48-million buyout and a search for the Next Guy was preferable to the status quo (Franklin and the school negotiated a buyout settlement of $9 million, just before he was hired at Virginia Tech). 

Kelly was shown the door after a 49-25 dump trucking at home to Texas A&M dropped the Tigers’ record to 5-3 and concluded a four-year mismatch of coach and program. When he bolted Notre Dame, he was lured by a program that he believed had a better path toward a national championship, while LSU was attracted by a guy who succeeded at another blue blood program. But Kelly was a poor fit from the start, witness the Massachusetts native and career Midwesterner affecting a Southern accent in one of his first public appearances that matched Kevin Costner’s English accent in “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” on the cringe-o-meter. After losing three of four, culminating with the A&M beatdown, his overall record of 34-14, 19-10 in the SEC, wasn’t good enough for a program that believes, justifiably, that it should compete for nattys. 

Napier never gained traction at another program with championship pedigree in one of the most fertile recruiting areas in the country. Likewise Pry, who was unable to approach the success of Hokies’ icon Frank Beamer’s heyday. Auburn overlooked Freeze’s sketchy past as it attempted to keep up with Alabama and the SEC’s expanded upper tier. He and Pittman and Foster were in over their heads. UCLA’s athletic director even admitted that Foster, a former Bruins star, was in an untenable position with the school’s entry into the Big Ten Conference, yet wasn’t even given two full seasons. It's all confirmation that choosing a coach is at best inexact. Sometimes you get a Kiffin, sometimes you get a Charlie Weis, and once in a blue moon you get a Cignetti. As schools chase success, expect the present rate of turnover to continue, if not accelerate. After all, you can’t get to the next mistake without moving on from the current one.