General

Was Lane Kiffin Not Actually The Worst Hire Of The Decade?

Apr 14, 2010, 9:00 PM UTC

A couple days ago I casually tossed off anâ†µassertion that Lane Kiffin was the worst hire of the aughts in a post about Tennessee’s grim prospects for the immediate future. I hardlyâ†µeven thought about it. It was obvious, right? Tennessee hired a joker who had been fired after a miserable stint with the Raiders, proceeded to rack up embarrassingly public secondary violations, left for USC justâ†µbefore a bunch of kids were about to enroll early, and then attempted toâ†µpirate those guys away from classes set to begin the next day. Case closed.â†µâ†µYahoo college football blogger extraordinaire Doctorâ†µSaturday disagrees, though, and places a who’s who of hiresâ†µseemingly more insane than even Kiffin in front of the reader. And he manages to leave out the ur-Kiffin: former Raider coach turned Nebraska failure Bill Callahan. Braves and Birds had to pluckâ†µthat name from the hallowed halls of the undistinguished.â†µ

â†µâ†µSo... was Lane Kiffin the worst hire of the decade? First, some ground rules:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥The coach in question has to have already left his job, thus confirming his failure totally.
â†µâ‡¥Criterion one: how much damage did the coach do to the program?â†µâ‡¥Thisâ†µâ‡¥takes expectations into account, so a faceplant at Kansas State is less serious than one at Washington. We’ll also try to adjust for how the coach left the program.
â†µâ‡¥Criterion two: how predictable was the faceplant? Sometimes seeminglyâ†µâ‡¥good ideas just don’t work out. Other times, you are mocked from the moment you step in front of the podium. A truly bad hire is one that anyone can see imploding from a distance.

â†µâ†µâ†µWe’re going to have to make some guesses since we don’t know how the Dooley era at Tennessee will start, but suffice it to say things don’t look good. So: does anyone on Doctor Saturday’s list beat out Kiffin? â†µThis is the Kiffin dossier:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥Was hired at a major BCS program despite no head coaching experienceâ†µâ‡¥other than a disastrous stint with the Raiders that caused Al Davis to call him a “liar.”
â†µâ‡¥Caused Tennessee to shell out record-breaking compensation to assistant coaches with two-year guaranteed contracts that prevented Tennessee from hiring David Cutcliffe because they couldn’t afford to fire Kiffin’s leftover staffers. Tennessee eventually went with a guy coming off a 4-8 season at Louisiana Tech.
â†µâ‡¥Went 7-6 in one year.
â†µâ‡¥Picked up a dozen incredibly stupid and public secondary violations.
â†µâ‡¥Ran off two quarterback recruits as soon as he arrived and two more existing Volunteer QBs once spring practice hit, leaving the Vols with just one experienced QB on the roster and two middling recruits; the experienced guy transferred.
â†µâ‡¥Has Tennessee set up for possibly its worst season ever.

â†µâ†µâ†µCan anyone beat that?â†µ

â†µ

â†µThe Pretenders

â†µâ†µRon Prince, Kansas State. DocSat admits that a 17-20â†µrecord at a school with Kansas State’s history makes him “just another victim of one of the most unenviable jobs in America.” His inclusion is based on a goofy secret agreement that puts the university on the hook for $3.2 million and forced K-State to re-hire Bill Snyder, who is super old... and just led KSU to a 4-4 conference record. That’s just life at K-State, I think. â†µ

â†µâ†µKiffin has met or exceeded any “sabotaged next hire” records with the assistants trick.â†µ

â†µâ†µChuck Long, SDSU. Chuck Long is just another guy whoâ†µcouldn’t make a mid-major sing plus some Ron Prince crazy cash hijinks and some disciplinary issues. Again, Kiffin sabotaged the next Vol hire quite thoroughly. â†µ

â†µâ†µRon Zook, Florida. Ron Zook is not a good coach. Butâ†µsurely a pair of 6-2 SEC seasons, a 7-5 finish, and the epic boatload ofâ†µtalent that Urban Meyer turned into national champions in short order disqualifies him from “worst of the decade.” Are we really ascribing Florida institutional advantages so vast that a guy who wentâ†µ23-14 can be the worst hire in ten years?â†µ

â†µâ†µRon Zook, Illinois. Ron Zook is still not a good coach, but he can hardly be blamed or the nuclear wasteland he walked into in 2005. He can definitely be blamed or the wasteland he managed toâ†µcreate with a four-year starter at quarterback and Arrelious Benn in 2009, but again this is Illinois, a program fated to implode after everyâ†µsurprising conference championship or BCS bid they garner. You can’t really tell the difference between Zook and most of Illinois’s coaches throughout their history. He’s just another guy. (Also he hasn’t been fired yet.)â†µ

â†µâ†µMike Price, Alabama. Aw, come on now. Price was a reasonable hire as a guy who turned Washington State into a good programâ†µand though he flamed out in a hail of strippers before he even coached aâ†µgame, if all you’ve got is “sabotaged next hire” Kiffin has that covered.â†µ

â†µâ†µLarry Coker, Miami. It ended poorly... sort of.â†µMiamiâ†µdid manage a 7-6 season in Coker’s last year. And Coker did preside overâ†µthe great slide into mediocrity that the ‘Canes still find themselves enmeshed in. But Coker was 60-15(!!!) in six years and finished 1st, 2nd, and 5th his first three years. He belongs nowhere near this conversation. When Miami won the Orange Bowl three years into Coker’s tenure was that all his predecessors? When Miami finished #11 in year four was that all someone else? “Failed to repeat as national champions after a 12-0 regular season” is pretty light criticism.â†µ

â†µâ†µKeith Gilbertson, Washington. Gilbertson’s brief twoâ†µyear reign with UW saw Washington have its first losing season sinceâ†µ1976 and crater at 1-10 his second year. However, Gilbertson’s hire can’t be classified as amongst the decade’s worst because it comes with a major caveat: Gilbertson was a summer emergency hire after the abrupt dismissal of Rick Neuheisel. Washington had little choice other than to go with Gilbertson. A second year is questionable, but that’s all. â†µHiring Tyrone Willingham after Gilbertson is probably a worse decision.â†µ

â†µâ†µBill Callahan, Nebraska. The ur-Kiffin: Callahan wasâ†µa failed Raiders coach purveying an incredibly complicated NFL style system dropped into a college football-mad locality that was about to undergo severe culture shock. Raiders players publicly called him out, suggesting he was deliberately attempting to sabotage the season. â†µCallahan called his team “the dumbest team in America” after aâ†µloss and was fired. Callahan led Nebraska to its first losing season in forever in 2004, then recovered a bit with 8-4 and 5-7 seasons before going 5-7 in 2007 and getting axed. â†µ

â†µâ†µHowever: Callahan’s 2005 recruiting class was top five and included Ndamukong Suh. Bo Pelini had a lot of talent to work with when he showedâ†µup. Callahan’s record was better than Kiffin’s, his NFL tenure wasâ†µ(slightly) less disastrous, and he at least had a rep as a real offensive coordinator instead of a kid playing with daddy’s toys, as Kiffin does. I’m as surprised as anyone, but Callahan doesn’t even make the “contenders” list.â†µ

â†µâ†µGreg Robinson, Syracuse. Robinson was basically Ed Orgeron, taking over for a moderately successful coach who’d taken on a little water late in his career and driving a respectable program straight into the ground more on that in a bit. Robinson’s hire was moreâ†µjustifiable since he had been a longtime NFL defensive coordinator and had just piloted Texas to an excellent defense, so he escapes the...â†µ

â†µContenders

â†µâ†µJohn Mackovic, Arizona. Mackovic was a mega-retread by the time he was hired at Arizona but he did have some success with Illinois and Texas, so he wasn’t a totally crazy hire. He was just totally crazy. Presaging Mark Mangino, Mackovic told tight end Justin Levasseur he was a “disgrace to his family,” prompting a player revolt that abbreviated Mackovic’s tenure. He technically survived; he was fired one game into the next season.â†µ

â†µâ†µEd Orgeron, Ole Miss. Orgeron’s tenure at Ole Miss was an unmitigated disaster, and it followed on the heels of the seemingly bizarre decision to can David Cutcliffe one year after Ole Miss turned in its best season since 1971. Under Cutcliffe the Rebels were a relentlessly mediocre SEC team; under Orgeron they were relentlessly terrible. As a bonus, Orgeron went directly from a USC defensive line coach to the head chair at Ole Miss. He’d never been a coordinator. He’s still not a coordinator except in name only. â†µ

â†µâ†µBuddy Teevens, Stanford. DocSat’s case is compellingâ†µhere: in five years at Tulane, Teevens had won more than two games once,â†µand that was 4-8 season. He took a Stanford team that had gone to a bowlâ†µunder Tyrone Willingham to the Pac-10 cellar, where they remained for the duration of his tenure. The Cardinal hadâ†µso little talent that when Jim Harbaugh took over they languished at the bottom for another two years beforeâ†µHarbaugh got them on the right track. Teevens’ hire was even more utterly unjustifiable than Kiffin’s and crushed Stanford’s program for five years. That’s a strong case.â†µ

â†µSo?

â†µâ†µMost of the hires on DocSat’s list don’t live up to the Kiffin standard, but one clearly exceeds it: Buddy Teevens. Years of relentlessâ†µfailure got him hired at a decent BCS program, and years of relentless failure followed. Anyone could have predicted it, and Stanford was the worst program in the Pac-10 for half a decade because of the hire. Not even Kiffin can match that. â†µ

â†µ

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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