On the upside Tom, Tenn Basketball with former Longhorn coach, Rick Barnes, is doing well and the women's program made a great hire in Kellie Harper so the future should be looking up for that great program as well.
Surprisingly at my age, I haven't heard before of anyone having ankle replacement surgery. I didn't know it was possible. I hope her recovery goes smoothly.
Eddie O strikes out again. He swung and missed on getting Cincinnati DCoord Marcus Freeman who decided on South Bend instead of Baton Rouge, then it had been reported that he was close to bringing in Ryan Nielsen who coaches DL for the Saints, but instead he backed out and signed a new deal with the Saints.
Not a coach but, Larry Scott, the Pac12 commish will retire June 30th. He's been the Pac 12 Commissioner for 12 years. He's been controversial to say the least and you couldn't say that he's leaving the Pac 12 better than he found it, at least that's my take. Maybe Kes has an opinion on this.
That didn't take long. UCF's AD, Danny White, is the new Tennessee Athletic Director. This Danny White is not the former Cowboy QB, but the son of out going Duke Athletic Director Kevin White. His brother is the Florida Men's Basketball coach and his other brother and sister are also involved in college athletics. Danny graduated from Notre Dame, and has a masters from Ohio Univ and a PhD from Ole Miss. Great hire for the Vols. Next up for him is to figure out a new HC for the Vols while dealing with the NCAA.
A lot of ND Alums are AD's. Danny White - Tenn Bubba Cunningham - UNC Gene Smith - Ohio State Allen Greene - Auburn Boo Corrigan - NC State Bill Scholl - Marquette
Names associated with the search for a new Pac 12 Commissioner. Potential candidates include Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, who served as Arizona State's athletic director from 2000 to 2005 and has a home in the Phoenix area; Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne, who led Arizona's athletic department from 2010 to 2017; former West Virginia athletic director and NCAA vice president Oliver Luck, whose son Andrew starred at quarterback for Stanford; current Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir; American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco, a former programming executive for both CBS and ESPN; Colorado athletic director Rick George, a former Texas Rangers executive; Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson, who has worked closely with Scott and league presidents during the coronavirus pandemic; and West Coast Conference commissioner Gloria Nevarez, a former senior associate commissioner at the Pac-12, who oversaw compliance at Cal and also received her law degree there, and served as a senior associate athletic director at Oklahoma.
Forgot about him, also there is a guy at Fla. Gulf Coast U who went undergrad to BC and got a Masters at ND and worked in the Athletic Dept. So I guess he counts.
Ha! Sark found out quickly how deep the OU hate at Texas is when he tried to bring Mike Stoops along as the LB coach. Backslash was swift and Sark backed off quickly.
Similar to when Sark did not even consider the Auburn job. He would have pissed off the Alabama fans and the Auburn fans wouldn't trust him.
The new Vol AD, Danny White, is pretty positive that they will have a coach pretty soon. I see that Sonny Dykes from SMU is a candidate. P J Flecks name was floated but I have seen that he's reportedly not interested in interviewing. Jamey Chadwell the Coastal Carolina coach and Billy Napier the Louisiana coach are names that pop up along with Clemson OCoord Tony Elliot. I saw one place where Matt Campbell is a name, but I have a hard time seeing him leaving Iowa State right now.
Josh Heupel it is, I guess that given the new Vol AD came from UCF that bringing Heupel was a easy sell for him. Next worry for them is what is the NCAA going to do? I remember Bill O'Brien commenting that when he took the Penn State job they assured him that sanctions were not going to be a big deal, of course they turned out to be a big deal. I think Heupel is a good hire, he's had success at UCF, has experience in the SEC from being the OCoord at Missouri and was at OU for a long time as well under Bob Stoops so he knows what a good program looks like.
So now that the UCF job is open, who goes there? That's a pretty darn good Group of 5 job, located in the middle of a lot of talent. They can't out recruit the big 3 in Fla but the amount of talent in Fla is such that even just getting the ones left over they can build a good program. Scott Frost got them rolling and Heupel also had 3 good years to continue. They should annually be at or near the top of the AAC, which a lot of people think is very good football conference. Then of course the guy who takes the UCF job leaves a hole somewhere that needs to be filled. I see that the Gators lost their OCoord to the Eagles. He did a heck of a job last year, are they going to promote from within or hire from the outside?
Promoted from within. Garrick McGee is the QB coach. Not sure about OC, but that job is basically done by Mullen anyway.
Matt Campbell got an extension, which he absolutely deserved, but you have to wonder if he'll coach out that extension. He's rumored every year for bigger jobs. Now maybe he'll be like Gary Patterson at TCU or Ferentz at Iowa and stick with a job that doesn't demand you win the conference or play for the Nat'l Title or any of that, just put on a good program and win most of your games. There is something to be said for that.