- Oct 5, 2014
- 7,102
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Every one of these threads includes a comment or three about the need for a home-run hire. I laugh. It's delusionary. There are none. Home-run hires are guys you feel 100% certain you could plug in and go out and immediately compete for a championship. Problem is, none of the home-run hires -- Saban, Meyer, Swinney -- is going anywhere.
Kelly, Stoops and maybe Gundy are the only guys you could conceive of adding to that elite group and yet there are myriad reasons why none of them is a practical choice.
That leaves a slew of hot prospects and also-rans, all heaped in a speculative pile.
I can think of maybe one UF home-run hire in my lifetime -- Spurrier -- and even then there were people who doubted his discipline and commitment. As much as some of you will argue in hindsight, Meyer was not a home-run hire. He was a young up-and-comer no different than Frost. We rolled the dice and won.
It'll probably end up that way again.
You're right '78. It is delusional to think you are going to hire a sure thing. They are usually not home run hires when they are hired but they become home run hires after they are at a place for awhile, win some championships and they become kings of college football. Then they are not going anywhere else but stay where they are and they build a statue of them.
I think Bear Bryant after winning an SEC title at Kentucky and how he turned Texas A&M around was a home run hire when Alabama, his alma mater, hired him to come home. Saban was a home run hire because he had won a national championship at LSU and you knew with the resources and tradition Alabama had that Saban could win a national championship there if he could do it at LSU.
Even some of the kingpins are necessarily home run hires. Take Bobby Bowden one of the winningest coaches in college football. But would he have had the same success if he had left FSU and gone to Alabama which he always said was his dream job. I don't know.
When Spurrier was hired at UF he was a good fit for UF, but, as you say Spurrier had his doubters. He was a great fit for UF, but no one could have foreseen the great success he would turn out to have.
Meyer was a home run hire when he went to Ohio State although there were some who were waiting to see if he had got his anxiety issues under control. He had won the 2 national championships at Florida, he was going to a school that had the tradition and resources to win a national championship, and he was going back to his home state. But when Meyer came to UF he had great potential but things didn't look so good after he got curb stomped the first time he took the Gators to Tuscaloosa.