It’s been two days since Tennessee fans and Vol Twitter killed the Greg Schiano hire, for reasons both on the field and off it. It was an absolutely incredible and confusing Sunday, and one that has led to the future of Tennessee football being thrown into chaos. I spent all day either refreshing Twitter or searching “Greg Schiano” in Google, as I watched the story devolve from “Schiano and Tennessee are working on a contract” to “Due to fan outrage, both sides are getting squeamish” to finally “Tennessee has pulled their contract offer”.
The bigger question now though is where do they go from here? Since
Tennessee backed out of the deal, it's been reported that their is now pressure on John Currie from the Vol administration to resign. Then there was the report that
Tennessee may owe Schiano money since they both signed a memorandum of understanding.
But then it came out that UT Chancellor Beverley Davenport hadn’t signed the
MOU. Could Schiano still sue? Is Currie getting fired? Is Currie’s statement
yesterday about this entire fiasco further evidence that he’s an out-of-touch loser?
I wondered aloud a few
weeks ago, when Butch Jones was still the head coach, how it was possible that
Tennessee had ended up with the Butch Jones of football coaches AND the Butch
Jones of athletic directors. After the events of Sunday and the last two weeks, it's not even a clever joke anymore, just the sad, depressing reality of the
current state of the Tennessee athletic department.
Of course, they still
have to hire a head coach, a task that has become significantly more difficult, due to
Currie’s incompetence and the fan base outcry. Former Vol offensive coordinator
and current Duke head coach David Cutcliffe, a guy I wouldn’t have wanted
anyway, reportedly turned them down. Purdue’s Jeff Brohm was a name that popped
up in a few places yesterday. Lane Kiffin tweeted about how he “wasn’t waiting
by the phone” for them to call, and SI’s Bruce Feldman reported that there was a good chance they’d offer the job to current USC OC
and former Tennessee national championship winning quarterback Tee Martin. And
most recently, Jimmy Hyams reported that Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy was the
focus of their search. Other names, according to Hyams, include SMU’s Chad
Morris, Auburn’s defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, Alabama DC Jeremy Pruitt,
Clemson DC Brent Venables, and Memphis’s Mike Norvell.
There’s a lot to unpack
here. I have no idea if Gundy is actually interested, and he allegedly turned
Tennessee down in 2012, but if he’s serious about leaving OK State then he’s
the unquestioned best and most qualified candidate. To me, Mike Norvell and
Jeff Brohm are indistinguishable from each other, and I’d have the exact same reaction
to them being hired. I wouldn’t want Chad Morris, who is a paltry 14-22 in
three seasons at SMU. Pruitt and Venables have never been head coaches before,
though they’ve been great coordinators, while Steele, a Tennessee alum, hasn’t
been a head coach since he went 9-36 at Baylor from 1999-2002.
Personally, I two guys
with the most connection to the program, Kiffin and Martin, are the most
interesting candidates outside of Gundy. I don’t think there’s any chance
Kiffin actually gets the job, because hiring him would be like going back to
your cheating ex-significant other. How could you ever trust him/her again? He’s
like a stripper or a guy with a motorcycle; you like them because they’re
dangerous, brash, and wild, but you wouldn’t exactly be comfortable bringing
them home to mom. Of course, he does have the endorsement of Johnny Majors, for
what that’s worth.
Before this search
started, Tee Martin would’ve been like my 15th choice. The guy has
only been an OC for two seasons, and any success he’s had could just be a
product of Sam Darnold’s brilliance. In fact, in the only three games he’s
called WITHOUT Darnold, USC scored just 23 points. Of all the coaching
candidates the Vols could get, Martin is by far the most inexperienced. We just
don’t know.
There are certainly
benefits to hiring Martin. You can’t find anyone who says a negative thing about
his character, he’d understand the fish bowl nature of Knoxville, and he’s an
ace recruiter. Plus, he’s a familiar name on Rocky Top, a beloved player coming
back home to revitalize a once proud program. He’d be welcomed back into the
program with kid gloves…. at least at the beginning. Plus, if he was able to
get things turned around at Tennessee, he’d arguably become the greatest Vol of
all time. As the National Championship winning quarterback, he’s already in the
pantheon of Tennessee greats; but if he became a wildly successful head coach,
he’d leap past all of them. Manning, Majors, Fulmer, John Ward, Reggie White,
hell maybe even General Neyland. There’d be 5 million streets named after him,
there’d be statues built, and he’d become a hero. Or, more tragically, due to his inexperience and potential lack of proper skillset to run a
major college program, he could go up in flames. For every Dabo Swinney and Bob Stoops (young guys that
had never been a head coach before, took over a big time program, and won a lot
of games), there’s 5 million guys like that who fail. Things can fall apart quickly at Tennessee. Is Martin up for it? We have no way of knowing.
If I had to guess who’d
get the job, I’d say… Martin. Gundy has been a tease before, I don’t see why
this time would be any different. Plus, there’s momentum for him among the fan base that didn’t exist two weeks ago (and we've seen how powerful the fan base has become). And if all the other candidates are scared off by what's happened the last few days (and I think they might've been), or aren't significantly more experienced (besides Gundy and Kiffin, they aren't), then I think they'll roll the dice with Martin and hope for the best.
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