[quote name='dmaul1114']No different than Brian Kelly going from Cincy to ND...
Hard to say how good a coach he is though. He's won at Western Michigan and Cincy, but he followed Brian Kelly at both places and didn't really stay long enough to be winning mainly with his players vs. Kelly's recruits...Rich Rod struggled at Michigan, but I don't think they gave him enough time to get his system in place and all the type of players he needed to run it--took him 4 or 5 years to really get things rolling at WVU.[/QUOTE]
[quote name='kill3r7']I think Rich Rod was doomed from the start due to the radical changes he was trying to implement at Michigan. Pretty much his fate was sealed when he failed to land Terrelle Pryor. IMO he was the perfect Rich Rod QB.
The rest I can't say much about besides the fact that both, Brian Kelly and Petrino, took over "small" time football programs and turned them into offensive juggernauts. They both won the Big East and did so to with lesser talent (Petrino less so). I'm not saying that Butch Jones is not capable of accomplishing the same thing but based on what I've seen of Cincy he has yet to do it.[/QUOTE]
Though Butch Jones followed Brian Kelly's path from Central Michigan to Cincinnati their careers before that were quite different. Before CMU, Kelly coached for over a decade at Grand Valley State University, a powerhouse Div.II school in west Michigan where he won a couple of Div.II titles. I'd have to look it up to be sure but I'd bet that he won at least 100 games there over the course of a dozen years or so. After that, he spent a few years at CMU and with the Bearcats before going to Notre Dame. When he took the job with the Irish, Kelly already had around 20 years of experience as a successful head coach. Although most of it was on a much smaller stage, I believe his experience to be a terrific asset.
On the other hand, Jones is accepting the Tennessee job with only 6 years of experience as a head coach. I'm not faulting the guy for being younger and I still think he has a chance for success if he is able to sell recruits on the program and is given enough time to redevelop an identity for the Volunteers. Despite the fact that defense is a traditional SEC hallmark, I think that if Tennessee finds success again through Jones it will be through offense. I know that before he took on various position coach roles at Central Michigan and became their offensive coordinator, he was quite successful as the OC at Ferris State University (another Div.II school in west Michigan). I believe he also did something at W.Virginia in the heyday of RichRod for a season or two. It certainly is a tall order to find success in the SEC as an offensive minded program but if that's the direction the Vols are wanting to head in, Jones is a decent choice. Of course, it won't matter if he can't get the right players to execute.
Speaking of RichRod and the right players...I agree that his fate was sealed when he failed to land Terrell Pryor. Pryor was his only hope to have the kind of success he needed to win over the Michigan faithful that believed he was all wrong for the job. From the start there was a lot of Wolverine fans in that camp. RichRod would have had to have found a great deal of early success in order to abate them. Most of Ann Arbor felt that he was all wrong for the job from the very beginning. One of my good friends and an old college roommate had been working as an assistant for recruiting under Llyod Carr when RichRod was hired. After meeting him and some of the new staff he told me, "...it's hard to put into exact words, Rodriguez, he just doesn't fit here. I don't think he ever will."
Sorry for the long post, I rarely get the chance to extol the football of Michigan's west coast! :lol:
s the schools like UCONN and Cincy who care about both sports as the basketball conference schedule would be super weak if Georgetown, Villanova, St. Johns etc. all leave.
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