How To Search For A Coach In The SEC
It is interesting to look at the differences between the search for a head coach at two SEC schools.
Keep It On The Down Low
On one side, you have Greg “The Ninja” Byrne who has not divulged any official information about who is on his list of candidates, who he has spoken to, where he has travelled, etc. We know that he is using a private plane thanks to Kyle Veazey of the Clarion Ledger staking out the Starkville airport. He caught Byrne and Associate AD Scott Stricklin getting off a plane that had just arrived from Dallas.
You can look at the flight history of that plane over the past week or so and see that it has travelled to places like Atlanta, Dallas and Kansas City. We know for a fact that the plane was in Kansas City the Friday night and Saturday before the Big 12 Championship. We just don’t know who was on it.
So this has left the Bulldog nation to speculate about who Byrne is talking to and how serious those talks are.
Shout It From The Roof Tops
On the other side, you have Auburn. Since Tommy Tuberville’s “resignation”, they have made their candidates very public, even allowing reporters from The Birmingham News to follow them up to New York City and report everyone that comes to the interview table. There is a football conference going on in NYC this week, and Auburn AD Jay Jacobs has used the opportunity to interview a slew of candidates from Buffalo’s Turner Gill, Georgia assistant Rodney Garnder, and Miami assistant Patrick Nix.
They have also talked with Derek Dooley and are expected to interview Ball State’s Brady Hoke. And everyone knows they would love a shot at Jimbo Fisher. He is the “coach in waiting” at Florida State and was also the offensive coordinator under some other coach from Alabama when he was head coach at some school in Louisiana.
This is all out there for everyone to read on Evan Goldberg’s blog at al.com.
So which is the better way to conduct a search? Under a cloud of secrecy, leaving the process open to speculation and rumors gone wild on Internet message boards and blogs, or out in the open for all to see and comment on? Comments are open on this one.
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December 9th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Secrecy…no doubt. It’s not the bloggers and webjunkies decision to make. It seems it would be easier to keep rumors, generated in places like this, from negatively impacting a potential interview with a candidate. I’m as big of a state fan as anyone, but until the next coach is hired, I don’t see any reason for trying to name one on our own. In other words, just let the man responsible for the hiring, Greg Byrne, do his job, and when it’s done, open up the messageboard floodgates and put your two cents in or 50,000 cents…