First, I'm not (yet) bewildered because it's not yet official. And I'm not (yet) upset because it's not yet 100% certain. But lay your eyes once again on this passage from Weiszer's piece about Will Friend's upcoming announcement:
Now maybe this source is misunderstood. Maybe he's bitter. Hell, we just don't know. And we certainly aren't anyplace near where we can assume people would be falling all over themselves to get their résumé in Coach Richt's hands.One coach who was interested in the opening to replace Stacy Searels said he was told by somebody at Georgia that Friend was in line for the job. That coach said he believed Friend was the only candidate that was brought in for an interview.
But I certainly hope each candidate was properly vetted. I certainly would expect more than a solitary interview to take place. Especially since we were told that the head guy's phone was blowing up. And especially now that we know there was at least one candidate that didn't get the job.
Nothing against Will Friend, I'm sure he's eager to get here and I hope he's up for the task at hand. We can complain all we want about wanting someone with a better résumé, but 6-7 gets you mostly names you have to take a chance on. What I'm wondering is just how big of a chance Richt took? One interview with a guy from UAB doesn't cut the mustard for me.
3 comments:
I'm of a similar mind to you. Perhaps CMR equates his time with Calloway as line coach with the salad years of his tenure at UGA, but I tend to equate them with underachieving line play, mediocre recruiting and shoulder injuries. I might otherwise be assuaged if I was reading about how dominant UAB's lines were under Friend, but I've yet to see that in a single article about the guy (unlike, say, the articles I saw last year on the OL coach that Spurrier hired from Appy State). I would have preferred Adkins myself.
Maybe it turns out to be stupendous, but it feels a whole lot like the Janczek hire right now, one which I didn't like from the moment it was made.
Ehhh - I get the angst but will observe that the ONE thing we know about coaching hires, in the words of Phillip Henslowe, is that "It's a mystery!"
That isn't very comforting, but it is true. I had never heard of Van Gorder when he first came to UGA, but he was great, then he went to GSU and he sucked, then to Jax and he was OK, and now with the Falcons, he is pretty good again. Who thought that Chizik was going to survive at Auburn, let alone prosper to a MNC? No one, and that includes Chizik. Searels was supposed to be the bad ass savior that was going to take us to the promised land; he was the absolute joyous choice of the blogosphere. The results? not bad, really, but not great, either.
The funny thing is that they advertise the jobs and post them like anyone can apply because that is University policy, and maybe what the law requires although the AA is a mixed breed private company/public institution so who knows what really applies to it? Point is, they ain't just interviewing candidates on merit; never have and aren't likely to start.
I guess I am saying I won't criticize the process because in the end I don't care about the process. The reasons for choosing a coach probably involve dozens of considerations and resume is only one. Ability to recruit, ability to work with other coaches are a couple of other considerations. In the final analysis the only thing I really care about is if we win. They can hire Father Tom at the Catholic Center if he wins as far as I am concerned.
Thanks for the comments. I did see something else late last night when I was digging for info on Ealey (which doesn't look good) that said at least one other was interviewed.
Time will tell. And fwiw, no one even interviewed me at all for this blogging job. :) Talk about slipping thru the vetting process!
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