The college football coaching hot seat broke bad this week. Southern California and Maryland fired their head coaches and Steve Spurrier abruptly retired. We’ve already discussed the Maryland and “USC West” openings, so now it’s time to turn our attention to the USC of the East.
TSS associate editors Bart Doan and Terry Johnson join staff writer Kevin Causey in this roundtable discussion.
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Question: Whom should South Carolina hire to replace Steve Spurrier?
Bart Doan:
On Twitter @TheCoachBart
Someone that’s really okay with having a tough gig. Steve Spurrier is the most successful South Carolina coach in history, which is a tough act to follow. Remember, as a general rule of life, you’re always going to be compared — in work, relationships, and other realms — to the person who previously occupied your position. Therefore, always try to “follow up” when you can.
What that means is, find a place where you’re going to be loved as a default response by the person or population involved, because whom you’re following was just a useless pustule.
Anyways, enough life advice.
Odds are, the Gamecocks will go the route of someone with Southern ties since … ‘crootin, yo … who has head coaching experience at either the professional or college level.
That someone will enter a hugely difficult gig, however, with Florida’s resurgence, Missouri and Georgia being good, stable winning programs, and even Kentucky showing signs of life. It wouldn’t shock me to see them go for a Tommy Tuberville type, maybe even a Bobby Petrino since he exists as a flight risk. Short of that, look at mid-major coaches who have Southern ties and a healthy appetite for stepping into a tough situation.
Kevin Causey:
On Twitter @CFBZ
South Carolina is in a better place than when Spurrier took the job, but this is still a hard job. South Carolina is up against the likes of Florida and Georgia, and it doesn’t have the recruiting base those schools have. The Gamecocks will need someone who is a strong recruiter (or can put a strong recruiting team in place) and someone who can do a lot with less.
Mark Hudspeth from Louisiana-Lafayette would be a coach who is perfect for a job like this. However, ULL is dealing with some NCAA violations from Hudspeth’s first year on the job. Hudspeth doesn’t appear to have been a part of it, but it casts him in a bad light, so Carolina may want to steer clear.
Justin Fuente of Memphis is a coach that would have to be part of the interview process. He has turned around a school that looked like it was unable to be turned around. Memphis went 10-3 last year and is 5-0 this season. Fuente might be just the guy the Gamecocks need, and if I had the choice he’s the guy I would likely pick.
Terry Johnson:
On Twitter @SectionTPJ
I’ve got the perfect coach in mind for South Carolina. He’s coached in both the college and professional ranks and has learned from some of most respected minds in the game today, including Pete Carroll and Nick Saban. More importantly, he has head coaching experience at the Power 5 level, guiding two different teams to bowl games. He’s also very familiar with the SEC, making him an ideal candidate for this opening.
“Who’s the coach,” you ask? None other than Lane Kiffin.
Calm down, Gamecock fans, I’m kidding.
All joking aside, South Carolina faces a huge challenge in replacing Steve Spurrier. After all, USC has just four 10-win seasons in school history, and Spurrier has three of them. Since that’s the case, I don’t think that any of college football’s big names are going to be interested in this opening, unless they have something to prove or like to embrace a challenge.
That’s why my first phone call would be to Louisville’s Bobby Petrino. Sure, he’s probably happy at UL, but I’ve got to believe that there’s a part of him that wishes he’d had the opportunity to turn Arkansas into a perennial top 10 team — something he was very close to accomplishing before his dismissal. Given his highly competitive nature, I think he’d jump at the chance.
If Petrino declined, my next call would be to Bowling Green’s Dino Babers — assuming that the “other” USC didn’t hire him first. That could very easily happen, given that Babers has had no trouble winning right away, inheriting a 2-9 Eastern Illinois team and guiding it to back-to-back OVC titles. He’s had similar success at Bowling Green, transforming the Falcon offense into one of the most explosive units in the country. I think that the opportunity to see what his high-octane offenses could do against SEC defenses would be too good to pass up.
My third choice would be Arkansas State’s Blake Anderson. While I can hear the #astAte fan base groaning as it read that last sentence, the fact is that the school has produced several successful coaches during the “one and done” era, including Hugh Freeze, Gus Malzahn, and Bryan Harsin. With Anderson’s knowledge of the spread-and-up-tempo offense, he would provide the USC offense with the type of explosiveness it has lacked over the past few seasons.
