Kelly is not liked by parents as far as recruiting goes. He does not kiss the asses of 17 years olds either. He struggled in recruiting at Cincy. Kelly is just one heck of a coach and winning brings recruits and Notre Dame brand name does as well. Kelly knows how to win anywhere. I wish we had him now.
Players weren't exactly happy to see Phil go after his last awful season. That isn't an indicator of success.
Jancek who he is bring landed guys like Jarvis Jones and as solid connections in GA. People will cry bloody murder when he brings his staff but his staff is pretty damn good. He does need to make a couple upgrades. Hopefully his lb coach hire is solid. Sounds like we are getting Martinez for DBs which is solid.
To be successful in the SEC, you have to average at least 10 wins. You can put up 8 or 9 win seasons, but you better match those with 11 or 12 win seasons. It's about moving the mean (with credit to my good pal CT). Dooley had the mean at roughly 5 wins. I think that Jones will move the mean to roughly 7. That's incremental to me. Tennessee doesn't have to grow that way. A mean of 5 wins is crap. Throw it out the window. it's not worth discussing. Tennessee never should have hired DD therefore our hires shouldn't be compared to him. Jones is not crap like Dooley. But, he isn't going to move the mean enough. Certainly not enough for a guaranteed $12 million (really it is a guaranteed $15 million since there is no way we fire him until after year 3). I don't hate Jones - but I do hate his use of trite cliches and I will likely grow very tired of him. However, it's not his fault that he got the call. I blame Hart and Cheek completely.
TT I expect Butch to move the mean to 9 wins. He is that good IMO. I do not think he will bring us a NC title. More SEC east titles type of run here. I expect he will be here for 6 years or so. He is too good to fall on his face and get canned.
Dinardo ran Saban off the field in 1995. Not a completely fair comparison being that it was Saban's first year with a shittier school under sanctions. But it's nice to throw out there without context.
The context is that the team Jones treats as his shining accomplishment got its brains kicked out by a team that lost to Kentucky.
It's worth pointing out that in Butch's best season he played around three teams with winning records and for blown off the field by an awful SEC team. His great teams were still garbage.
I will say this. I dont expect BJ to succeed. I want Hart and Cheek to be gone. I think this is a job that he has been waiting for and I really like that. I think that he will do his best, I dont know who his staff is going to be yet. Being reasonable I think he can get us back to post Fulmer/Kiffen era realistically. Time will tell, depends on his staff.
I'm still not 100% sure how awful we were before Hunter's knee injury. But it still looks pretty ugly. Also worth pointing out, in Butch's defense, that the only two conference games he lost that year were the game in which his starting QB broke his leg and the game immediately following his starting QB's broken leg.
