Successful College Programs that were laid to waste when they ran off/fired their HC

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I like to use Bo Pelini as a cautionary tale about wanting their head coach replaced. In his 7 full years as head coach he won at least 9 games every year and they ran him out of town and the result was the decimation of a one of the great programs that still hasn't recovered .

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Firing Solich was more egregious and the actual beginning of the end.

You could argue outside of one Herman and Sarkisian year, UT hasn't been relevant since Mack Brown got shipped off. It was the right move, but they made the wrong hires.

Florida firing Dan Mullen for Billy Napier was pretty bad.

On a relative basis, FIU firing Cristobal and New Mexico firing Rocky Long were pretty egregious.

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Florida firing Dan Mullen for Billy Napier was pretty bad.

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Mullen had completely phoned it in at that point and basically given up even trying to recruit, but probably should have gotten one more year.

Michigan ran Lloyd Carr off and sucked for almost 15 years after.

Colorado with Gary Barnett was my first thought. They've had one winning season since he "resigned".

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I agree. Dabo is operating in a league that is at a major financial disadvantage and doesn't have the financial firepower to land those mega stars that can make an immediate impact like Cam Ward will do. Developing players out of High School is Dabo's strength and best way to recruit in the ACC. Sure, he should be able to use the portal a little but I don't want to be on FSU's roller coaster.

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There's a happy medium between being Colorado and so stubborn that you refuse to take a single portal player.

Dabo isn't getting fired any time in the foreseable future, so seems like a moot point.

The cautionary tale here isn't "don't fire your HC", it's "if you do fire a good/decent HC, you better damn well be SURE you're hiring an upgrade".

Sometimes the writing is simply on the wall and you know a guy has taken you as far as he can. There also needs to be a reality check of expectations as well. Back when Pelini/Nebraska was winning 9 games the NU admin probably though "that's bullshite, we should be winning 11 games a year and in natty convo every couple yeras". That's probably not a realistic expectation.

Let's take a school like florida though. After spurrier they had ron zook who was only there 3 years before they knew the jig was up. This wa sa big crossroads but they got Urban so it worked for them. Richt had clearly plateaued by the time we fired him in 2015 but we also made the right call. Plenty of schools have made the right call. Then you have schools like nebraska and tennessee that have made poor choices and just contuinually shot themselves in the foot, not simply because they fired a coach quickly but beacuse they keep hiring shite coaches.

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If Clemson finally runs Dabo off we could just as easily end being the next Nebraska

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100% dependent on the hire. Dabo is a worse version of mark richt if you take out the two #1 overall NFL draft phenom QBs he had. Venebales certainly was a huge factor as well. Without Deshaun/Trevor Dabo is basically an above average coach in a complete dogshit league. And considering his best days are clearly behind him and he refuses to adapt to the modern game, it's going to be in clemson's best interest to get someone better sooner rather than later. That is...if you want to actually copmete for natties. Clemson will make the playoffs or at least be in playoff contention every single year just because of how big of an utter joke the ACC is. So if playoff contention is your goal, stick with dabo. If national titles are your goal, this past Saturday should make it crystal clear how big the ever-expanding gap is between clemson and an actual title contender.

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I agree. Dabo is operating in a league that is at a major financial disadvantage and doesn't have the financial firepower to land those mega stars that can make an immediate impact like Cam Ward will do. Developing players out of High School is Dabo's strength and best way to recruit in the ACC. Sure, he should be able to use the portal a little but I don't want to be on FSU's roller coaster.

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Let's be honest. Dabo had the stars align to go on the run he went on. UGA, UF, FSU and Miami were all down. He saw his opportunity to get talent and won big. But now Kirby has UGA rolling, FSU has been better and Miami is starting to invest, Clemson is going backwards. It's not super complicated.

Arkansas firing Petrino was essentially a self-imposed death penalty for the football program for 12 years.

His firing literally caused the worst stretch in program history, with the Chad Morris shitfest as the crowning shite sandwich.

Amazingly, the University I guess is trying to reverse the moto curse now.