With all of the talk surrounding the problems of the current coaching staff and past failures of other head coaches we hired, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at former Tech assistant coaches whom we somehow allowed to leave for other coaching jobs. I would submit to you that this is not an all inclusive list and in some cases the timing wasn't right to have hired some of these people as head coach. However, what I do feel is that there has been a historic failure by the Tech Athletic Directors and others who have shared a hand in analyzing the coaching talent we had on hand.
Here is a list of some former Tech assistants...
Distant past:
Bill Parcells
Romeo Crennel
Grant Teaff
Art Briles (before the Baylor scandal)
More recently:
Sonny Dykes
Sonny Cumbie
Neal Brown
Seth Littrell
Lincoln Riley
How can so many who were so good not hired to take over at Tech? I think the biggest name who we fanned on was Grant Teaff. He was such an obvious choice to succeed here. He is from Snyder, his wife was a Tech cheerleader and he was already at Tech. He reportedly wanted the Tech job badly and I think not hiring Teaff set this program back for decades.
Now even if hired, some of the older guys who went on to greatness may not have stayed at Tech very long. Regarding the younger coaches still in the game, the jury is still out on just how good they will be but an argument can certainly be made that we would be better off right now with any of them.
So the point is that while it's easy (and appropriate) to blame the head coach for failure on the field, the fact is that athletic directors (KH included) has made it a tradition of letting very good coaches get away and instead have made very poor decisions on who they did hire. See Steve Sloan, Rex Dockery, Jerry Moore, David McWilliams, Tommy Tuberville, Kliff Kingsbury and of course the current genius, Matt Wells.
Many years ago, I recall that prior to the Tech-Vanderbilt Peach Bowl game, a Nashville writer called Tech a "Sleeping Giant". Will somebody please give Kirby a wakeup call?
Here is a list of some former Tech assistants...
Distant past:
Bill Parcells
Romeo Crennel
Grant Teaff
Art Briles (before the Baylor scandal)
More recently:
Sonny Dykes
Sonny Cumbie
Neal Brown
Seth Littrell
Lincoln Riley
How can so many who were so good not hired to take over at Tech? I think the biggest name who we fanned on was Grant Teaff. He was such an obvious choice to succeed here. He is from Snyder, his wife was a Tech cheerleader and he was already at Tech. He reportedly wanted the Tech job badly and I think not hiring Teaff set this program back for decades.
Now even if hired, some of the older guys who went on to greatness may not have stayed at Tech very long. Regarding the younger coaches still in the game, the jury is still out on just how good they will be but an argument can certainly be made that we would be better off right now with any of them.
So the point is that while it's easy (and appropriate) to blame the head coach for failure on the field, the fact is that athletic directors (KH included) has made it a tradition of letting very good coaches get away and instead have made very poor decisions on who they did hire. See Steve Sloan, Rex Dockery, Jerry Moore, David McWilliams, Tommy Tuberville, Kliff Kingsbury and of course the current genius, Matt Wells.
Many years ago, I recall that prior to the Tech-Vanderbilt Peach Bowl game, a Nashville writer called Tech a "Sleeping Giant". Will somebody please give Kirby a wakeup call?
