These threads get so long too quick I don't have time to read all the reponses. Jeremy I like the things you're sharing, I'm glad Leath is pushing Pollard to explore options and not have such a narrow search like he usually does. If you think about it when we fired Morgan it was basically GMac and I can't even remember the name anymore who at the time was a hot coach in Milwaukee I think. When we hired Fred not sure we even considered anyone else did we? This opening comes with a program on the verge of great things and I think it's great that Leath sees that we need to be very thorough with the process and not just anoint TJ because it's convenient and he has relationships with the players already. The program is at the point we should not just settle for the easy out and there are probably well qualified and proven coaches that we should evaluate before making this decision. We can't just look at putting all our eggs in 1 basket for this upcoming season, there is going to be a very crucial transition period right after this year and we have to have the right guy in place to be able to not fall back into mediocrity like we did under Morgan and GMac.
If you go back and look at Pollard's hires he has never done a very thorough search and other than Fred he's missed more times than he's hit a home run. What looked like great hires at the time turned out to be poor choices. Chizik blew up in our face, GMac was a bad fit, Rhoads looked good early on but now his job is on the line this season, Cael did well but we ultimately pushed a legend out the door to hire him then he turned around and screwed the program over when he left and took a bunch of guys with him and now we have Jackson who somehow got an extension for mediocrity. See a trend here... can we name anyone we were in talks with when we were searching for coaches at those times because the candidate pool was very small in all cases if I recall. I hope they are bringing in 4+ people to interview, 1 of them that Pollard may not have thought of as a top choice might just blow him away when they sit down and discuss the job or 1 of them may bring up something that Pollard wasn't considering and allow him to look at the search in a different light. This is not a bad thing people, ultimately after interviewing 4+ people if TJ is the guy Pollard and Leath think is the right guy then I am onboard but I'm glad to hear that Pollard is being pushed to not rush to a choice and evaluate all options.