When I last left off the sordid tale of how the University of Tennessee ended up with one of the best possible candidates as its new head coach, former Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt, we had just hit the part of the story where former UT athletic director John Currie offered the job to Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano, allegedly at booster Jimmy Haslam’s insistence.
GREG SCHIANO, THE WRONG MAN FOR ANY JOB
When it comes to hiring a football coach, there are about 10 million names that would cross my mind before I would think of hiring former Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano. And I’m not talking about real people, at this point. I would just make up names or pick minor Star Wars characters like Jek Porkins or Bib Fortuna over Schiano. I’d go through the entire Star Trek lexicon and then onto Lord of the Rings. Would Melilot Brandybuck, Barliman Butterbur or Mat Heathertoes make a better head coach than Greg Schiano? By the one ring I say it is so!
The truth is, I wouldn’t hire Schiano to clean the toilets at a Denny’s. I can’t believe he’s employed at Ohio State right now and can only figure it’s come to pass because of some incriminating evidence on head coach Urban Meyer in Schiano’s possession.
Tennessee was prepared to make Greg Schiano the nation's 16th highest-paid coach… but sure, blame the fans for revolting. https://t.co/QVSzsaMUhL
— SEC Mike (@MichaelWBratton) December 11, 2017
Schiano has been a head coach twice. While many people, including some dumbass sportswriters who wanted to defend Schiano’s hiring by Tennessee, want to hype his accomplishments at Rutgers, his record was a measly 68-67. The year before he left for the Bucs, the Scarlet Knights went 4-8. He didn’t do a bad job, but there was no reason for any NFL team to look at him. The Buccaneers did, hired him, and paid the price.
Schiano was 11-21 as the Bucs head coach, completely ruined Josh Freeman’s promising young career, and is most famous today for calling blitzes against the opposing team’s victory formation in two separate games. He was a piece of shit.
From 2013 to 2015 he was not on a collegiate of professional football staff. For some reason, Meyer saw fit to toss him a bone in the 2016 off-season. Presumably after stumbling over Schiano asleep on a sewer grate in the middle of the street and feeling sorry for him.
Greg Schiano’s face after an Ohio State fan yelled, “F**k you, Tennessee!” pic.twitter.com/nyZ7wcoYpa
— James Grega Jr. (@JGrega11) December 3, 2017
Just from a football standpoint alone, Schiano would have been a ridiculous hire. But there was some other baggage following Greggy-poo around that, again, Currie could have discovered with a Google search. Hell, maybe he tried and accidentally used Bing. If you buy a new PC, it can happen.
Here’s what he would have found really quick in the search results. From 1990-1995, Schiano was on the defensive staff at Penn State, first as a graduate assistant for a year, then as a defensive backs coach. His boss during that time? None other than Jerry Sandusky.
While Schiano has denied any knowledge of Sandusky’s recurrent child rape, some of it happening inside Penn State facilities, his name was brought up as a witness in Mike McQueary’s deposition.
Tennessee's MOU with Greg Schiano lacked signature required to make it binding, document showshttps://t.co/fvGiEfvVpf
— Blake Toppmeyer (@btoppmeyer) December 11, 2017
Now, that’s all hearsay and such, but do any of us really believe none of these Penn State coaches knew what the hell was going on with Sandusky?
Well, you know who can do a Google search? Tennessee fans, boosters and lawmakers. And wouldn’t you know it? They found out all about Schiano’s Sandusky-related history and decided they wanted nothing to do with him at the University of Tennessee. A university that just recently settled a big sexual harassment lawsuit and had a couple of football players on trial for rape.
In spite of a “memo of understanding” between Currie and Schiano, Tennessee’s fan base went bat-shit crazy. They marched through the campus and state representatives looked at their own legal options to stop the hire since Tennessee is a state university. It was a nightmare, but here’s the part that really blew my mind; it all worked.
People I haven't noticed on any hotlists: Greg Schiano, Butch Jones
— NashVolGuy (@NashVolGuy) December 2, 2017
For the first time that I can remember, a fan base looked at a coach that was as good as hired and just said, “nope.” They literally took the streets, to radio, to TV, to Twitter, to Facebook, Instagram and Youtube and ended that nonsense right there.
UT pulled the offer. Schiano would not be the next Vols head coach.
It was an embarrassment, but not for any of the reasons the national sports media wanted to portray. The shame was all based on Currie (via Haslam) offering Schiano the job in the first place. The fact that some toothless hillbilly with a CB radio in Rogersville knew more than the athletic director of the university should embarrass everybody.
CURRIE’S LAST DAYS
Currie, who had been the athletic director at Kansas State from 2009-2016, was rightly humbled by the entire cluster elf as he should have been. Not just over the Schiano fiasco, which was historic in its flubbery, but for everything that had gone on before.
First, he’d kept Butch Jones just long enough to decimate the early 2018 recruiting class. Second, he had let UT be beaten out in a coaching hire by Florida again. For the second time this decade, the Gators and Vols both had coaching openings at the same time and pursued the same guy. And for the second time, Florida had won out, signing former Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen to replace Jim McElwain.
John Currie was gonna pay Greg fckn Schiano $4.4M a year lol
— Cameron Rancher (@Rancher24) December 11, 2017
Mullen and former Oregon head coach Chip Kelly were apparently the top two guys on Currie’s list and he lost both of them to other schools. Kelly, at least, you could understand. He signed with UCLA in a conference and recruiting area he was familiar with. Losing Mullen to Florida was inexcusable. Especially since the same thing had happened back in 2011 with Will Muschamp.
What was making Florida, a nearly identical job in the same conference with the same money, a more appealing job than the one offered by Tennessee?
In case you ever feel unqualified, remember that John Currie got millions for not knowing how coaching searches work, Herm Edwards got millions for not knowing how coaching works (or what his team's mascot is), and Mark Emmert gets millions for not knowing how colleges work.
— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) December 6, 2017
The answer was simple. At Florida you didn’t have to deal with shitheads like Jimmy Haslam, John Currie or Currie’s predecessor Dave Hart. The problem with the Tennessee job wasn’t the school or the players. The problem was the athletic administration and its biggest booster.
To be continued…
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