I've been riding shotgun on the Butch bandwagon for 2 years. But now, the more I think about it, the less certain I am about the Butch hire.
I was around back during the Butch days. I remember the chaos on the sidelines, the clock mismanagement, Butch's ultra conservative nature, the losses to less talented teams. People say he's better now, he's fixed those problems. What evidence is there of that? UNC was the last time he coached and I'm fairly certain he exhibited a lot of these same negatives there.
Yes he can recruit but what does he do with those recruits? That 2009 UNC team had a lot of talent yet went 8-5, 4-4 in the acc. They lost 24-7 to GT and 16-3 to UVA. Butch couldn't manage better than tied for third in the acc during his UNC tenure. The only time he's had a 10 win season is when he had arguably one of the most talented college squads of all time. Yes he gets credit for putting that together but how replicable is that? Who knows. And can he win big without an insurmountable talent advantage?
Of all of the above, I think my biggest problem with Butch might be his extreme conservative nature. We're talking about a guy who punts from the opponents 40. Who takes a knee and runs out the clock when there is 1 min left before the half. A guy who will sit on the ball and play defense when he's up by 10 at the beginning of the 4th.
I'm kind of tired of these conservative coaches. Coker...conservative. Shannon....conservative. Golden....ultra conservative. I'm ready for a ball busting, run up the score, don't give a *** risk taking coach. From everything I can tell, that guy is Tom Herman. The best part about Herman is that we don't have to speculate on coordinators and how good they'll be. He's an offensive guru and he'd bring Todd Orlando who is a badass dc with the resume and results to back it up. OC and DC...check and check. Sure there's some risk since he's only coached 8 games or whatever, but there's risk with all these candidates, even Butch as outlined above. All that being said, I'd still be thrilled with Butch. I'm just not convinced he's the best candidate out there.
LMAO. Its funny how now that Butch actually seems like it may be a realistic possibility, people are starting to get cold feet and panic and the reality is starting to set back in. For the record, I agree with most of this post. Ive said many times I think Butch is probably our best bet, but I do have some serious concerns as I remember a lot of the issues during his stint both here and UNC as HC. He's not the miracle worker cant miss hire panacea many people are making him out to be.
I could definitely get down with someone like Herman. Ive also been intrigued by someone like Pagano.
I would be more than ok with us hiring Butch, I just hope we have the money to hire a top notch staff. Im under no delusions that Butch is just going to walk in here and kill it like some people are. Just think its funny that the old "be careful what you wish for" thing seems to be getting closer. People couldn't wait for Butch when it was a long shot, now that it seems possible, people are starting to remember the reality and look at this thing realistically and getting nervous.
That said I pretty much co sign this post.
