I honestly don’t get the hate for Blake. Maybe I’m blind. The guy fires Golden mid season. Went out and hired a coach that 80% of the fan base was happy with with SEC coaching experience.
I stopped here.
1. It was Frenk who fired him.
2. Let's assume James actually ran the athletic department and had total autonomy. That means the following things were on him:
- Giving Golden 5 Years
- Not persuading Golden to bring in a DC
- Hiring Richt
- Allowing Richt to hire his son
- Allowing Richt to be the OC (to start with)
- Allowing Richt to be the OC after 2016
- Allowing Richt to be the OC after 2017 (when we regressed on offense)
- Extending Richt
3. I don't understand why people thought the Richt was good to begin with. If you examine the hire at the time, it made no sense for a few reasons. What was the likelihood of anyone, with such a large sample of HC experience at the P5 level, outperforming their prior tenure. Richt isn’t some young HC learning on the job. He is an old man and his sample size/track record are well established. The book is probably closed and his ceiling is likely established.
Over the last 30 years, how many coaches with 10 years or more experience (as a P5 HC at one school) are suddenly able to just outperform their prior tenure. One comes to mind but when he left his prior program it was nowhere near the level of his new program. That name is Mack Brown and UNC was nothing like UT.
If the goal is to win the ACC, make the playoffs and win it all; why hire someone who can't do that?