Ray

[jasonscottinsc]

I understand the notion and agree, that there is much more to the AD job than just hiring. Perhaps he excelled in those areas, and those were more important than the hires.

But I disagree with the notion that a bad hire can be counted a s good hire because it seemed good at the time. It ended up a failure, so I cant count it as a good hire.

And as mentioned above, the extensions and raises and buyouts were mind boggling in some instances.

No, the point was simply against the argument that all he did was hire bad coaches. Sometimes you can hire good coaches that don't work out and that's more common than fans want to believe. I understand the frustration in how far the baseball team has fallen, but in my opinion, he made 2 seemingly good hires for baseball so I think some of the criticism is over the top. With extensions and such, I know for a fact that in some cases (including early in Muschamp's career here) that members of the Board told Tanner he needed to sign Muschamp to an extension before it was necessary. So again, the Board has a bigger role in all of this as they are the bosses.

 

[jasonscottinsc]

Did you really just do this? There is no way in the universe to rationalize that Ray was a good AD.

I think in some ways, he was good as stated in original post. And keeping up with the thread, he made hires that made sense that didn't work out, but that doesn't make him a crappy AD in my opinion. Having followed several other schools, I see this a lot, where seemingly good hires don't turn out so good. Tom Herman at Texas, Chad Morris at Arkansas, Scott Frost at Nebraska, Charlie Weis at Notre Dame, Chris Mack (basketball) at Louisville, Billy Gillespie at UK, Tennessee women's basketball hasn't sniffed a final four since Summit retired. It's the same thing in recruiting... sometimes kids are a bust. Everyone needs a fall-guy though.

 

[Lurker123]

No, the point was simply against the argument that all he did was hire bad coaches. Sometimes you can hire good coaches that don't work out and that's more common than fans want to believe. I understand the frustration in how far the baseball team has fallen, but in my opinion, he made 2 seemingly good hires for baseball so I think some of the criticism is over the top. With extensions and such, I know for a fact that in some cases (including early in Muschamp's career here) that members of the Board told Tanner he needed to sign Muschamp to an extension before it was necessary. So again, the Board has a bigger role in all of this as they are the bosses.

I can grant the board interference. I still cant buy the idea that a bad hire was a good hire " at the time".

Im comfortable with the logic behind it. I understand what youre saying, I just disagree.

 

[Benjdan]

I think in some ways, he was good as stated in original post. And keeping up with the thread, he made hires that made sense that didn't work out, but that doesn't make him a crappy AD in my opinion. Having followed several other schools, I see this a lot, where seemingly good hires don't turn out so good. Tom Herman at Texas, Chad Morris at Arkansas, Scott Frost at Nebraska, Charlie Weis at Notre Dame, Chris Mack (basketball) at Louisville, Billy Gillespie at UK, Tennessee women's basketball hasn't sniffed a final four since Summit retired. It's the same thing in recruiting... sometimes kids are a bust. Everyone needs a fall-guy though.

I disagree. It was more than just coaching hires.

 

[SouthernBelly]

No, the point was simply against the argument that all he did was hire bad coaches. Sometimes you can hire good coaches that don't work out and that's more common than fans want to believe. I understand the frustration in how far the baseball team has fallen, but in my opinion, he made 2 seemingly good hires for baseball so I think some of the criticism is over the top. With extensions and such, I know for a fact that in some cases (including early in Muschamp's career here) that members of the Board told Tanner he needed to sign Muschamp to an extension before it was necessary. So again, the Board has a bigger role in all of this as they are the bosses.

In regards to your post that got this particular discussion going- Agree 100% on Holbrook and will add that he was key in building the roster for those CWS teams. But beyond that plenty of fans questioned the other hires at the time, some much more than others but it hasn’t been armchair thoughts solely based on the results.

Regarding the BoT, yes they are too blame too. I’ve been big on that for a long time and it’s been a growing sentiment. But the AD has a specific area of interest so when a board member suggests something stupid in your AOR as the AD then the AD is to tell them it’s stupid.