RichRod was Bama's first choice, and they essentially had him until Michigan jumped in and signed him. Saban was 2nd choice.

I must admit, I do occasionally wonder what the world would look like if Saban had landed at Michigan.

man how the hell could mullen not be a candidate for florida?

He and Foley apparently don't get along.

lol fire foley then

well I'm not even going to bother putting a number on Spurrier, for obvious reasons. A general order:

*Malzahn 10 (Made Gene Chizik look brilliant, for real)
*Patterson 10 (Defensive mastermind who turned a deadend into a Boise State gatecrasher, and now competing for Big12 and a playoff berth, with wholesale changes on defense and offensive schemes.)
*RichRod 8 (Michigan was largely a debacle, but actually looked good by the end. He's had a lot of success)
*Stoops 8 (Wait, which Stoops are we talking about here? The one from Oklahoma, right?)
*Gundy 7 (Steady results at the 2nd most prestigious team in all of Oklahoma. His offensive coordinators get hired away as HCs every year or two. Downside; believes in reduced contact time in practice--just be ready for complaints from old school types)
*Mullen 7
*Freeze 7 (Just ignore the Michigan fans on this one)
*Hudspeth 6 (Lacks HC experience in a P5 conference. I think he's the next Malzahn/Freeze up & comer who's over his station right now. Downside; I hear he likes the hookers and the strangulation thing)
*McElwain 6 (Colorado State is still not P5, but he's turned them around nicely. Not as conservative as he appeared while Saban's OC)
*Stoops 5 (The Kentucky one, meh...successful DC, 1 year HC sorta good so far...)
*Stoops 3 (The idiot one who was HC at a PAC12 school before they all got real TV money and could afford real coaches)

Fulmer 3
A Little Girl 2
Muschamp 1
LOLShanahan 0

So, you're pretty much OK with this group. If you hear "Stoops" check a little further. The first two are great coaches and if you get either you should fist pump. Everyone else has some level of concern or hangup, but as long as you're prepared to bury a few bodies they still bring a lot to the table. Until you hit the 2nd level Stoops. You might also swap Fulmer with a little girl. You might get Art Briles (Baylor) added to the list soon, and he'd probably be around Gundy-RichRod level.

Just my opinion.

michigan fans have bad things to say about Freeze?

Florida is apparently interested in Marshall's coach. He has Florida ties or something.

Ju$t that he'$ a bit $ketchy when it come$ to gettin recruit$.

Oh and he may not be the goat in game guy

Otherwise he's great

oh yeah treadwell i remember

Not sure 7-6 (3-5) in the BUG counts as kicking ass, although somehow that team made it to the Sugar Bowl the next year.

The whole thing was a mix of RichRod arrogance and misunderstanding the fan-base (no tolerance for a multi-year rebuild, even if it ends up with a stronger product), a complete mismatch of players on the team vs. what RichRod was trying to accomplish (at least at the beginning). He of course was handcuffed by the administration and had no defense partially due to that. Add in the fan base of Michigan that still thinks it's 1975 and anything other than 3 yards and a cloud of dust isn't football, and it's a huge recipe for disaster. Lots of screwups by pretty much everyone involved. Think RichRod also had some statements about Ohio State being just another game, etc..., which pissed off a lot of blue hairs in that he didn't "get" Michigan football, thus the need for a "Michigan Man" in Hoke. Firing him for a top notch coach would have been fine. Firing him for Hoke was loltastic. Add in 3 years with not even a competitive score against MSU or Ohio State, and he was doomed.

This guy gets it

There was no mismatch of players. We had no players. We returned one starter on offense when RR took over.

That's not what happened. RR turned down Bama the year before he took the job at Michigan.

Holiday pretty much nailed the coach ratings. As much as I like Malzahn, Patterson would be my #1 choice as a head coach. His defenses are very good and now they are running a high octane offense to go with it. He is doing it with recruiting classes in the 40-60 range. Imagine what he'd do at Florida.

Arkansas reached out to him and the word was that he is making a **** ton of money through business deals with TCU boosters. He doesn't seem to be interested in leaving so far.

I could see Bob Stoops leaving OU for Florida or Michigan. His recruiting classes are going the wrong direction. They typically always signed a top 10 class. Lately it's been closer to fringe top 15 classes and now they are hovering in that 20-30 range. It just seems like it might be time for a change.

RR getting guys who have no idea how to run a 335 to attempt to run a 335 was pretty great. To be honest, if the athletic department would have got casteel a cell phone, good chance RR is still coach

I honestly don't see it being Malzahn. Malzahn is well paid, and I doubt that it is any easier to win a NC at Florida than it is at Auburn. He also has a very strong QB in the pipeline.

I honestly think that it will be Gundy. I actually think that RichRod would be very successful and a good fit.

I don't trust Mullen to put out a good team every year. Like Chizik, Mullen is (or was) riding the coattails of a QB playing at a very high level.

Has Chris Peterson been as big of a failure as it looks like from the outside? 3 NFL first round draft picks on defense after kicking one off already and he's below average in the Pac. Also, the end of last game vs AZ was horrendous for not kneeling.

There's a lot of talent/injury issues for UW. QBs have been awful. I think a lot of their issues are more with what was left for Peterson than anything he's been doing wrong.

John Bacon's book on the RichRod thing is really good.

The biggest meaningful negative is that he basically didn't attempt to recruit offensive lineman, and that's still impacting Michigan today.

Really? Hmm...well I'll admit the Mike Shula years led to a lot of tuning out on my part. Something, something, "halftime adjustments are over rated and I need to express my feelings facially, even if I'm just really really confused and scared by what's happening on the field and I probably wore a diaper to hide the pee and poop signals from tipping my hand", something, something.

To be fair, quite a few transferred, and some of that blame is going to come on RichRod not adapting to the talent on board. You lost two really good players in Justin Boren and Ryan Mallett. Now Boren was more of a personality clash (although a few other transfers had that issue), and Mallett was someone who could have been reassured and utilized better. Urban Meyer didn't kick Chris Leak to the curb, he used him as a transition. RichRod could have certainly handled the transition period better, although it might have been better for the longer term to just cut ties, suck for a few years, and be back. I think he underestimated how much support he had to a longer term effort. That's certainly on him. Forcing out a future NFL QB to try to work on a system where you still don't have the people to really run was incredibly foolish.

Mallet was ****ing told to leave by Carr. He couldn't have been reassured gtfo.

I think Mallet was probably headed for Arkansas regardless of who we hired. Boren's transfer boils down to the Boren family being angry about no offer for little bro.

I can understand coaches evaluating the talent onhand to their overall plan and deciding whether to burn year 1 or try to win with it. I don't follow recruiting, but have a hard time believing Florida is faced with an actual talent deficit such that a good coach won't decide to try to win titles immediately.

YOLO and he could die or something before year 2.