COACHES HOT SEAT BLOG

We were certainly not surprised that Clemson fired Tommy Bowden in the middle of the season, because there have been serious problems with the level of play and the intensity of the Clemson football team in recent years.  The Alabama game to open the season was a great example of everything that has gone wrong at Clemson, but against Bama all of the problems, not having the team prepared to play, bad coaching, bad play calling, and a Clemson team that was leaderless and not ready to play football, all came together on one night and the end result was:  Alabama 34 – Clemson 10.  At the Georgia Dome the night that Alabama blasted Clemson a couple of us here at Coaches Hot Seat were sitting behind the Clemson bench and not only did the Clemson players flat out quit in that game against the Tide, there was not a real leader in sight on this Clemson football team.  After the Alabama debacle, Tommy Bowden and his staff started to ask a lot more of the Clemson football players for the first time in years, and when players are suddenly asked to do a lot more than they have done in the past, the players rightfully begin to push back from the comfortable life they have gotten used to in their playing career.  If anything, Tommy Bowden’s firing should be a great lesson to head football coaches everywhere that once you lower the standards and expectations for your football team and players, it is next to damn impossible to raise those standards again.  If you want to build a winning football program, a coach never asking less, or rather not demanding maximum effort, from all of your players is never the way to go, because not demanding and expecting excellence of your players will ALWAYS come back to bite your ass somewhere down the road.  Please, don’t tell us here at Coaches Hot Seat that these football players cannot handle a tough coach and demanding practices, because it has been proven in the history of our country that our young people in the 18 to 22 range can handle almost damn anything that you ask of them.   

 

We got a good laugh out of Clemson QB Cullen Harper’s Daddy immediately running his mouth in the press about Tommy Bowden and the way he was trying to coach his players, and got a great laugh that Cullen Harper’s Daddy used his one year playing for Bear Bryant as an example for what was wrong with Tommy Bowden.  We have some news for Daddy Harper, your boy Cullen Harper wouldn’t have been a waterboy on one of Bear Bryant’s teams at Alabama, because not only is Cullen Harper a pitiful leader, not only has Cullen Harper played terrible and uninspired football in 2008, but Cullen Harper and the Clemson team he was supposed to be leading flat out quit against Alabama earlier this season.  Of course, if Daddy Harper had learned anything in that one year playing for Bear Bryant, he would have kept his mouth shut and let his son speak up for himself, but it is obvious that Daddy Harper believes that his son is not MAN enough to stand for himself.  Yes, that is acting with a lot of class Daddy Harper, which we thought you had learned from playing for Bear Bryant, Vince Dooley, and Bum Phillips.  It is just pitiful that a player’s father would run to get his name in the press when he has a 22 year old son that can speak for himself, but Daddy’s speaking out and defending their little baby 22 year old sons is unfortunately not that unusual anymore in our society.

 

With Tommy Bowden now down the road and Dabo Sweeney in the big job at Clemson, the attention now turns to the next head coach at Clemson and we believe that there will be dozens of very good head and assistant coaches lined up for what is one of the best jobs in the South.  Long time South Carolina play-by-play announcer Bob Fulton said it best:  “A coach has to fit into the mold of the school, the community, and the state.”  Never has that been more true today with the amount of pressure that is on college head football coaches to win early and to win big, and hiring a coach that does not fit into the basic underlying culture of the school and the surrounding community only makes building a winning football program all that much harder.  Just in the past couple of seasons there have been 6 or 7 coaches hired that do not fit the culture of their school and the surrounding community, and those coaches are having and will have tremendous difficulty, especially as they struggle in their first few years.  Clemson must get this head coaching search right, and the people at Clemson conducting this search must make sure that they hire a coach that not only is competent in his abilities, but also someone that can very quickly change the entire culture within the Clemson football program.

 

With that being said here are our Top 14 Coaches to replace Tommy Bowden at Clemson (in alphabetical order by last name):

 

Mike Bobo, Georgia offensive coordinator

Dave Christensen, Missouri offensive coordinator

Bud Foster, Virginia Tech defensive coordinator

Todd Graham, Tulsa head coach

Bobby Johnson, Vanderbilt head coach

Mike Leach, Texas Tech head coach

Brian Kelly, Cincinnati head coach

Jim Leavitt, USF head coach

Jerry Moore, Appalachian State head coach

Will Muschamp, Texas defensive coordinator 

Gary Patterson, TCU head coach

Charlie Strong, Florida defensive coordinator

Brent Venables, Oklahoma defensive coordinator

Kevin Wilson, Oklahoma offensive coordinator

 

We are going to be fascinated to watch this coaching search at Clemson because it would be very easy for the people conducting the search to lose sight of what really needs to happen if Clemson wants to become a real force in college football, and we have no doubt that the right coach can not only change the entire culture at Clemson, but also very quickly turn Clemson into a big winner.  Changing the entire culture within the Clemson football program and building a consistent and solid winner, both on the field, in the classroom, and in the community should be paramount in the minds of the people hiring the next head football coach at Clemson.

 

On a parting note, Good Luck to you Tommy Bowden.  We have no doubt you worked your ass off, you did your best, and sometimes in life things just don’t work out.  That is the very nature of life, and we have no doubt that after a well-needed rest, that Tommy Bowden will find many more challenges to take on as the rest of his life unfolds.  Tommy Bowden should count himself lucky that he has had the opportunity to coach at the highest level of college football, and that he has had the opportunity to meet the challenges that come with leading a big-time college football program, and get paid a lot of money while doing it.  We all should be so lucky! 

 

Good Luck to you Tommy Bowden. 

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