Tar Heel Fan

I can see this is going to be a long road, though all this flurry could be because we are early in the process.  I can only hope it slows down because I will have a lot of troube keeping pace otherwise. Here is what have at the end of the second day.

Turns out I was probably right about Butch Davis.  Caulton Tudor took it upon himself to contact Davis at his home in Ohio and Davis spoke about returning to coaching in general terms not mentioning UNC specifically:

“For me to say anything at all would be extremely premature. All I’m willing to say is that North Carolina’s a great job in my opinion,” Davis said. “I’m just saying in the most general sense, I want to get back in coaching, and that could be either the college level or the NFL.”

That seems to be a little scaled back from the earlier statement to the Charlotte Observer.  I think he is just playing the PR game and he is correct in pointing out it is still early in the process.  If UNC learned anything from the NC State basketball search they will deal with Davis right away and get a definitive, out of the public eye indication of his intentions so the search does not get bogged down with an embarassing courtship and rejection.

As for the process itself, Dick Baddour has indicated he will not use a formal search committee to find a new coach.  And in response to that news, a good portion of the UNC fanbase threw up in their mouth a little: 

“Hiring at this level is a lot about being able to maintain a level of confidence, so not having a large formal committee is helpful in the sense that you decrease the opportunity for speculation and word getting out — and thereby discouraging qualified applicants,” Baddour said. “It’s worthwhile to have the knowledge and experience and expertise of others, but you can get that without a formal committee.”

I honestly think the N&O printed that headline just to scare UNC fans to the death.  Actually what Baddour says here makes sense.  A large formalized committee has certain pitfalls, the most prominent being the leaking of information to the media.  Those kinds of leaks, which I pointed out earlier in reference to the Fayeteville Observer’s “source” can have a detrimental impact on a search of this nature.  It should also be noted that even the presence of a committee would not necessarily take decision out of Baddour’s hands unless James Moeser or Erskine Bowles dictated it would be that way.  If my understanding of the hierarchy at UNC is correct Baddour is still the AD and it is still his hire to make.  One can only hope he does a lot of listening to very knowledgeable people and makes a decision based on that information not on his own.

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This one courtesy of the Fayetteville Observer:

Sources told The Fayetteville Observer that UNC’s first target will be Steve Kragthorpe of Tulsa.

“Our top guy is at Tulsa,’’ the source said. “He was described to me as this year’s Urban Meyer.’’

Multiple sources said early Monday that UNC’s first choice would be Butch Davis, who last coached the NFL’s Cleveland Browns for four years before resigning in 2004. But several national reports, including one by CNN/SI.com said Davis may be more interested in coaching Alabama, if that job comes open.

“I don’t even think we’re talking to Butch Davis,’’ a source told The Observer.

West Virginia’s Rich Rodriguez and Navy’s Paul Johnson are others who may be contacted by UNC.

Okay, who can spot the blatant contradiction in the article?  That’s right the assertion that Kragthorpe is the top candidate followed by an assertion that, according to multiple sources, Butch Davis is the top candidate.  The latter tidbit is also not refuted by any of the sources but my rumors in the national media.  Then the Kragthorpe source follows up and says they are not even talking to Butch Davis.  And, Rich Rodriguez and Paul Johnson are also on the list too.

My take on this?  There is no way UNC is going to fully publicize their candidate list with details on who is on top of it at this point.   The source could be correct but I also think the source needs to shut up because if we learned anything from the NC State coaching search it is this thing can get really messy really fast the more the general public knows about what is happening behind the scenes.  Part of this game is managing coaches’ egos and some will be turned off by the idea that they are third or fourth choice so the last thing you want is everyone knowing who you considered to be the first or second or third choice before you talked to the next guy on the list.   Another part of this game is that everyone besides Butch Davis is right in the middle of a season and if they are discussing the job they would do so quietly as not to upset their current school or team.  The last think Kragthorpe wants to do is have to answer questions about whether he is talking to UNC or not.

So in my honest opinion the source or sources need to do the coaching search a favor and stay away from the media.  UNC administrators and boosters should all be in deep discussions now trying to put together a working strategy on building a football program and then decide which coach best fits the plan they have in place.  It is way too early in the process to be leaking candidate preferences to the media.

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Now that UNC has given John Bunting his noticed aside from groveling about for our dignity during the last five games of the season, the administration will be engaging in a coaching search. Now, Dick Baddour’s record on searching for a coach to head the two major revenue programs at UNC is abysmal. In fact it’s worse than abysmal considering that he is the only AD I know to hire and fire two football coaches as well as overseeing the hiring and forced resignation of the basketball coach in a major basketball program. So our first hope is that Baddour is kept far away from the process or listens to someone more versed in such things than himself. And it appears that might be the case since during the press conference today he indicated that UNC would retain the services of Chuck Neinas. Neinas is well known for assisting major college programs in their search for coaches and athletic directors which also makes me wonder if he would be willing to give UNC a two for the price of one deal.

Continue reading ‘The Short List’

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