Clemson baseball: social norms or simple limited thinking...

Apr 25, 2015, 11:50 AM

the debate ranges at a sister site to TNET as to whether or not "a HOF coach can be fired after winning the ACC Tournament".

Obviously the question at hand is whether Jack Leggett should/could be fired if the team gets miraculously hot and sweeps through the ACC tourney and into the NCAA's. Aspects of the argument in that site have been extended to the possibility that the Tigers could "possibly" get hot enough to sweep through the regionals and win out in Omaha. The statement has then been made that "you can't fire a coach who has just won the National Championship".

My question is whether or not people agree with these "unwritten laws" or whether people see them as possible limitations to the athletic leadership doing what is best for Clemson.

To that end, I simply give you:

Ralph Friedgen, former head football coach at Maryland, 2001-2010. Fridge was fired after conspicuously winning the ACC Coach of the Year award in 2010, leading the 9-4 Terps to 2nd place in the ACC Atlantic, and winning a minor Bowl game. This was quite a bounce back from a 2-10 season in the year before. Overall, Freidgen obviously wasn't HOF, but did win the ACC once and went to a BCS game, won 8 or more games 6 out of 10 years, and had an overall winning percentage of 60%.

Gene Chizik, former head football coach of Auburn, 2009 to 2012. Chizik wasn't fired immediately after winning the SEC and the Natty in 2010, but nearly enough, lasting only two more seasons with the War Eagles. Overall, Chizik won 63% of his games to include going 3-0 in Bowls, and had 8+ win seasons in 3 out of 4 years.

It's interesting to note that while Maryland's football fortunes have not improved significantly with Randy Edsall at the helm, Auburn seems to be prospering after the highly debated hire of Gus Malzahn. Auburn has notably gone 20-7 in two years, including an SEC Championship and a return to the National Championship game, in the two years since USAToday printed an article entitled "Auburn hiring Malzahn is another step in wrong direction".

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and whether anyone really thinks these scenarios COULD come to fruition or whether anyone thinks Jack should be fired at all.

I'm asking because I've always held that Clemson as a school dodged one incredibly monstrous bullet when Tommy Bowden left and Dabo was hired. Quite frankly, I've always felt it was the worst possible means to go about making a change, and to have gotten what we have has been almost miraculous. As a contrast, other schools have used very sound approaches to succession planning and still have wound up with mediocre hires: Maryland, UNCheat, Miami, etc. - the list goes on and on.

But there's no doubt that the Bowden situation was a festering wound at Clemson for so long specifically because of the so-called "Social Norms" of when and how you can and can't fire a coach. There's no doubt that the Administration was torn simply because of the benchmarks that Bowden WAS hitting: always competitive for the league championship ("a play away"), always beat his rival, always recruited well and represented Clemson well, etc. etc.

But it was exactly those "norms" that created the issue of when or if Bowden should leave, and now seem to be rearing their collective ugly heads again with Leggett to the point where the politics of the situation greatly obscure the underlying trouble with the program.

I was simply asking if people on the Board here found themselves in the AD's position, would they feel constrained to the point of not making a change by the arguments being made: HOF coach, possible ACC championship run, possible NCAA championship run, etc.

Clemson baseball: social norms or simple limited thinking...

Re: Clemson baseball: social norms or simple limited thinking...

Tell the people who are making that argument to get

Re: Tell the people who are making that argument to get

that it was Gus (and Cam) and not Cheesedick was pretty obvious

Re: Clemson baseball: social norms or simple limited thinking...

TCI, I presume?

no, not Jack, and it doesn't matter where...

What is Chizik win % WSNC ????

point made - these were just for comparison purposes though

Actually the reason I ask has nothing to do with Jack per se

Winning the ACC tourney isn't that far fetched....

i believe Ralph Friedgen was sposed to step down and umd

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