The AntiBowden

In the quest to find the next Clemson coach I have gone out and researched some more about another one of the fan favorites: Vanderbilt's own Bobby Johnson.

First off, a good place to start is his Wikepedia article.

It's hard to find something you don't like about this guy by reading about him. He's had a good career, he's even coached at Clemson before. He took Furman to the promised land while he was the head coach there. He's taken Vanderbilt from the whipping boy of the SEC to an actual tough team. He's a hard worker, a good Christian man, he doesn't allow any foul language, and everybody likes him.

My biggest problem with him, is this:
2002 Vanderbilt 2–10 0–8 6th (East)
2003 Vanderbilt 2–10 1–7 5th (East)
2004 Vanderbilt 2–9 1–7 6th (East)
2005 Vanderbilt 5–6 3–5 5th (East)
2006 Vanderbilt 4–8 1–7 6th (East)
2007 Vanderbilt 5–7 2–6 6th (East)

Now, I know this is Vandy. They don't even have an Athletic department. They used to be an automatic win every year for everybody in the SEC. Even South Carolina used to count them as an automatic win, that's how bad they were. Still... how long do we want to wait to be a contender? 6 years is a long time to have that little of an improvement. He also took a while to get Furman going, and even though they did make it to the championship they still didn't win it. So now, in his late 50's, would he have the fire and determination we'd need out of a head coach?

However, this year he's got the 'dores off to a 5-1 start, which is their best ever. Still, they just dropped a "letdown" game to a Mississippi State team that just isn't that impressive. Worse still is what you can find in the post game quotes:

"All the things we were doing when we won five games, we didn't do a very good job with today. That's just the difference between winning and losing, especially when we take on teams with a lot of talent like Mississippi State. We had too many penalties, dropped balls, and too many missed tackles. We couldn't seem to make the big play and that's what seems to happen to you when you don't win. We will try to bounce back. Our guys are pretty resilient and our coaching staff will be too. It is tough to be that close and not get a win."

While not quite as brain dead, that statement sounds an awful lot like Tommy Bowden. Blame the players' "execution," instead of talking about what the coaches could have done differently.

Even more damning is this:

On Vanderbilt's offensive struggles:
"I think it definitely had to do with Mississippi State. They did a good job with that week off and showed us something a little bit different. They also have good players doing it too. We probably weren't as sharp as we had been but you have to give them a lot of credit for making some big plays and they did a real good job in coverage. It looked like when we had some momentum, we would get a penalty to stop us."

So in other words, they came out and did something unexpected on defense, but you weren't able to make the proper adjustments to counter their strategy, so you're blaming penalties (the players) instead of strategy. That's not good. That's the same thing we've experienced at Clemson for the last 9 and a half years.

Then there's the issue of allegiance. Yes, Johnson is a Clemson man, but would he actually leave Vandy? They really like him there, plus, he doesn't have an AD to deal with. That's a pretty sweet gig for a head coach. All he has to do is win a couple of SEC games a year and people think he's the greatest coach in the world... why would he leave?

All in all, Bobby Johnson is a good coach, and he would be a good coach at Clemson. We'd win 8 or 9 games a year and we might even sniff the ACC championship game. He has the same type of Bob Jones mentality of Bowden and that would probably lead to a clean program with not that many arrests. While that's all well and good, it's not enough for me to want him as our next head coach. It is my conclusion that he would not be a good hire and he would not take us to the next level. Unfortunately, the goal of our Administration doesn't actually seem to be winning championships, but rather having a clean program that sells tickets.

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Posted by Tom on Sunday, October 12, 2008 | Permalink