Been grumbling about Mullen over here for a while. A lot don't think he can get them back to Spurrier/Meyer territory. It's going to get louder now.
Mel Tucker is the hottest of hot names right now. Pretty fascinating rise for him. I love him but didn't include him in my list cause he literally just left Colorado and barely knew his parking spot at Michigan State. But locally the buzz has been hit for him and today Bruce Feldman came out nationally and talked him up for the job. Very interesting. Between him, a Napier, or a Fickle you're talking about all young very outstanding recruiters and leaders of men all very organized and all highly respected who have been at the biggest programs in the nation.
He's 14-12 as an NCAA HC and if you add his record as an interim NFL HC, he is 16-15. A bit of a thin resume, to be fair.
It's crazy crazy thin. I think almost too thin. Maybe it's a Sean McVay or Mike Tomlin deal though where when you interview you him you know you gotta hire him because if you don't do it now he's gonna be gone and somewhere else and harder if not impossible to get? Kinda crazy. Mel did land 12 new starters via the transfer portal and is 7 and 0 with them. So he's maximizing the current climate of college ball better than anyone.
I was really excited to see how he would do at Purdue after killing it at Louisville, @Herb. Though Louisville can be like Cincinnati in that sometimes the coaches there become Brian Kelly and sometimes they become Butch Jones. Lots of talent in those surrounding areas and they benefit at times from their geography. He's not really impressed much at Purdue in terms of a program builder for me. He has led some big upsets and they always seem to put in really good DL or hybrid LB into the league and have a history of good qb play there. He's never coached at a school bigger than Purdue and never more in the south than Louisville so for our job I would pass, but he's gotten some great receivers there recently. What is your view on him?
Pretty much the same. He seemed to be a hot commodity a couple of years back. I keep thinking he's going to pop it open but he just does okay overall. He did just knock off #2 Iowa today, and I'm guessing that wins like that might put him on a list for the next tier up. It would be interesting to see what he could do at a school like Rutgers or Colorado State. I do like his offenses, though.
