The Worst Coaching Hires At Each SEC School

A few days after he was announced as the head coach of Arizona State, I put a tweet out that basically said how much the hire sucked. I wasn’t the only one.

After last Saturday’s stunning win over Oregon, I might well have been wrong.

That got me thinking to hirings that have happened in the SEC…..and the bad ones. We’re not going anywhere near Arkansas’ interim coaching hire John L. Smith, because he inherited Bobby Petrino’s trainwreck (or motorcycle wreck) and then Brett Bielema arrived.

Every SEC school has had their crappy SEC hires. Some further back in time than others.

ALABAMA: Jennings B. Whitworth (1955-57): Although circumstances weren’t great for Whitworth (he came after Harold Drew’s 4-5-2 season, and subsequently was only allowed to hire two of his ‘own men’ and had to keep all the other assistants (not good for coaching morale), Whitworth embarked on sending the Tide to a legendary 14-game losing streak. Having said all that, all clouds had a silver lining: His firing paved the way for another coach to come in who smelt of whiskey, cigarettes and actual success: Bear Bryant.

ARKANSAS: Chad Morris (2017-2018): Came in on a six year, $21 million contract, Morris was meant to signal a new turnaround after the departure of Brett Bielema. Instead, he delivered a 2-10 record in his first year (0-8 in the SEC), and 2-8 (0-6 in the SEC) record in 2018, punctuated by losses to San Jose State and Western Kentucky. He lost his job after the WKU blowout. What a waste of money that was.

AUBURN: Earl Brown (1948-50): Brown’s stretch at Auburn was quite incredible. The team went 3-22-4 in his time on The Plains, which included getting outscored 258 to 31. That took some doing. His only saving grace? Beating Alabama 14-13 in the 1949 Iron Bowl, where his 1-4-3 team beat the 6-2-1 Crimson Tide – helped by a miss-kick from an Alabama kicker.

FLORIDA: Raymond Wolf (1946-9): Wolf’s hiring in Gainseville came after he served in World War II. It wasn’t pretty. He went 9-19-1 and somehow got another year’s contract after Florida students wanted to keep him around, but was promptly fired a year later after his 10th-placed finish for the second time in a row. The one bit of a joy was a 28-7 win over Georgia in The Cocktail Party.

GEORGIA: Johnny Griffith (1961-3): Griffith’s brilliant finishes in Athens went 9th-7th-9th, and predictably it wasn’t going to go down too well with Dawgs fans. The highlight of his career when he accused the man he replaced, Wally Butts, of consipiring with Bear Bryant to beat the Dawgs after he sent The Houndstoothed One plays, formations and other stuff he might need to win out. He was promptly sued. And lost.

KENTUCKY: Bill Curry (1990-6): Coming off a fairly successful stint at Alabama, where he won a SEC title and reached a bowl in all of time in Tuscaloosa, Curry – after turning down a contract offer from Alabama – came down to Kentucky with quite a bit of fanfare. There, the trumpeteers ran out of breath, as the Wildcats had one winning season under him, and under his tenure were an awful 26-52 including an SEC record of 14-40. The 38-14 loss in the Governor’s Cup to Louisville was perhaps the last straw for the powers-that-be in Lexington.

LSU: Curley Hallman (1991-94): Hallman never had a winning record or reached a bowl in his time at LSU, which lasted four long seasons (somehow). His best-known game came in 1994 when the Tigers were comfortably beating Auburn until Jamie Howard threw SIX interceptions, which took quite some doing. He was told he would resign or be fired. He refused to resign. And was fired.

MISSISSIPPI STATE: Rocky Felker (1986-90): It’s not easy taking over a school that’s not exactly guilded in great SEC history, but Felker’s job was wonderfully feckless. After a perfectly acceptable 7-5 season in 1986, Felker then won three SEC games in three years during his time, adding to the grand total of two in 1986. His 1988 1-10 season was a particular low point – the second-worst in Cowbell history. He never held a head coaching position again, although he did come back and was a successful OC – and still works in MSU’s football operations department.

MISSOURI: (WARNING, INCLUDES BIG 8/12 COACH TOO) Bob Stull (1989-93): Stull was terrible in his time at Missouri, posting up a 15-38-2 record with a shiny Big 8 record of 8-27. One of Stull’s famous moments, though, was being the head of ‘Fifth Down Game’ against Colorado, when the Buffaloes inexplicably got an extra down, leading to a touchdown that was one of college football’s iconic moments (for refereeing screw-ups). We also considered Woody Wiedenhofer (1985-1988), but we’ve given him to Vanderbilt.

OLE MISS: Ed Orgeron (2005-7): As much as he is loved by LSU fans, let’s not forget the reason why he didn’t get head coaching jobs at Tennessee and USC (although his players loved him) – his time at Ole Miss was atrocious. In his three years in Oxford he went 10-25 and 3-21 in the SEC, including a terrible 0-8 season in 2007, where the final straw was losing to Mississippi State. The biggest highlight that I can remember from his time there was his excellent cameo in The Blind Side.

SOUTH CAROLINA: Brad Scott (1994-98): His tenure is still remembered by Gamecocks fans as ‘the dark days’ – and for good reasons. Although he managed two winning seasons and two seasons of .500 Eastern Conference play, he also masterminded a season in 1998 where the Gamecocks lost 10 games in a row, with his final send-off a 28-19 loss at hated rival Clemson.

TENNESSEE: Derek Dooley (2010-2012): As much as the Big Orange fanbase hated Butch Jones, Dooley was the worst coach in Volunteers history by some margin, posting zero winning seasons and a 4-19 in-conference record. This included winning one SEC game in two years. Weirdly, he’ll be looking at getting his pink slip again this year as Missouri’s offensive coordinator.

TEXAS A&M: Jim Myers (1958-61): While there might be an argument between Myers and Hank Foldberg (someone tweeted us to say his grandfather loathed playing for him) as to who the worst A&M coach was in its history, we’re going for Myers because of his incredible Southwest Conference losing record where he went 5-18-3 with two straight winless SWC seasons in 1959 and 1960 and losing to Texas every time during his tenure. Still, he found a job after A&M, becoming the Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator/assistant head coach under Tom Landry for 26 years….so you could say that being at Kyle Field taught him a lesson or two. There were Texas A&M fans who lobbied for Dennis Franchione to get on the list, but mainly because of the 77-0 drubbing by Oklahoma in the first year of his tenure. But Franchione turned it around beating Texas in the final two years of his tenure. But combined with the fact he never won a bowl game with the Aggies, he was pushed out. 

VANDERBILT: Woody Widenhofer (1997-2001): After compiling a dreadful record with Missouri where he went 12-31-1 and 8-20 in Big 8 play, I’m sure that journalists around wouldn’t have understood why in the hell the Commodores went and hired Widenhofer, who was originally the team’s defensive coordinator in Ron Dowhower’s 2-9 team. Anyway, The Hoff only won 4 games during his time in the SEC and compiled a total record of 15-40. Stunningly enough, he never coached again.