I would have included Gerry Faust at Notre Dame. Even though he had an overall winning record, he was way in over his head. ND never should have hired him. It's a tough place for on-the-job training, especially for someone who had no collegiate coaching experience whatsoever.
@@TimothyScheiber-y5h Faust was naive enough to think it would be easy and the top brass was naive enough to believe anyone could coach the team. Wrong on both counts.
@@8avexpActually history repeating itself - when Frank Leahy stepped down in 1953, the job was given to 25 year old former Irish star Terry Brennan. He had only been a Leahy assistant for one year, after success in the Chicago high school system as a head coach. After 5 years and a record of 32-18, at the age of 30 Brennan was fired.
@@gregfrank4115 Leahy resigned because he felt he was no longer wanted. Football had become too big and Fr. Hesburgh essentially told him, "This town ain't big enough for the both of us!" Then there was all that talk of deemphasizing football when they were actually reemphasizing academics. Brennan could only give out 20 football scholarships per year. He was playing against a stacked deck.
Saw this before watching the video at large, and yes. These things are alway subjective, but any video on this subject that covers 1980-2000 and doesn't include Faust at ND is simply not doing its job.
John Blake at Oklahoma was hired to replace Schnellenberger. He was there for three seasons 1996-1998 with a record of 12-22. He accused Troy Aikman of being racist while he an assistant for the Cowboys. He was a good recruiter though.
The biggest problem with Blake was he was always a position coach. Never a coordinator. To go from that to head coach of one of the biggest traditional schools, he was in way over his head. It would have been better for him to go to a North Texas State-UTEP-La Tech type of job and work his way up.
As an Oregon Duck alum and fan, I’m looking forward to your 2000 and after list. There were some absolutely horrific coaches in the state of WA that should make your list.
@@WrongedSports Oh yeah, I love these sort of lists. And I think it shows the stark contrast from bad to great. There are so many bad coaches that get a chance, and the good ones are truly rare. The Great coaches? You can count them on one hand.
@@WrongedSports You gotta have Ty Willingham on there for UW. He broke that program. And for WSU, Paul Wulff. Any coach with a multi year record in the teens has gotta be on that list.
Of those not mentioned, I'd say Paul Wiggin at Stanford in the early '80s. You have John Elway, as well Darrin Nelson, Ken Margerum, & Emile Harry, and can't get to one bowl game?
A lot of these could be categorized as "Hires that didn't work out" rather than "Worst...". Many of these seemed like "home run hires" at the time. To point to a couple of more recent (yes, not in your timeline here). I thought Jim Mora Jr at UCLA and Scott Frost at Nebraska were solid hires but, for whatever reason, things didn't work out.
As a K-State fan, I was looking for Stan Parrish, hired in 1986 to be Kansas State's head coach. Parrish had done a decent job at improving Marshall's football program over the previous few years, which made him look like a good hire on paper for a K-State team that was in dire need of a turnaround as it had managed just 5 winning seasons in the previous 51 years and only 2 in the previous 31 (both modest 6-win, 5 loss seasons, one in 1970 and one in 1982, which also had a tie). Parrish managed to blow out 1-AA opponent Western Illinois in his first game with the Wildcats, but that would turn out to be 50% of his victories in his 3 years at K-State. He got blanked at home by another 1-AA opponent, Northern Iowa, a couple of weeks later, picked up his second...and last...victory against equally miserable arch-rival Kansas mid-season, and actually made the already poor K-State program even worse than it had already been. The rest of the season and the Parrish's remaining two seasons, were a series of disasters. Even when the Wildcats played well (for them) and took fairly decent leads in a handful of games, they always managed to trip over their own feet and lose at the end. He ended up leaving Kansas State with a record of 2 wins, 30 losses, and one tie, including a 0-26-1 record after the middle of his first season. The lone tie, a 17-17 deadlock against Kansas in 1987, was appropriately dubbed the "Toilet Bowl" and ended when K-State had a would-be game-winning field goal attempt (K-State's kicker Mark Porter was one of the few actually good players on the roster at the time) blocked as time expired...
You missed Don Morton at Wisconsin..... He was there from 1987 to 1989 where he was 6 and 27 including a 51-3 loss to Miami in his final season at Wisconsin..... ran the veer offense. If you say the word "Don Morton" around Wisconsin to this day people will say "The veer offense" with some swear words mixed in. After Don Morton was fired, Wisconsin hired........ Barry Alvarez and 3 rose bowl wins later
Our season tickets for the Hurricanes were right next to the visiting section. Wisconsin took a 3-0 lead in that game. When it was over, the Badger fans were chanting "we scored first." It was amusing to us.
@@mikehoffman3131 there were stories from that 1989 season that people claimed they would put 4 free tickets in the wall of Camp Randell stadium then they would go back to see if someone took them but instead there were 8 tickets in the wall at the same spot
As a young Wisconsin Badgers fan at the time, I so looked forward to seeing Don Morton on this list and was sorely disappointed when he did not make the list…Morton was horrible! 6-27 overall at Wisconsin and 3-21 in the Big Ten! Those were years when Wisconsin football just completely sucked!
@@Josh-yp1om Agree... and he would have been a bad hire because all he had behind him as succuss was a 13-9 season at Tulsa in 2 years and none of those wins were really quality wins
@hogziller He had a fair amount of success in Division II with North Dakota State too. Wisconsin was in a tough spot then after Dave McClain suddenly died, and a few other candidates they were interested in turned them down. That said, Morton was a brutal coach at Wisconsin who was in way over it.
I’m so glad you had Bill Lewis. An absolutely awful GT hire. I believe his 1 win in his final season was an OT victory over FCS Western Carolina. I’ll be interested if you have another GT hire on your later list.
Lou Tepper at Illinois. He singlehandedly ruined our program. He had no business ever coaching any football team. He was also atrocious when he left us and was somehow hired as dc at LSU. Nice guy, but who cares. He was the worst ever.
Lou Tepper later became a Division II head coach, including Indiana University of Pennsylvania when I was the sports information director. Under our previous coach, the team perennially went to the playoffs and were a national championship contender. After he retired we hired Tepper, and he somehow managed to ruin that program also.
Are you saying coaches who started their career as assistants? Because that's all of them. Or did you mean coaches who went directly from being an assistant without previous head coaching experience?
@@GainesvilleGator NO... I've always said that Mackovic was a good to very good in-game coach. White was flashy and brought excitement... But when you look at the big picture you see this: Pete Elliott, 1960-66 31-34-1 .477 Jim Valek, 1967-70 8-32-0 .200 Bob Blackman, 1971-76 29-36-1 .439 Gary Moeller, 1977-79 6-24-3 .227 Mike White, 1980-87 47-41-3 .533 John Mackovic, 1988-91 30-16-1 .663 Lou Tepper, 1991-96 25-31-2 .446 Ron Turner, 1997-2004 35-57-0 .380 Ron Zook, 2005-2011 34-51-0 .400 Tim Beckman, 2012-14 12-25-0 .324 Bill Cubit (interim), 2015 5-7 .417 Lovie Smith, 2016-20 17-39 .304
@@WrongedSports Well, I was around for that total fiasco... I have saved on my computer a newspaper accounting, so I have some archive also... what most don't understand is that it was the Big Ten who slapped on MOST of the penalties, and almost kicked us out of the conference... One man's super ego killed our football program for decades, and really gave ups the black-eye that we still have scars from.
@@niteporter Weis didn't help his own cause when he boasted ND would have a decided playcalling advantage and that they would, "outscheme our opponents." He did better with Willingham's recruits than with his own players.
@@8avexp The quote was "decided schematic advantage." A little different, and not quite as disrespectful to the opposition as you've made it out to have been.
It's not accurate to say that Coach Fred Akers "ran off" QB Jeff George from Purdue. George decided to transfer to Ilinois for a more pass-heavy offense. Akers did not run him off.
I would have included Gerry Faust at Notre Dame. Even though he had an overall winning record, he was way in over his head. ND never should have hired him. It's a tough place for on-the-job training, especially for someone who had no collegiate coaching experience whatsoever.
Was gonna reply the same. Has to be on this list. One of the worst hires in college history. A high school coach to nd lol
@@TimothyScheiber-y5h Faust was naive enough to think it would be easy and the top brass was naive enough to believe anyone could coach the team. Wrong on both counts.
@@8avexpActually history repeating itself - when Frank Leahy stepped down in 1953, the job was given to 25 year old former Irish star Terry Brennan. He had only been a Leahy assistant for one year, after success in the Chicago high school system as a head coach. After 5 years and a record of 32-18, at the age of 30 Brennan was fired.
@@gregfrank4115 Leahy resigned because he felt he was no longer wanted. Football had become too big and Fr. Hesburgh essentially told him, "This town ain't big enough for the both of us!" Then there was all that talk of deemphasizing football when they were actually reemphasizing academics. Brennan could only give out 20 football scholarships per year. He was playing against a stacked deck.
Saw this before watching the video at large, and yes. These things are alway subjective, but any video on this subject that covers 1980-2000 and doesn't include Faust at ND is simply not doing its job.
John Blake at Oklahoma was hired to replace Schnellenberger. He was there for three seasons 1996-1998 with a record of 12-22. He accused Troy Aikman of being racist while he an assistant for the Cowboys. He was a good recruiter though.
Yes I could've put Blake on the list but Howard was more hated than Blake. It's only slightly though. Thanks for watching
The biggest problem with Blake was he was always a position coach. Never a coordinator. To go from that to head coach of one of the biggest traditional schools, he was in way over his head. It would have been better for him to go to a North Texas State-UTEP-La Tech type of job and work his way up.
I can't get enough of random sports videos like this
As an Oregon Duck alum and fan, I’m looking forward to your 2000 and after list. There were some absolutely horrific coaches in the state of WA that should make your list.
I will have 1 and mention a few others yes. Thanks for watching
@@WrongedSports Oh yeah, I love these sort of lists. And I think it shows the stark contrast from bad to great. There are so many bad coaches that get a chance, and the good ones are truly rare. The Great coaches? You can count them on one hand.
@@WrongedSports You gotta have Ty Willingham on there for UW. He broke that program. And for WSU, Paul Wulff. Any coach with a multi year record in the teens has gotta be on that list.
@endcensorship874 well I have other lists too like worst teams
@@WrongedSports Cool, keep 'em coming. You're doing a great job. I love college football content.
Ray Goff for my Georgia Bulldogs.
Of those not mentioned, I'd say Paul Wiggin at Stanford in the early '80s. You have John Elway, as well Darrin Nelson, Ken Margerum, & Emile Harry, and can't get to one bowl game?
A lot of these could be categorized as "Hires that didn't work out" rather than "Worst...". Many of these seemed like "home run hires" at the time. To point to a couple of more recent (yes, not in your timeline here). I thought Jim Mora Jr at UCLA and Scott Frost at Nebraska were solid hires but, for whatever reason, things didn't work out.
Oh Jim Mora will be mentioned. Thanks for watching
As a K-State fan, I was looking for Stan Parrish, hired in 1986 to be Kansas State's head coach. Parrish had done a decent job at improving Marshall's football program over the previous few years, which made him look like a good hire on paper for a K-State team that was in dire need of a turnaround as it had managed just 5 winning seasons in the previous 51 years and only 2 in the previous 31 (both modest 6-win, 5 loss seasons, one in 1970 and one in 1982, which also had a tie). Parrish managed to blow out 1-AA opponent Western Illinois in his first game with the Wildcats, but that would turn out to be 50% of his victories in his 3 years at K-State. He got blanked at home by another 1-AA opponent, Northern Iowa, a couple of weeks later, picked up his second...and last...victory against equally miserable arch-rival Kansas mid-season, and actually made the already poor K-State program even worse than it had already been. The rest of the season and the Parrish's remaining two seasons, were a series of disasters. Even when the Wildcats played well (for them) and took fairly decent leads in a handful of games, they always managed to trip over their own feet and lose at the end. He ended up leaving Kansas State with a record of 2 wins, 30 losses, and one tie, including a 0-26-1 record after the middle of his first season. The lone tie, a 17-17 deadlock against Kansas in 1987, was appropriately dubbed the "Toilet Bowl" and ended when K-State had a would-be game-winning field goal attempt (K-State's kicker Mark Porter was one of the few actually good players on the roster at the time) blocked as time expired...
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You missed Don Morton at Wisconsin..... He was there from 1987 to 1989 where he was 6 and 27 including a 51-3 loss to Miami in his final season at Wisconsin..... ran the veer offense. If you say the word "Don Morton" around Wisconsin to this day people will say "The veer offense" with some swear words mixed in. After Don Morton was fired, Wisconsin hired........ Barry Alvarez and 3 rose bowl wins later
Our season tickets for the Hurricanes were right next to the visiting section. Wisconsin took a 3-0 lead in that game. When it was over, the Badger fans were chanting "we scored first." It was amusing to us.
@@mikehoffman3131 there were stories from that 1989 season that people claimed they would put 4 free tickets in the wall of Camp Randell stadium then they would go back to see if someone took them but instead there were 8 tickets in the wall at the same spot
As a young Wisconsin Badgers fan at the time, I so looked forward to seeing Don Morton on this list and was sorely disappointed when he did not make the list…Morton was horrible! 6-27 overall at Wisconsin and 3-21 in the Big Ten! Those were years when Wisconsin football just completely sucked!
@@Josh-yp1om Agree... and he would have been a bad hire because all he had behind him as succuss was a 13-9 season at Tulsa in 2 years and none of those wins were really quality wins
@hogziller He had a fair amount of success in Division II with North Dakota State too. Wisconsin was in a tough spot then after Dave McClain suddenly died, and a few other candidates they were interested in turned them down. That said, Morton was a brutal coach at Wisconsin who was in way over it.
I’m so glad you had Bill Lewis. An absolutely awful GT hire. I believe his 1 win in his final season was an OT victory over FCS Western Carolina. I’ll be interested if you have another GT hire on your later list.
Another good video.
Lou Tepper at Illinois. He singlehandedly ruined our program. He had no business ever coaching any football team. He was also atrocious when he left us and was somehow hired as dc at LSU. Nice guy, but who cares. He was the worst ever.
Lou Tepper later became a Division II head coach, including Indiana University of Pennsylvania when I was the sports information director. Under our previous coach, the team perennially went to the playoffs and were a national championship contender. After he retired we hired Tepper, and he somehow managed to ruin that program also.
You should do best coaching hires through the decades that started as assistants
Are you saying coaches who started their career as assistants? Because that's all of them. Or did you mean coaches who went directly from being an assistant without previous head coaching experience?
Missed about 4 or 5 of the Illinois hires that were gawd awful....
Boy brother, ain't it the truth. Having a scintillating season tho so far. GO ILLINI
From 1980- 2000? The only God awful ones. Tepper and Turner were bad, but hard to really say Mackovic and White were.
@@GainesvilleGator NO... I've always said that Mackovic was a good to very good in-game coach. White was flashy and brought excitement... But when you look at the big picture you see this:
Pete Elliott, 1960-66 31-34-1 .477
Jim Valek, 1967-70 8-32-0 .200
Bob Blackman, 1971-76 29-36-1 .439
Gary Moeller, 1977-79 6-24-3 .227
Mike White, 1980-87 47-41-3 .533
John Mackovic, 1988-91 30-16-1 .663
Lou Tepper, 1991-96 25-31-2 .446
Ron Turner, 1997-2004 35-57-0 .380
Ron Zook, 2005-2011 34-51-0 .400
Tim Beckman, 2012-14 12-25-0 .324
Bill Cubit (interim), 2015 5-7 .417
Lovie Smith, 2016-20 17-39 .304
I actually have a video on the Illinois Athletic Scandal of the 1960s that really affected the program. It's in the archives
@@WrongedSports Well, I was around for that total fiasco... I have saved on my computer a newspaper accounting, so I have some archive also... what most don't understand is that it was the Big Ten who slapped on MOST of the penalties, and almost kicked us out of the conference... One man's super ego killed our football program for decades, and really gave ups the black-eye that we still have scars from.
Eagerly awaiting Greg Robinson for Syracuse
Bob Valesente at Kansas, Jim Criner at Iowa State, Stan Parrish at Kansas State, and the worst one in the 80s, Woody Widenhofer at Missouri.
Big 8 was a tough league... 0U and nubs were playing by a different set of rule.
How do you skip Stan?'
Illinois hiring Lovie Smith definitely should be on the list.
Coaches from 1980-2000.
Paul Hackett at Pitt.
Richard Bell, Sparky Woods, and Brad Scott ring a bell? How not a single one of them is on this list is beyond me.
Both sparky and Bell came in under tough circumstances. I actually go over the predecessor to Bell, Jim Carlen. That video is in the archives
Ron Cooper at Louisville and Bill Curry at Kentucky are coaches that you missed out on for this list.
Man Wyoming has a lot of mentions in this video
Notre Dame Charlie Weis. Helped your next your next video.
@@niteporter Weis didn't help his own cause when he boasted ND would have a decided playcalling advantage and that they would, "outscheme our opponents." He did better with Willingham's recruits than with his own players.
@@8avexp The quote was "decided schematic advantage." A little different, and not quite as disrespectful to the opposition as you've made it out to have been.
Greg F-ing Davis...wow
Any coach between ford and bowden at clemson
It's not accurate to say that Coach Fred Akers "ran off" QB Jeff George from Purdue. George decided to transfer to Ilinois for a more pass-heavy offense. Akers did not run him off.
Fred Von Appen
Fred Akers was Les Miles before Les Miles
Hope you have Jim Colletto on here too.