CJ was fired by Rick Dickson before Dannen was even hired here. Tulane administration wanted a clean slate for the next AD to hire his own coach.netshorty wrote:I think grading TD on his coaching decisions is tough at this point as he's appeared to be doing a lot of things right but they haven't panned out as hoped or expected. If you look at what he's done in the three majors it's hard to find a lot of fault in his logic. But I believe he'll have some tougher decisions around his own hires upcoming and what he does with those, IMO, will be the best indicator of whether TD can lead our athletic department to success or not.
In the 3 major sports:
Fired CJ - seemed to be a no brainer but most here know you can't take firing of coaches for granted here.
Hired WF - considering the state of our program appeared to get a guy that wasn't just someone we settled on. So TD gets some credit here selling the program. This isn't to say all will agree WF has done a good job so far, but the hire appeared solid.
Fired EC - thank goodness. Maybe the leak stained the action a bit but again good to see that being at or near the bottom of the conference will get you fired.
Hired MD - definitely a different approach to trying to resurrect the program but I thought it could work. Hoops can be turned around with one good recruiting class so his name, NBA experience, reputation, etc seemed like a great way to get talent in to compete immediately. We may not all agree with the job MD has done, but again seemed like a solid hire.
Hired TJ - no doubt the one hire where many/most wanted AC, but TJs resume as an assistant on a top tier program and reputation as a great recruiter appeared to be an indicator that he could lead a successful program. In retrospect this has been a terrible hire considering the combination of what could have been with what we have now. This makes this hire much different than football and basketball.
So I have different opinions on whether TDs selection was sound vs whether his selection is working out. Of course much of the success of a coach is dependent on the support of the school which. we know falls on the AD department as well. So maybe these guys aren't successful because of TDs department? That's hard to quantify but I feel like you can glean quite a bit based on just x's and o's, recruiting ability/strategy, etc. So TDs evaluation of the current coaches and upcoming actions are the most important right now.
In football it is expected that a program needs several years to turn around and while I detest WFs offense and disagree with much of his game calling (probably the two are linked) his recent recruiting class gives some hope that he'll have athletes to be a winner in conference. But any contract extension is still based on more hope than results, IMO.
In basketball honestly I've seen enough to know what we're going to get. MD is not a good college coach. Kudos for improving a few players. I'll enjoy watching the NBA draft for the first time. But I'd rather enjoy watching the team win. It will be interesting and important to see what TD does when we are a bottom feeder once again next year.
I'm not as close to the baseball program but all indications from the results and the die hards here is that TJ isn't getting the job done. And while most have moved past (or say they have) the passing up of AC, the results on the field say this was a bad hire.
So based on 2 seasons: 2 bad hires and 1 "still waiting to see" hire. Typically that would mean your AD is failing. But I wouldn't give him a failing grade yet. I believe he made 2 good decisions on coaches to try to resurrect programs and 1 ok (not good) decision on trying sustain some baseball success. If he can't or won't pull the trigger on more change to fix those coaching mistakes then he would have failed.
http://www.nola.com/tulane/index.ssf/20 ... ch_cu.html