No doubt this is an interesting piece. I read over this when it was first published and while reading it I started questioning things about the article.
That questioning started with this one sentence. "And he persuaded five coaches he respects to come on board: Oklahoma State's Joe Wickline, Alabama's Chris Rumph, USC's Tommie Robinson, Memphis' Chris Vaughn and Mississippi State's Les Koenning."
Notice in their infographic how it states the state of Alabama was impacted the most of any of the states? How is it an impact on the University of Alabama when Chris Rumph had been replaced before Strong hired him? Bo Davis and his return was announced about a week or more before Strong was introduced.
Then I started thinking about this one phrase that preceded that sentence, "...He cut loose eight of the Longhorns' nine assistants..."
We have Strong hiring nine assistants. That's nine schools replacing nine coaches leaving another nine schools hiring nine, another nine hiring nine...53 schools effected. Is that really a big ripple? Or, is it the same ripple effect felt when any major school hires a new coach? Considering it's 103 coaches at 53 schools...not that great of ripple when you stop and look, is it?
Here's where I was left at the end.
It's an interesting article that certainly was time consuming on the authorāmuch like the coaching search at Texas was time consuming.
The effect felt across the board was as ordinary as it is with any schoolāmuch like the state of the program at Texas, ordinary.
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One last thing I'll bring up.
When is the last time you heard of a coach winning a national title and not receiving a raise? If you missed it, it happened in 2012 when Saban won his third here at Bama, the second of two in a row.
To say the hiring of Strong at Texas lead to Saban getting a raise is simply untrue. He was going to receive one anyway. Did it influence the amount of the raise? There's an argument to be considered but it's also an argument with two strong sides. (IE: Strong gets 5 million having not won a damn thing. Saban gets bumped to his figure after winning three NC's. "What the market dictates" come into play, no?)