April, West and Harbaugh- Oh My!

Sigh: Bobby April, Ron West and Jim Harbaugh.

I wonder: Readers, do you think the people wanting Chris Scelfo canned had those sort of guys in mind when they dreamed of his replacement? Some college position coaches and a guy from Division II or something? Excuse me, I meant mid-major Division I-AA.
I will cheerily admit I was wrong about one thing. With only 117 I-A jobs in the whole country, I thought someone with "real" I-A credentials would make this consideration list: a BCS league coordinator, a former head coach looking to rehab.

I was wrong about that. Pre-firing, if you told people the list would be anonymous position coaches we never heard of, I wonder what they'd have said. Forget A-list, this isn't even a B-list.

While I would not have done it, I was pretty okay with firing Scelfo. But not to replace him with a guy who can't get an offensive/defensive coordinator job at an ACC school. Can't Tulane get at least consider one guy who has a proven ability to coach something bigger than just linebackers at the I-A level?

The problem with a guy like, say, Harbaugh is not that he can't coach. It is that with his resume he gets no slack- things have to improve right away- or people will be all over him. If they could find a guy with a rep, he has the veracity and rectitude to survive a misstep or two. Patience won't be easy with Harbaugh. He hasn't earned it at the I-A level.

The insinuation that you could get a solid I-A man in here, instead of Chris Scelfo, was a key part of many arguments to remove the guy. That prop is completely gone from that argument. And I don't think you are being honest if the confidence in an opinion of "Scelfo must go" isn't a little jaded by the probables list.

If they hire one of those three- or someone with similar credentials- I'll be the first to say that decision was an official error. There would be no upside except utter complete vague hope- and you had that already with Scelfo (or any coach frankly).

Maybe that guy- the credible I-A coaching candidate- ain't available to Tulane. Increasingly that appears to be the case.

So yes, I'm starting to think this was a mistake. I don't know how you can look at the list of candidates and not be nervous. "Hope" honestly is every single candidates’ chief attribute- and that worries me. It isn't a mistake yet- but it feels real close.