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Howard Schnellenberger as UK Coach???

We kind of do...Just look at Otis.
Meh, plenty of coaches have been successful at one place and not so successful at others. Look at what happened when he went to Oklahoma.
But I agree that the timing never lined up for UK. The time to get him would have been after Currci and we hired another one of Bear's boys in Claiborne.
 
Meh, plenty of coaches have been successful at one place and not so successful at others. Look at what happened when he went to Oklahoma.
But I agree that the timing never lined up for UK. The time to get him would have been after Currci and we hired another one of Bear's boys in Claiborne.
Nothing to do with timing ...much more to do with arrogant bb only ads
 
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Nothing to do with timing ...much more to do with arrogant bb only ads
Arrogant ADs and arrogant coaches usually don't get along. It's silly to think that Cliff Hagan or C.M Newton or any other UK AD didn't want to win at football. Jerry Claiborne had been coaching 20 years and had won 70% of his games at Maryland a "basketball school" when he came to UK in '82. At that time HS had been a college head coach 3 years. When Curry was hired in 1989 HS had been at UL for 5 years and had gone 2-9, 3-8, 3-8, 8-3, 6-5 whereas Curry was coming off a SEC championship and being named both the SEC Coach of the year and Bobby Dodd Coach of the year.
It's easy with 20/20 hindsight to question the decisions because we know how things turned out...but Claiborne and Curry were both considered solid coaching hires at the time.
 
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Cliff-/-Howard = water and oil. Howard wanted complete control of CATS football program!
Yes,the complete control thing was an issue + Howard was rumored to be more of a skirt chaser than they were willing to chance at the time.Claiborne was a safer choice.
Skirt chaser? I give you Rick Pitino and Eddie Sutton. But, that was basketball
 
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Guys, I know most of you aren't old enough to know this but CM Newton wasn't just a former basketball player that became AD. He was a hall of fame coach and administrator before he came here and other than Roy Kramer was one of the most respected figure in the Southeast conference and the NCAA in general on a lot of ways.

The naming of the stadium was in large part a way to honor a career in athletics that was one of the most respected in the sport, not what did or didn't do for U.K. Football.

Some things didn't work out like he wanted but at the time the first few years of the Mumme regime were the most exciting in years of U.K. Football and his bringing Pitino in when he did pulled basketball out of the dumpster and ushered in what you see today.

So all this talk about how evil, stupid and a loser CM was is just ignorant. The man took a chance on a coach he thought would bring a style that could finally get us some atttention and spark a dead program and it didn't works. That's it. That doesn't come close to wiping out a hall of fame career that started and ended as a Wildcat
 
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Guys, I know most of you aren't old enough to know this but CM Newton wasn't just a former basketball player that became AD. He was a hall of fame coach and administrator before he came here and other than Roy Kramer was one of the most respected figure in the Southeast conference and the NCAA in general on a lot of ways.

The naming of the stadium was in large part a way to honor a career in athletics that was one of the most respected in the sport, not what did or didn't do for U.K. Football.

Some things didn't work out like he wanted but at the time the first few years of the Mumme regime were the most exciting in years of U.K. Football and his bringing Pitino in when he did pulled basketball out of the dumpster and ushered in what you see today.

So all this talk about how evil, stupid and a loser CM was is just ignorant. The man took a chance on a coach he thought would bring a style that could finally get us some atttention and spark a dead program and it didn't works. That's it. That doesn't come close to wiping out a hall of fame career that started and ended as a Wildcat
I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. However, CM was asked (begged) to return to U.K. to salvage another probation and bring credibility (yet again) to our athletic programs. CM had no clue where to look or who to contact for a new football coach. He was always a basketball guy.

Hal Mumme left our football program one step below the death penalty. We were set back years until Rich Brooks stopped the bleeding and gave us a glimmer of hope in football.

I respect CM for all he did in a hall of fame athletic career. On the other hand, I'm glad he's gone enjoying his condo in the Caribbean paid for for by our university and donors. That is as shameful as his name on our stadium.
 
I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. However, CM was asked (begged) to return to U.K. to salvage another probation and bring credibility (yet again) to our athletic programs. CM had no clue where to look or who to contact for a new football coach. He was always a basketball guy.

Hal Mumme left our football program one step below the death penalty. We were set back years until Rich Brooks stopped the bleeding and gave us a glimmer of hope in football.

I respect CM for all he did in a hall of fame athletic career. On the other hand, I'm glad he's gone enjoying his condo in the Caribbean paid for for by our university and donors. That is as shameful as his name on our stadium.
Agree totally...
 
^^^Last three blogs I'm in agreement.^^^
When I was a freshman at Transy C.M. was the basketball coach. I had some P.E. courses under coach Newton and he was very personable. When he came back to UK I thought it was a absolute home run hire.
My opinion changed when Mumme was taking heat (I was one of the heated) C.M. on a call in show said maybe it was time for some fans to get another team to root for! That and hiring Larry Ivy done me in with C.M. Newton!
I was not for naming CWS field after C.M.!
 
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I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. However, CM was asked (begged) to return to U.K. to salvage another probation and bring credibility (yet again) to our athletic programs. CM had no clue where to look or who to contact for a new football coach. He was always a basketball guy.

Hal Mumme left our football program one step below the death penalty. We were set back years until Rich Brooks stopped the bleeding and gave us a glimmer of hope in football.

I respect CM for all he did in a hall of fame athletic career. On the other hand, I'm glad he's gone enjoying his condo in the Caribbean paid for for by our university and donors. That is as shameful as his name on our stadium.
Understand San Antonio but CM didn't bring Mumme in with a plan to ruin the program and some act like he did and because he was just a basketball guy that didn't care about football. Silly to think an AD wouldn't care about the biggest revenue producing sport he had.

As you said he came in during a difficult time when an already bad program was coming off even worse and tried to find a big name to "right the ship" and give the program some notoriety. But when he couldn't do that (not many wanted to jump into this mess if you recall) he took a chance on something radical and brought Mumme in for his style. Everybody forgets but this was ground breaking at the time and CM wanted to bring a fast break offense to football like he did with Pitino in basketball. The thought was, look we are fighting a HUGE uphill battle to play it straight at UK and catch up to the others in the country let alone the SEC. . . we have to try things outside the box to make a splash. And for the first few years it worked just as planned. We quickly became the talk of the country with our style and a new brand of football spread across the country that started here. Instantly recruiting started picking up which was the plan, create a buzz and start things rolling.

Unfortunately Mumme was a DII coach for a reason and that was because although he was an offensive genius, he was not disciplined or mature enough to handle big time football and CM's guilt came in not managing that better for sure.

But again the idea that he hated football and let it go down hill is goofey.
 
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Soup
You make some good points. I think CM not capable of hiring coaches in FB. You don't hire a Div 3 coach if you are an SEC school. You also made a terrible hire in Curry, CM took one for Alabama because Bama told Curry that he was toast in 5 days an that he needed to find a landing spot.
Hired Hal to keep Tim Couch and make him happy.

I will say CM and his tenure was the worst AD in terms of FB, no way to debate this. Tim Couch's 2 years is the best.

I have problem that CM was told how bad the environment was at FB complex, it was Hal, Major and Claude running the show. The other staff were told to mind your own business and don't worry about it even though CM and other staff were being told you are going down soon, Memphis, UK summer camps, free meals. It was amateur hour in Memphis,
CM was tipped off and told he failed to do anything. He knew of this for 2 years or more. He was told by Mike Leach, Guy Morris, Tony Franklin, people in Memphis and other programs.
 
Very simple-Wrong AD's in Cliff Hagan & CM Newton. Bad hires by both guys and passed up better candidates to preserved basketball superiorty. There was an ugly rumor about Howard and the love of the bottle. It follow him all the way to Oklahoma who got rid of him after 1 year on the job.CM ignored all the rumors about Mumme and the division of the coaching staff. Itb is a total joke that the baseball stadium is named after Cliff and the Football field is named after CM, both guys had done nothing but hinder the progress of Football and baseball programs.
 
Was watching KET and Billy Reed was interviewing John Y Brown. He stated that he begged UofK to hire Schnellenberger, but once he had coached at Louisville, the powers to be said no way.Also, stated that no one thought Schnellenberger would come to Louisville, but he arranged the deal. Most at that time thought Louisville should drop football or drop down in divisions.
 
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Soup
You make some good points. I think CM not capable of hiring coaches in FB. You don't hire a Div 3 coach if you are an SEC school. You also made a terrible hire in Curry, CM took one for Alabama because Bama told Curry that he was toast in 5 days an that he needed to find a landing spot.
Hired Hal to keep Tim Couch and make him happy.

I will say CM and his tenure was the worst AD in terms of FB, no way to debate this. Tim Couch's 2 years is the best.

I have problem that CM was told how bad the environment was at FB complex, it was Hal, Major and Claude running the show. The other staff were told to mind your own business and don't worry about it even though CM and other staff were being told you are going down soon, Memphis, UK summer camps, free meals. It was amateur hour in Memphis,
CM was tipped off and told he failed to do anything. He knew of this for 2 years or more. He was told by Mike Leach, Guy Morris, Tony Franklin, people in Memphis and other programs.

You're right. He was guilty of not managing the mess Claude and Mumme were creating. That surprised me given his history of being a straight shooter, above board guy who was conscious of following rules to a tee etc.

My point remains, none of that was because he was some villain who purposely trashed the football program. He may have been at the end of a long career and got a little complacent, I can buy that and think that may have played a part in him not keeping a finger on things like he should have. But you have to take each action/decision in the time it was made. Most at the time applauded the Mumme hire as innovative and what the hell to we have to lose kind of thing, we're at the bottom and needed to try something different. And again . . . for the next 3 years we had one hell of time for the first time in a long time. And he was panicked to keep Couch here as many thought he was gone.

Curry may have been a paper tiger on his way down but again at the time many saw that a coup for a STUGGLING program that needed a name to give it stability.

That's all I'm saying and I'll shut up now.
 
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Not trying to persuade others to think otherwise, and certainly not trying to pour gasoline on the "get C.M.'s name off of the stadium" fire. But I think there is a tradition/process in how UK honors retiring AD's. My understanding of the tradition is to name a facility, or a part of one, after them. My understanding is also that the naming is attached to a facility that was constructed (or improved, etc.) under their tenure.

Current baseball stadium is named after C. Hagan. Swimming facility attached to Memorial is named after H. Lancaster, Even recently retired Senior Assoc. AD John Cropp had softball stadium named after him. My guess is that the new baseball stadium will have Mitch's name on it someday. I also guess L. Ivey wasn't AD long enough to warrant such an "honoring".

The first major renovation to Commonwealth happened on C.M.'s watch. I don't know this for sure, but again am guessing that the renovation was the only (or only one of great enough significance to befit honoring an AD ??) facility upgrade that happened during his time.

I understand the angst, and certainly the irony (LOL!), of C.M.'s name as a part of Commonwealth. I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure that the naming/honoring is for C.M.'s contribution to the athletics dept. as a whole in general. I don't think it's intended to imply that he did great things regarding the football program.
You are correct.
 
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Arrogant ADs and arrogant coaches usually don't get along. It's silly to think that Cliff Hagan or C.M Newton or any other UK AD didn't want to win at football. Jerry Claiborne had been coaching 20 years and had won 70% of his games at Maryland a "basketball school" when he came to UK in '82. At that time HS had been a college head coach 3 years. When Curry was hired in 1989 HS had been at UL for 5 years and had gone 2-9, 3-8, 3-8, 8-3, 6-5 whereas Curry was coming off a SEC championship and being named both the SEC Coach of the year and Bobby Dodd Coach of the year.
It's easy with 20/20 hindsight to question the decisions because we know how things turned out...but Claiborne and Curry were both considered solid coaching hires at the time.

Fuzz, excellent analysis that is based on facts rather than unsubstantiated innuendo. Good work.
 
Arrogant ADs and arrogant coaches usually don't get along. It's silly to think that Cliff Hagan or C.M Newton or any other UK AD didn't want to win at football. Jerry Claiborne had been coaching 20 years and had won 70% of his games at Maryland a "basketball school" when he came to UK in '82. At that time HS had been a college head coach 3 years. When Curry was hired in 1989 HS had been at UL for 5 years and had gone 2-9, 3-8, 3-8, 8-3, 6-5 whereas Curry was coming off a SEC championship and being named both the SEC Coach of the year and Bobby Dodd Coach of the year.
It's easy with 20/20 hindsight to question the decisions because we know how things turned out...but Claiborne and Curry were both considered solid coaching hires at the time.

Fuzz, excellent analysis that is based on facts rather than unsubstantiated innuendo. Good work.
I reiterate Coach Claiborne came home to U.K. In the latter part of his career. That was after he was rejected by then AD Bernie Shively for Charlie Bradshaw in 1962 (my freshman year). Bill Curry was literally run out of Tuscaloosa with threats and fan outrage including serious attacks on his home.

Coach Claiborne always wanted to come home to U.K. That he was coach in the twilight of his career proved to be successful in the near term, but not long term. Bill Curry found a home thanks to the U.K. Administration believing he was the "answer." Popular and revered by U.K. fans at the time, his offensive ground game precluded prized recruit Tim Couch considerable talents to consider a transfer.
 
I reiterate Coach Claiborne came home to U.K. In the latter part of his career. That was after he was rejected by then AD Bernie Shively for Charlie Bradshaw in 1962 (my freshman year). Bill Curry was literally run out of Tuscaloosa with threats and fan outrage including serious attacks on his home.

Coach Claiborne always wanted to come home to U.K. That he was coach in the twilight of his career proved to be successful in the near term, but not long term. Bill Curry found a home thanks to the U.K. Administration believing he was the "answer." Popular and revered by U.K. fans at the time, his offensive ground game precluded prized recruit Tim Couch considerable talents to consider a transfer.
Claiborne was 54 yrs old when he came to UK. Younger than Nick Saban(56) when he was hired at Alabama. I'm not sure what your "rejected" comment is supposed to mean. Claiborne went on to be very successful whereas Bradshaw accelerated the decline of UK football. Are you insinuating that Bradshaw was a better choice?
Curry caught heat at Alabama because he was 0-3 against Auburn, not because his teams performed poorly. His teams were 7-5, 9-3, 10-2 (notice a trend?). NOBODY at UK was bitching when Curry was hired.
Questioning hires after the fact is weak. The premise of this thread is that somehow "basketball only ADs" made hires that purposely kept UK football down. If so, why did they hire people that were successful before they got to UK?
 
Claiborne was 54 yrs old when he came to UK. Younger than Nick Saban(56) when he was hired at Alabama. I'm not sure what your "rejected" comment is supposed to mean. Claiborne went on to be very successful whereas Bradshaw accelerated the decline of UK football. Are you insinuating that Bradshaw was a better choice?
Curry caught heat at Alabama because he was 0-3 against Auburn, not because his teams performed poorly. His teams were 7-5, 9-3, 10-2 (notice a trend?). NOBODY at UK was bitching when Curry was hired.
Questioning hires after the fact is weak. The premise of this thread is that somehow "basketball only ADs" made hires that purposely kept UK football down. If so, why did they hire people that were successful before they got to UK?
In 1962, Claiborne and Bradshaw were the choices to become head coach. My comment was Claiborne was rejected by AD Bernie Shively in favor of hiring Bradshaw. As for Curry, his record at Alabama is on the record. So is his record at U.K.
 
Some of these posts remind me of a youngster who claimed our struggles in football are because folks my age and older, accepted it, or caused it.

The general cause of the struggle of UK Football is easy to diagnose, and generally politically incorrect to discuss.

Bear and Collier (and for that matter General Neyland at Tennessee) all achieved winning records when segregation was the norm in the South. Oddly, given that Kentucky and Tennessee, then and now, have lower percentages of African American populations than their sister states in the SEC, segregation perversely benefitted the most northerly programs. They were excluding a far lower percentage of their native population from participation/competition than were states like Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, etc. If you doubt this analysis, check out the teams in the media guide we played in the 1940's, 50's and 60's who were ranked when we played them. In the 1990's and 2000's, it was expected that half or more of our SEC breathren would be in the top 20. They generally weren't in the 1940's and 50's.

Since the 1960's, our struggle in football has been our effort to lure quality recruits from far further away, than say LSU has to travel to find them.

How to do it?

We tried about every trick, legal and illegal, to raise the profile of the program, and to lure in better quality athletes. Each hire has had very solid arguments in its favor, until the simple reality of lack of depth and talent bit each of the coaches named, above, in the arse. In retrospect, looking at a hypothetical hire of Schnellenberger will always look better than the relative mediocrity Claiborne achieved in the 80's, but is a false argument . . . . he could have just as easily crashed and burned here, if his talent base was not significantly better than Claiborne's turned out to be.

Every hire biatched about above, as proof of a conspiracy by the basketball powers, was above and beyond reproach when made. Curry's hiring might be the best example . . . . we were the toast of the town on the national media of the day, and his first class was ranked by more than one expert in the top 20 of the nation. The giant "thud" started his first season, when he failed to achieve even Claiborne's mediocre (and expected) 5 wins.

If my prescription of the true cause of our decline is correct, is there hope?

I think so. If the slow grind from the cellar that Brooks and now Stoops have undertaken can be sustained, the program will continue to lure recruits that most of our past coaches have only dreamed about.

The proof is as obvious as the nose on your face, of the beginning of this change.

Name the top 10 quality/profile recruits from 1980 until 2012 . . . . . .

Names like Tim Couch, Dennis Johnson, Al Baker and Mark Higgs show up pretty quickly. In other words, our "big splash" recruits . . . . kids ranked in the top 100 or top 250 by everyone, were almost invariably Kentucky kids. Maybe the only four true "Big Splash" type recruits we landed in 30 plus freakin' years from out-of-state were Doug Williams in what, 1980, Moe Williams from Georgia in 1992, Dewayne Robertson from Memphis in 2000, and Antonio Hall from Ohio in 2000. I'm not talking about out-of-state kids who blew up, here, unexpectedly, but true recruiting gems from out-of-state.

An argument can be made that most of Stoops's classes since his arrival have, individually, contained more out-of-state talent than the entire 30 plus year period preceding them. And if you consider that an overstatement, it ain't by much.
 
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Some of these posts remind me of a youngster who claimed our struggles in football are because folks my age and older, accepted it, or caused it.

The general cause of the struggle of UK Football is easy to diagnose, and generally politically incorrect to discuss.

Bear and Collier (and for that matter General Neyland at Tennessee) all achieved winning records when segregation was the norm is the South. Oddly, given that Kentucky and Tennessee, then and now, have lower percentages of African American populations than their sister states in the SEC, segregation perversely benefitted the most northerly programs. They were excluding a far lower percentage of their native population from participation/competition than were states like Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, etc. If you doubt this analysis, check out the teams in the media guide we played in the 40's, 50's and 60's who were ranked when we played them. In the 90's and 00's, it was expected that half or more of our SEC breathren would be in the top 20. They generally weren't in the 40's and 50's.

Since the 60's, our struggle in football has been our effort to lure quality recruits from far further away, than say LSU has to travel to find them.

How to do it?

We tried about every trick, legal and illegal, to raise the profile of the program, and to lure in better quality athletes. Each hire has had very solid arguments in its favor, until the simple reality of lack of depth and talent bit each of the coaches named, above, in the arse. In retrospect, looking at a hypothetical hire of Schnellenberger will always look better than the relative mediocrity Claiborne achieved in the 80's, but is a false argument . . . . he could have just as easily crashed and burned here, if his talent base was not significantly better than Claiborne's turned out to be.

Every hire biatched about above, as proof of a conspiracy by the basketball powers, was above and beyond reproach when made. Curry's hiring might be the best example . . . . we were the toast of the town on the national media of the day, and his first class was ranked by more than one expert in the top 20 of the nation. The giant "thud" started his first season, when he failed to achieve even Claiborne's mediocre (and expected) 5 wins.

If my prescription of the true cause of our decline is correct, is there hope?

I think so. If the slow grind from the cellar that Brooks and now Stoops have undertaken can be sustained, the program will continue to lure recruits that most of our past coaches have only dreamed about.

The proof is as obvious as the nose on your face, of the beginning of this change.

Name the top 10 quality/profile recruits from 1980 until 2012 . . . . . .

Names like Tim Couch, Dennis Johnson, Al Baker and Mark Higgs show up pretty quickly. In other words, our "big splash" recruits . . . . kids ranked in the top 100 or top 250 by everyone, were almost invariably Kentucky kids. Maybe the only four true "Big Splash" type recruits we landed in 30 plus freakin' years from out-of-state were Doug Williams in what, 1980, Moe Williams from Georgia in 1992, Dewayne Robertson from Memphis in 2000, and Antonio Hall from Ohio in 2000. I'm not talking about out-of-state kids who blew up, here, unexpectedly, but true recruiting gems from out-of-state.

An argument can be made that most of Stoops's classes since his arrival have, individually, contained more out-of-state talent than the entire 30 plus year period preceding them. And if you consider that an overstatement, it ain't by much.
Excellent post.
 
Below are a couple pics of Coach Schnellenberger taken yesterday by a good friend of mine at a Florida Atlantic University alumni function. He looks great.

18664296_10154676101373716_4459779793914867745_n.jpg


18670778_10154676102588716_1030391290535605160_n.jpg
 
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I'm OK with corporate sponsorship of the stadium, if it helps make the mare go, but must agree that CM Newton Grounds (???) needs to be Jerry Claiborne Field yesterday. The guy is in the College Football HOF, for crying out loud.
 
One other thing about this. A lot of the bitterness of Fran was that UK FB was being singled out, BB players problems being kept out of headlines, UK makes a deal with NCAA, NCAA says we have the goods on you, we have this and this on BB for years. The rumors of Curci in Ohio, Still/Ramsey, all were being looked at. Lee Corso, Bo Schembechler and Earl Bruce were very talkative to NCAA investigators, Lee Corso went to NCAA on Rod Stewart recruitment and a couple more, Bruce on the big kid from Moeller High OG, top OL in country, Bo and Joe Paterno with Camden deal with Still Ramsey and big DT named Bubba who was top talent.
NCAA investigators had the hots for Curci and were looking to appease BO, Lee, Joe Pa. UK made deal to look at FB and sweep the BB under the table. You will never read this or get confirmation but it happened.

Very interesting. And with the way the two programs have been treated by the powers that be (until the strike) pretty believable too.
 
CM was a disaster for football,and ought to refund all the money he pocketed personally under the Curry regime!

Huh, my feelings about mitch exactly for his first decade managing our football program-------but I have to admit he is very lucky, getting Cal even though they had to add an assistant to interface with him, and Stoops that sold his vision for the program-------and of course the obscene amount of money rolling in from the contracts (SEC FOOTBALL) made improvements easy, although the athletics department that couldn't put carpet on the floor of the "recruiting room" for at least 12 years did manage to obligate the athletic department for an extra $80,000,000 or so for academics when they did get serious about CW. Funny how that worked.
 
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Guys, I know most of you aren't old enough to know this but CM Newton wasn't just a former basketball player that became AD. He was a hall of fame coach and administrator before he came here and other than Roy Kramer was one of the most respected figure in the Southeast conference and the NCAA in general on a lot of ways.

The naming of the stadium was in large part a way to honor a career in athletics that was one of the most respected in the sport, not what did or didn't do for U.K. Football.

Some things didn't work out like he wanted but at the time the first few years of the Mumme regime were the most exciting in years of U.K. Football and his bringing Pitino in when he did pulled basketball out of the dumpster and ushered in what you see today.

So all this talk about how evil, stupid and a loser CM was is just ignorant. The man took a chance on a coach he thought would bring a style that could finally get us some atttention and spark a dead program and it didn't works. That's it. That doesn't come close to wiping out a hall of fame career that started and ended as a Wildcat
May have been the best bb coach ever at Ala...name me something that has his name on it at Aka.
 
May have been the best bb coach ever at Ala...name me something that has his name on it at Aka.
Arrogant ADs and arrogant coaches usually don't get along. It's silly to think that Cliff Hagan or C.M Newton or any other UK AD didn't want to win at football. Jerry Claiborne had been coaching 20 years and had won 70% of his games at Maryland a "basketball school" when he came to UK in '82. At that time HS had been a college head coach 3 years. When Curry was hired in 1989 HS had been at UL for 5 years and had gone 2-9, 3-8, 3-8, 8-3, 6-5 whereas Curry was coming off a SEC championship and being named both the SEC Coach of the year and Bobby Dodd Coach of the year.
It's easy with 20/20 hindsight to question the decisions because we know how things turned out...but Claiborne and Curry were both considered solid coaching hires at the time.

Have to agree 100% on Curry's credentials, turned GT into a winner with steady progress AND they won a NC with some of his players three years after he left (coincidence that Bama did the same thing three years after he left?) and after steady progress he lost ONE game his last year there along with a bowl loss to a very good Miami program-------but, as stated, the ONE loss was to Auburn. The problem that I understood he had at UK was that they wouldn't let him hire the new assistants but stuck him with what they had------sounds familiar to me.

Also I think BCG had very good credentials as a bb coach, but he didn't check out his personal habits well enough, AND writing his contract down on a piece of toilet paper cost UK a million or so, the way I understand it. He self destructed at UK, a program with tons of pressure (in basketball) probably just a matter of time.

Excellent point about integration greatly increasing our competitions recruiting level while doing very little for us, I have pointed out a few times that (while it was the right thing to do) UK made themselves much less competitive in SEC football by spearheading integration in the SEC.
 
Have to agree 100% on Curry's credentials, turned GT into a winner with steady progress AND they won a NC with some of his players three years after he left (coincidence that Bama did the same thing three years after he left?) and after steady progress he lost ONE game his last year there along with a bowl loss to a very good Miami program-------but, as stated, the ONE loss was to Auburn. The problem that I understood he had at UK was that they wouldn't let him hire the new assistants but stuck him with what they had------sounds familiar to me.

Also I think BCG had very good credentials as a bb coach, but he didn'tif check out his personal habits well enough, AND writing his contract down on a piece of toilet paper cost UK a million or so, the way I understand it. He self destructed at UK, a program with tons of pressure (in basketball) probably just a matter of time.

Excellent point about integration greatly increasing our competitions recruiting level while doing very little for us, I have pointed out a few times that (while it was the right thing to do) UK made themselves much less competitive in SEC football by spearheading integration in the SEC.
If those gentleman had the support CMS is given, perhaps the outcome of their tenure may have been different.
 
I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. However, CM was asked (begged) to return to U.K. to salvage another probation and bring credibility (yet again) to our athletic programs. CM had no clue where to look or who to contact for a new football coach. He was always a basketball guy.

Hal Mumme left our football program one step below the death penalty. We were set back years until Rich Brooks stopped the bleeding and gave us a glimmer of hope in football.

I respect CM for all he did in a hall of fame athletic career. On the other hand, I'm glad he's gone enjoying his condo in the Caribbean paid for for by our university and donors. That is as shameful as his name on our stadium.
Understand San Antonio but CM didn't bring Mumme in with a plan to ruin the program and some act like he did and because he was just a basketball guy that didn't care about football. Silly to think an AD wouldn't care about the biggest revenue producing sport he had.

As you said he came in during a difficult time when an already bad program was coming off even worse and tried to find a big name to "right the ship" and give the program some notoriety. But when he couldn't do that (not many wanted to jump into this mess if you recall) he took a chance on something radical and brought Mumme in for his style. Everybody forgets but this was ground breaking at the time and CM wanted to bring a fast break offense to football like he did with Pitino in basketball. The thought was, look we are fighting a HUGE uphill battle to play it straight at UK and catch up to the others in the country let alone the SEC. . . we have to try things outside the box to make a splash. And for the first few years it worked just as planned. We quickly became the talk of the country with our style and a new brand of football spread across the country that started here. Instantly recruiting started picking up which was the plan, create a buzz and start things rolling.

Unfortunately Mumme was a DII coach for a reason and that was because although he was an offensive genius, he was not disciplined or mature enough to handle big time football and CM's guilt came in not managing that better for sure.

But again the idea that he hated football and let it go down hill is goofey.

Your comments are well taken. Thanks.
 
Considering his UK background, having played here, and with his coaching pedigree under Bear Bryant and as a NFL head coach, AND having coached a national championship team at Miami, why did UK pass on him over the years? I attended the last game he ever coached, which was basically his going away party at the FAU stadium and football program he was responsible for the creation of. There were no more than a few thousand people there for that game. It was embarrassing, really. What is "the rest of the story?"
Check out why Oklahoma fired Schnellenberger after his very brief tenure there. In addition to having a good football mind, he was a philandering, sloppy drunk with a big mouth and a bad habit of entanglements with the wives of school officials. He also misused injured players. But the guy understood football doctrine and knew how to motivate his players. He quickly wore out his welcome in Norman, and wouldn't have lasted 6 months as a coach in Lexington. But he was perfect for Miami and Louisville, where everyone behaves that way.
 
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