Mitch has a lot of faults, but for a guy who has been at a university for 22 years, he's done a pretty good job at hiring.
Basketball
BCG - terrible
Cal - good hire
Pope - appears to be a good hire
Football
Brooks - good hire
Joker - terrible
Stoops - good hire
If you go into the next 2 sports in line:
Women's Basketball
Mickie DeMoss - bad hire
Matthew Mitchell - good hire
Kyra Elzy - bad hire
Kenny Brooks - appears to be a good hire
Baseball
John Cohen - good hire
Gary Henderson - so-so hire
Nick Mangione - good hire
Look at other programs across the SEC (Bama and Florida as examples) and you'll see that every school has dud hires...some more than others. Mitch's biggest fault when it comes t coaches is the contract extensions, specifically the length. I'm hoping since he gave Pope a 5 year contract, he's figured out that 5 years is the max that a guy should have remaining in his contract.
I actually have more confidence than most in his ability to hire the next coach.