UK Coaching Search 1990
- Thread starter Crankdatmustard
- Start date
I can hardly remember - I was at UK at the time. Gottfried maybe?
We should have made Schnellenberger a priority at some point...
We should have made Schnellenberger a priority at some point...
Loved Coach Schnellenberger. He led evil Cards at the time, but may have been lured back to UK in 1990.
Fun fact: Coach had losing records at UofL and FAU. His one-year stint at OU was a disaster. Legend at Miami.
Fun fact: Coach had losing records at UofL and FAU. His one-year stint at OU was a disaster. Legend at Miami.
Cliff Hagan had Coach Schellenberger hired in the 80s but Pres Singletary couldn’t agree to delegate some important details that HS wanted and it fell through. Job went to Coach Claiborne.
I was thinking Shanahan but couldn't recall if it was pre-Curry or post-Curry. Seems I recall he wasn't real keen on recruiting.
What an absolute disaster Curry was.
73-7 loss to Florida and the 'ole ball coach epitomizes that era.
73-7 loss to Florida and the 'ole ball coach epitomizes that era.
Yep. I like and respect Bill Curry as a person, but his 26-52 record in seven (!) seasons at UK speaks for itself.
Sorry to quibble but the 65-0 debacle was two years after the 73-7 debacle; both of them down in Gainesville.
Don't think so. Think Spurrier's Curry hate stemmed from Spurrier's time on the Ga Tech staff when Curry was HC and Curry let him go. Memory is admittedly fuzzy but think it was something like that.
I always heard speculation that he wanted any job where he could humble UT. Hence, he took USCe.
He hated Curry. But he hated UT X 2!!
Curry didn't let Spurrier go, he declined to hire Spurrier as OC when Steve was interested in that job at GaTech. In fairness to Curry(and I was someone who wanted him fired earlier than when UK finally did) he got absolutely no support for assistant salaries, he had a different OC every single season he was there and that would not be a recipe for success for any head coach.
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Lost 65-0 with Tim Couch running the option in the swamp.
Those were the days!!
Enjoy the memories!
At the time, Curry was a “hot coach”, I don’t know what happened. It’s like he came here and forgot everything about football. The stuff he did was mind boggling.
Curry wasn't a hot coach he was days away from being fired at Alabama fir losing to Auburn & then the Sugar Bowl.
I'll go to my grave knowing if we hired Shnellenburger in 1990 UK would have won 2 SEC titles in the next 10 yrs
I'll go to my grave knowing if we hired Shnellenburger in 1990 UK would have won 2 SEC titles in the next 10 yrs
yes, "mind boggling", but he tried "with every fiber of his being"
Had a great resume, and he looked like a good coach, and sounded like a good coach. But . . . he just wasn't a good coach.
Never could figure out what he wanted to do on offense, but the defense was never very good either, except maybe 1993.
1994 I will say was arguably the worst Kentucky team I have ever seen, yes, maybe even worse than Joker's last season. Just pitiful in all phases of the game.
Man, those two teams…. Curry had the loss against Northeast Louisiana, Joker had the “call me when we are 2-10”. Both teams will go down as the worst in KY football history. I always wonder if the Trent Diguiro murder had that much of an impact on the team, what a bad time.
I've told this here before but here it is again. At Bama, Curry had 2 of if not the best coordinators of the time in OC Homer Smith and DC Don Lindsey certainly 2 among the best. When Curry was hired at UK he wanted to bring them to UK. Story at the time was they visited, Newton picked them up at the airport, drove to campus and met in his office, piled them back in the car and returned them to the airport and sent them on their way. In other words, Newton wouldn't pay them a top coordinator salary. Snith went to UCLA and had several top notch offenses while Lindsey went to Arkansas and put together top of the line defenses. UK/Curry, meanwhile, was forced to hire initially first time coordinators then various retreads because Newton wouldn't pay competitive salaries. No question Curry had major faults but Newton hamstrung him from the get-go.
Spurrier and Billy Donovan. They were looking at neighboring horse farms.
I always liked it when Spurrier would say you can't spell citrus without a U and a T to troll the Tennessee program. In the 90's the SEC 2nd place team always went to the Citrus Bowl and the 1st place team went to the Sugar.
I don't think he ever necessarily WANTED the job, but i think later in his career he would have listened around the time he went to South Carolina. He had a beef with Bill Curry though, something about Curry turning him down for an OC position at Ga. Tech or something to that affect.
Then they had the gall to put Newtons name on the got dam field.
When CM hired Hal Mumme we had several candidates.
2 of which were Bob Stoops a Fla DC and Jim Tressel of Youngstown St.
Both did pretty well even though UK passed on them.
2 of which were Bob Stoops a Fla DC and Jim Tressel of Youngstown St.
Both did pretty well even though UK passed on them.
LOL. My wife and I went to the overhyped "Game One" between UK and UofL to start the 1994 season. UK didn't play very well, but IIRC they forced a fumble late in the game to preserve the win. It felt good to beat UofL, but obviously had no way of knowing that would be the one and only game they would win the entire season.
We can ponder what ifs all day long, but Curry should have been canned after that debacle of a season.
In that regard, the absolute worst was the 3-0 debacle in the rain with IU
That hire should've been David Cutcliff, TN OC at the time and he wanted the job. He had recruited Tim Couch to be Manning's replacement. Who knows, could've eventually brought in Eli Manning. It took years, no decades, for UK football to overcome the damage CM Newton did to the program....and of course his name is on the field. Cutcliff would have been a solid hire.
On that note, I am pretty sure that Utah hired Urban Meyer the same year we ended up hiring Rich Brooks. In retrospect, we chose poorly.
And Newton put Ivy in his chair
As if a rising star was going to take over a historically bad program entering severe ncaa sanctions. Reminder, 2 yrs later Urban turned down his dream job where he previously worked, Notre Dame, to coach at Florida instead.
But sure, UK football could have hired Urban Meyer in 2003
Of course he did, Ivy was Newton's assistant and took over when Newton retired thereby becoming part of an answer to: "Name the 3 worst UK ADs EVER.....Newton, Ivy, Hagan."
Yeah wasn’t that the game that a reporter asked Spurier what he liked about Ky and he said they have a good punter !
Bad ADs aside , Ky football was never going to succeed after Fran Curci for multiple reasons. Money, politics, and the presidents of the university along with the fans were the reasons Ky football was bad for so long ?
You got that right. Newton basically shut the football program down. Never could stand that POS.
Houston Nutt would have taken it as well. He might have done pretty well here too.
