David Fizdale out as head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies. I do believe this is the first coach firing of the NBA season.
He was 50-51 after a little more than a year with the team. The big problems seem to be that he was 7-12 so far this season, they’ve lost eight games in a row, and Mr. Fizdale got crosswise with Marc Gasol (one of the team’s star players).
In other news, Ty Detmer is also out as offensive coordinator for BYU.
David Bailiff out as head coach at Rice.
He’d been there for 11 seasons and was 57-80 overall.
He also took Rice to four bowl games.
After going 3-9 in Bailiff’s first season in 2007, Rice rebounded with a 10-3 year and won the Texas Bowl in 2008. But since winning the Owls’ first outright conference title in 56 years in 2013, Bailiff’s teams have done progressively worse.
Rice went 8-5 in 2014 and won the Hawaii Bowl. They ended 2015 with a 5-7 record and finished 3-9 in 2016.
And they were 1-11 this year, which is not a good look.
…I think this is the strangest football story (college or pro) I’ve seen so far this season. I didn’t know anything about it until this morning when I checked my phone: Mike the Musicologist had pinged me overnight, but the media wasn’t covering this when I wrote last night’s loser/firings update.
But I digress. As you know, Bob, Tennessee fired Butch Jones a few weeks ago. So they’ve been looking for a replacement, and found one…
…Greg Schiano, current defensive coordinator with Ohio State.
The name “Greg Schiano” may ring some bells with longtime readers. Gregg Easterbrook had serious issues with Mr. Schiano during his previous coaching tenures, which include a stint at Tampa Bay (where he was fired after going 11-21) and at Rutgers for 11 years before that (where he was 68-67). Most of Easterbrook’s issues seemed to be with Mr. Schiano’s alleged lack of “sportsmanship”: Mr. Schiano famously bragged about telling his teams to disrupt kneel-down plays.
Anyway. The university apparently signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Mr. Schiano, and word got out on Sunday.
Hilarity ensued. If by “hilarity” you mean “a massive s–t fit”.
Tennessee students, fans, and some political figures did not like the idea of hiring Mr. Schiano. At least part of the objection seems to be that Mr. Sciano’s previous coaching stints also include a stop at Penn State during the Sandusky era.
Schiano was known in the NFL as being a domineering leader with a challenging personality.
Giggle. Snort.
Now Tennessee has apparently backed out of the deal. USA Today. ESPN.
Question 1: does Tennessee owe Mr. Schiano money? And if so, how much?
There are reports that TN will owe Schiano $20 million in a buyout for a contract that was signed but TN backed… https://t.co/fouiHHZmjl
— Brad Jones (@BradJonesBBBTV) November 27, 2017
I think Brad Jones knows more about this stuff than I do, but $20 million seems unlikely to me. I can see this costing the university some money, maybe even in the seven-figure range. But it looks like Mr. Schiano still has his Ohio State job, and the contract was “subject to approval” by the board of regents…
Question #2: does athletics director John Currie quit, or get fired?
Look, national media can think what they want about us, but at no point in history has every member of #VolTwitter AND the Tennessee media agreed on something. That's how big of a deal this Schiano thing is.
— Brian Rice (@briancrice) November 26, 2017