re: Best Coaching hire in the BCS Era(95-present)

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Only reason this was a "good" hire was because it got us Eli. Outside of that, not a very good hire.

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I don't really get this. When you look at the next couple of hires after him, he was a super duper good hire. But I know that doesn't mean much considering how things went... Still, he had winning seasons in his first five years. No other Ole Miss coach has ever done that I believe. He went to four bowl games in his first five years too (which I believe no other Ole Miss coach has done - they were bowl eligible in that one year they didn't go too). He won 80% of his bowl games (4/5), brought Ole Miss to their first New Year's Day Bowl in over a decade and coached them to their first 10-win season in 30 years. He won 8 games the year before Eli even arrived and had two bowl wins before Eli stepped on campus. Plus, he was worth getting just to get Eli. If LSU's National Championship D was not as awesome as it was, Cutcliffe would have been the only Ole Miss coach to reach the SECCG. He's the only Ole Miss coach that has come close to making it to the SECCG. Eli was a big help, but he got canned way too fast after one 4-7 season where he was trying to replace a QB that played for 4 years. He was conservative at times and had some head scratchers, but his overall numbers were very good for Ole Miss.