re: Which coaches are getting fired at the end of the year?

quote:

---

ok, well Bert also has fewer wins over the past 3 seasons, unless you think Bert should be credited with more leeway in comparison to Butch. And two of Bert's losses are getting beat by Toledo and blown out by TTU, as well as all of his SEC games his first year and six of them his second

---

Bielema gets a lot more leeway than Butch. Really, look at the state of the other power programs in the SEC East during his entire tenure-- the best team he's had to contend with is, generally, a Georgia winding down the Richt era.

Bielema's split with Tech, lost a P5 road game to Rutgers, and the loss to Toledo does hurt-- but it is largely mitigated by winning the two bowl games against P5 conference teams very handily, and winning back to back against the best teams Ole Miss has been able to field, and the borderline contender LSU.

The 'He Lost To Toledo!' bit gets bandied about a lot, but it generally just demonstrates how little attention people pay-- Toledo wasn't a *bad* team. They just weren't a P5 team. Florida catches a ton less flack for a loss to Georgia Southern under similar circumstances, despite being perceived as a better program.

The recruiting argument doesn't hold up to scrutiny either, when trying to claim Petrino had left more on hand-- his classes were built on bulk signings of skill position players, most of whom worked out of the program or left even before he did-- and his other high points were a couple of linemen who washed out of the program before BB's second year. Tennessee had a much stronger talent base from which to work, against significantly worse competition.

That doesn't mean BB is immune from criticism; he's likely to hear a lot of it, even at 8 wins before a bowl game. The muttering will really be loud, if they come out of the gate 2-2 this year, as well-- he can't afford another slow start.

It'd take a truly catastrophic year-- 4 or 5 wins-- to make his job be in question.