ESPN is reporting that John Chavis, formerly defensive coordinator of the Tennessee Volunteers, is likely to take over as Defensive Coordinator for the LSU Tigers next season. So here's a question for you, Sean: how is it that we didn't come up with John Chavis's name when we were listing candidates for the open position?
The Tennessee fans appear to be split concerning whether he'll be a good hire for LSU. His reputation is that he's one of the best, but there's a persistent beef with him, that he prematurely deploys a prevent defense in close games, and Vols fans are blaming this tendency for a bunch of last minute losses.
The talent level at LSU should be better than it has been at Tennessee for the past several years. I just hope he can put the fear of God into some of the LSU defenders; maybe scare them into holding on to their tackles.
Another steady current of the comments to that ESPN story is this: that it was soooo professional of Les Miles to ensure that both LSU co-defensive coordinators had found other employment before the identity of their replacement was leaked. The idea is that his dilatoriness allowed each man to walk away with his dignity. I've heard this view espoused in casual conversations with other LSU fans as well. Maybe I could stand to be more sympathetic here, but based on the performance of the LSU defense this season, and the new jobs that these two men accepted, I'd have a hard time claiming that either walked away with his dignity intact. Peveto is moving on to a head coaching position at the greener pastures of Northwestern State University in Nachitoches, Louisiana ("The City of Lights!" proclaims its water tower). NSU went 7-5 this season, 4-2 in the Southland Conference of the FCS. Mallory is off for the University of New Mexico, one of several perennial doormats of the Mountain West, though by no means the most pathetic; it went 4-8 this season, 2-6 in conference.
What I will say is that, if you are willing to credit him with it, you might see some Machiavellian shrewdness in Les Miles' much-maligned decision to go with co-defensive coordinators in 2008. By refusing to fill the position, he created a situation that was sustainable for as long as he needed it to be in order to wait for a qualified candidate. Here's hoping that John Chavis was worth the wait.
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4 comments:
You're right, I completely forgot about him. Getting decent coordinators from other SEC teams is a pretty rare event, and with how disappointing Tennessee was this year, I'd forgotten how decent their defense was. I would have said it was the wrong move a year ago, because I tend to be much more instant gratification with coordinators than coaches, but considering how this past season has gone on offense, we might just say this was a rebuilding year anyway. It remains to be seen whether Chavis will pay off as much as Rhodes or other D-coordinators available from last year might have.
I hadn't heard anything about Les Miles being a great or professional for getting Peveto or Mallory jobs. Here's hoping they're better as head coaches than they were as co-coordinators. My expectations for them weren't high, but they still managed to profoundly disappoint. Maybe this is unprofessional of me, but I would have fired them and started shopping around before the season ended. Nothing personal guys, but I need a top ten defense, or at least a top twenty, and you guys aren't it.
This wasn't clear from my post, but Mallory is actually going to New Mexico as a defensive coordinator, not as a head coach.
Also Sean, just because we're talking about the same topic, doesn't mean you need to post to the comments section. Go ahead and post your thoughts in a blog post.
I kind of disagree in this case. My post was largely a response to yours, and as such, doesn't really stand alone very well. Furthermore, I think it would take away from the credit you deserve for initially posting the topic. Perhaps there could be a compromise? Is subthread technology a possibility?
Is any topic fair game for the posts or are there certain standards to follow?
The ladies of the XX Factor (http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/) don't have a space for comments to their posts. When they are responding to somebody else's initial topic, even if it is a short response (frequently much more cursory than yours was), they start off like a letter, as in "Ryan, [line break] [line break] [response]."
I think that's a pretty elegant way to deal with the issue. This is a conversation, and I don't see any reason why we need an artificial hierarchy based upon who was first to write about a certain topic.
On the other hand, if your comment had been "I like this post," a Comment post would have been more appropriate.
Please don't think of me as the Internet etiquette police or anything; I'm just envisioning a conversation, and all the remarks in a single conversation generally belong to the same level of importance. They're not subordinate to one another, except in time.
As for topics and standards, I say we let that develop naturally for a while. I'll go so far as to say that personal narrative for its own sake isn't what I have in mind, but if the personal narrative gives rise to issues that are worthy of comment from the rest of us, go for it. I think if we write here for a while, the standards ought to arise fairly spontaneously.
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