SEC coaches on the hot seat

[cleburnecountytigerfan 0]

This is an article I found written by David Climer in The Nashville Tennessean.This article talks about the amount of pressure each SEC football coach is under this year. Acoording to this article Rich Brooks and Houston are under the most pressure, and Marc Richt and Tommy Tuberville are under the least amount of pressure. Do you agree with this?

Here is the link.

http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl.../607090379/1108

Who's hot, who's not in the SEC

Commentary by DAVID CLIMER

Senior Writer

It's the middle of summer and the temperature is rising.

So, too, is the heat on SEC football coaches.

Around here, it's not a matter of whether a coach will get fired, it's just a question of when.

Last season was an oddity. Nobody got the heave-ho. The year before, there were two firings, one semi-forced retirement and an exit for the pros.

Consider: The average tenure of an SEC coach at his current school is 4.1 seasons. That's how long it takes some players to pass Freshman English.

Here, then, is the SEC's dirty dozen, ranked from the hottest seat to the coolest cushion:

Rich Brooks, Kentucky. An unpopular hire in '03 (when AD Mitch Barnhart swears he almost landed Bill Parcells), Brooks has had three undistinguished seasons. His fourth will be his last.

Houston Nutt, Arkansas. What once seemed to be a perfect marriage is now on the rocks. Back-to-back losing seasons and steady slippage in the SEC West do not sit well with Hog Heads.

Ed Orgeron, Ole Miss. He talks a good game, but is Orgeron really head coaching material? He already has shuffled his staff. Closing with four straight losses, including a 35-14 no-show at Mississippi State, didn't sit well.

Sylvester Croom, Mississippi State. He was assured he'd have time to ride out NCAA sanctions before they kept score. But successive 3-8 seasons and an anemic offense are big concerns.

Phillip Fulmer, Tennessee. When his supposed national title contender went 5-6 last year, the Big Orange banner was replaced by a red flag. He's safe this year, but another losing season would set up a critical '07 for Fulmer.

Mike Shula, Alabama. Yes, the 10-2 run last season marked a breakthrough for Shula after two dicey years of on-the-job training. But this is Alabama. You're only as good as your last game.

Bobby Johnson, Vanderbilt. The expectation level at Vandy is such that some long-suffering fans wanted to give him a lifetime contract after a 5-6 season that was capped by a victory at UT.

Les Miles, LSU. Nick Saban was a tough act to follow, but credit Miles for putting an 11-2 mark on the board. How will he juggle that crowded QB position?

Urban Meyer, Florida. He has the fortune of being the man after the man who followed Steve Spurrier. The 34-7 conquest of rival FSU offset the disappointment of losing to, yes, Spurrier.

Steve Spurrier, South Carolina. Speak of the devil. He beat his alma mater. He won at UT. If Spurrier can get the kind of pitch-and-catch talent to showcase his offense, this could get interesting.

Tommy Tuberville, Au-burn. Year in and year out, nobody in the SEC does a better job on both sides of the ball. He's hiring bright coordinators and stockpiling talent. Plus, he's won four straight against Alabama.

Mark Richt, Georgia. The SEC's quiet man makes plenty of noise in the standings. Richt has authored four straight seasons of double-digit victories and owns two conference titles. Now about that 1-4 record against Florida …

It's the SEC. Nobody's perfect. And no coach is perfectly safe.

David Climer's columns appear on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at (615) 259-8020 or dclimer@tennessean.com.