Rich Rodriguez did the right thing by turning down the South Carolina job. Had he accepted the job, it would have been an even bigger mistake than bolting West Virginia for Michigan.
Make no mistake about it: South Carolina isn’t the glamorous job some in the media are making it out to be. Sure, it’s a high-paying gig in the football-mad SEC, but when a school invests that much money a coach, it’s going to expect wins right away. Given that this year’s team dropped home games to Kentucky and The Citadel, it’s clear that Gamecocks are more than a few years away from being able to compete for the conference championship.
Of course, that’s nothing really new in Columbia. While Steve Spurrier helped take the program to new heights (e.g. three 11-win seasons and a division title), the fact of the matter is that South Carolina traditionally hasn’t been very good. In fact, other than Spurrier, only one coach has led the Gamecocks to double-digit wins. That was back in 1984, when Joe Morrison guided USC to a 10-2 mark.
It’s also worth noting that even extremely successful head coaches have suffered through losing seasons in Columbia. Morrison’s teams endured two of them following the magical 1984 season. Lou Holtz – who won a national championship at Notre Dame – had three of them in his five-year tenure at USC. Based on how the Gamecocks closed out the year, it’s safe to say that Steve Spurrier’s final team would have finished under .500, even though not all games (and losses) were credited to him.
Why’s that a big deal? The only other losing season Spurrier had in the collegiate ranks was back in 1987 – his initial season at Duke.
Adding all of these factors together, it’s clear that Rodriguez had a major rebuilding job in front of him. Considering that even the most successful coaches in school history had losing seasons from time to time, he was going to be fighting an uphill battle.
That’s very different from the situation Rodriguez has at Arizona. Sure, the Wildcats had a similar track record as South Carolina when he arrived (only two 10-win seasons, both by Dick Tomey), but Rodriguez has already transformed the Wildcats into a force in the Pac-12. In four seasons in Tucson, he’s guided UA to a 32-20 mark with four bowl appearances. He also has the team competing with the elite schools in the conference, leading the Wildcats to the conference title game in 2014.
Don’t be surprised if Arizona makes a return visit in 2016. Yes, the team limped to a 6-6 record this year, but that fails to tell a larger story. The fact of the matter is that the Wildcats were one of the most explosive offenses in the country this year, ranking 2oth nationally in scoring offense and 15th in total offense. With a number of top players likely to return – including quarterback Anu Solomon and running back Nick Wilson – there’s no reason to believe the offense won’t be every bit as explosive as it was this year. As long as the defense can remain healthy – something that didn’t happen in 2015, contributing to the Wildcats’ struggles over the final five games of the season – UA will be a contender to win the South division next fall.
Let’s see: take a job where you have massive rebuilding project in front of you and have the daunting task of replacing the most successful coach in school history, or stay put and compete for a championship?
Sounds like a no-brainer to me.
