Monday, November 27, 2017

DeFilippo: the man behind multiple messes

The Coaching Carousel has taking some weird turns this season. Nothing more unprecedented than the Tennessee fans revolting against the school's hire of Greg Schiano. With fit being so essential, you wonder how could Tennessee's AD John Currie so misread his own fanbase. Well guess who helped place Currie at Tennessee? Former Boston College AD Gene DeFilippo. Yes, Gene D handpicked Currie, who cited him as a mentor when introduced. Now less than one full football season later, Tennessee fans have neutered Currie and are ready to send him packing. Great pick, Gene!

In theory Gene should understand Tennessee given his past their and numerous ties. I am sure Gene and Turnkey would explain that the Schiano mess could have been avoided if they had been directly involved with that search. My guess is that they were conflicted out since Gene was already running the Ole Miss search. And who did Ole Miss hire after all was said and done? Their interim head coach. Gene really worked that one hard. It was like hiring Spaz all over again.

If you go back to last season, you start to notice a pattern. Gene ran LSU's coaching search last year. Who did they end up hiring? Their interim coach. Once again, money well spent on Turnkey!

It doesn't surprise me that Gene keeps getting these plum assignments. He was at his best when he was networking, mentoring and working the gossip. That's a major reason why BC got invited back into the ACC. However, the aspect of the job where Gene was least successful was hiring coaches. Jags, Spaz, Crawley and Donahue were all big missteps on his watch. But as long as colleges are looking for cover, I am sure Gene and his firm will gladly take their money and just hire the interim.

Regarding what Tennessee fans did, I am all for them standing up against the Schiano hire. I think the Penn State stuff was a red herring to make the relationship untenable. Ultimately they thought he was just another Butch Jones. I think Schiano is a good coach but an incredibly bad fit in Knoxville. Both sides could have done better. Maybe I should start my own search firm.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whoever hired Gene for that role firmly believes in the old investments adage "past performance is not indicative of future results."

Jeff Jagodinski, Frank Spaziani, Steve Donohue, Women's basketball coaches, Womens hockey coach(sexual predator). On and on.

working rich said...

Schiano is a quality coach.
Works extremely hard at developing connections with HS coaches.
Any kid I know who played division 1 football had met him, liked him, and made RU their number 1 second choice.

Most went someplace else but all were one signature away from RU.

NYCEagle said...

I think BC could do much worse than Schiano when they move on from Addazio. He took Rutgers from a doormat team to a perennial conference title contender. He had great relationships with all the NJ high school coaches. Something that could be EXTREMELY valuable for a school like BC

Edward Griffith said...

DIFLOPPO IS ONE TOTALLY INCOMPETENT ---!!!
Rating up there with his greatest mistakes was the FIRING of Cathy Inglese (ANOTHER CHET
SUCCESS story) Perennial NCAA participant big time winner and someone who beat Gene.
FIRED Al Skinner ,most successful men's coach ever. Difloppo just plain dumb.

IF Christian can't back two great recruits (one a big man he must go.)

JBQ said...

School districts use "search firms". The search only recommends someone to be hired and there is usually more than one choice. There is a report which goes with the recommendation. Someone has to do the "leg work". The process saves the client much time, effort, and money.---Here in the Midwest, we have been waiting for a new police chief for six months. There is a search firm involved. Leaks from inside the department already detail that the replacement was identified the day before the previous chief was fired.---In this case, the search firm is only a cover for duplicitous maneuvering. When an assistant is hired, the process usually comes up with viable candidates that you can compare to the "ace in hand". GDF has to be getting support from somewhere to keep his job.

NEDofSavinHill said...

Sciano is a total stiff. He won only half his games at RU in the watered down Big East, after the three best football programs left (Miami, VT and BC). He was a failure in the NFL. GDF, the worst AD in BC history and Sciano are two complete flops. Any assistant on the present football staff would be a vastly superior HC to Sciano. How did the Ohio State DC with a great D-line give up 55 to Iowa? Only through incompetence. 2. A famous Boston Pol was asked how his brother got such a plum job. He was hired only after a nationwide search said the Pol. JBQ is right. Search firms are scams to give cover to the decision makers.

Knucklehead said...

Support is from Moose and Rocco. He is running a racket. He really did set us up big time financialy by getting us into the ACC. It is beyond absurd that he has anything to do with hiring coaches. If he were remotely competent at it he would still be here.

Napolean Bonaparte said...

Search firms are often mandated by someone higher up who is relatively clueless about the job and the candidates and has insufficient confidence in the hiring capabilities of existing staff for an important position. They can be helpful in confidentially contacting potential candidates and screening candidates especially for a lean organization with inadequate staffing to perform such tasks. But they can be very expensive and they are going to be paid even if they recommend another employee assistant coach (on the basis that they aren't going to do the work for comparison candidates and risk not getting paid) . On top of that - the notion that they provide some "cover" is foolish thinking. If you are the AD and you hire a dud - it's on you no matter whose advice you obtained. If you have an existing assistant coach with whom you are confident - you should be able to develop a few alternative candidates without a search firm for a point of comparison. If the assistant still looks good - you should hire him and save the school a bundle of money. If you already have a healthy list of potential candidates and the dismissal of the existing coach has been made public - I'd figure out how to contact them in the absence of a firm and use your existing organization to do the leg work. However, if it has not been made public - you absolutely need to use a search firm in all cases to keep the search under wraps. And obviously - you hire a search firm that has a solid record of hiring successful coaches.

mod34b said...

amazing how in demand DeFilippo is (to remember how to spell his name 1 L (for loser) and 2 p's (for piss poor))

GDF helped install the AD at Nebraska; he was go to guy at Tenn; 'Ol Miss. and other big time schools. Why on earth would these successful, really, really rich football programs need a no-talent jack-ass like GDF? Do these school not see how bad a judge of talent he was at BC?

Just one of those things were you scratch your head and laugh. Kind of like the Florida fans did when we hired Daz. WTF moments abound.

mod34b said...

and Brad Bates has a new name

"Dr. Brad Bates, Vice President of Consulting"

he is not apparently doing executive search work, but is consulting with Universities on strategy.

yet one more WTF moment.

John said...

I agree, Mod and would like both of those guys to be distant memories.

Moving on,........

Knucklehead said...

Still don't know why Tee Martin is not getting a sniff at Tennessee. He as done a decent job as an off. coordinator at USC.

He should have been the first person on the list.

CT said...

No HC experience.

UT is not a place for training wheels.

Knucklehead said...

No. He is at USC and won a national title at Tennessee. He lost his stupid training wheels 15 years ago. Try being the next up after Peyton Manning. Plus he will recruit the shit out of everyone as a young competent non-white person.

They are too stupid see what is obvious.

Big Jack Krack said...

Agree with Ned about Schiano in terms of the right fit for BC. No good.

Mod - I like the one L for Loser and two Ps for Piss Poor. That about sums up that a$$hat.

It's too bad one of the females in the department or around the campus didn't file on him as it was stated that he was a lecherous individual.

But people still hire him. You can't make this stuff up.

CT said...

Martin has two years of OC experience. He’s a recruiter. So was Jones.

He’d have to separate the play-calling from being the HC, like Helton did. But Helton could do that because he was Sark’s OC there first and knew the system. That’s why a stepping stone job would probably work. Plus, you have a top 5 NFL draft pick as your QB. It’s like giving Jags credit for inheriting Ryan. UT fans are delusional. You wouldn’t know that, but it’s easily a top 3 wacko crew. You should consider switching allegiances.

CT said...

Moorhead to Miss. St.

Knucklehead said...

CT to Mars. Please.