I’ve been questioning Saban’s hires over the past 5 years as much as anyone. I’ve got posts on this thread, the Saban/Bama thread on the football board and I’m sure several others where I go into some depth on it. But let’s be clear, early Saban at LSU and Bama was as good as it gets with the hires, especially on the defensive side.
Bo Davis was promoted multiple times in the 2000’s on multiple Saban staffs. He was outstanding enough that Mack Brown money-whipped him into coming to Texas when numerous experts considered Davis a top 5 position coach and recruiter across the CFB landscape.
It was only due to the simple idiocy of Charlie Strong that Texas lost Davis. By then, the SEC footprint had gone competely nuts and Clemson was emerging to boot. DL recruiting in the mid-teens to now among LSU, Fisher-FSU, Freeze-Ole Miss, Pruitt-Tenn, Clemson, Auburn, Bama, UGA, OSU, and ATM in the southeast has involved the dirtiest, most hate-filled recruiting in the history of the sport. It has rivaled college basketball recruiting.
In the midst of that, Saban hired Davis back and they crushed it. Then Davis got busted doing something on another level with the help of some “analysts” and Saban had no choice but to let him go. Davis went to the NFL as a condition to the good graces granted in keeping things private.
One of the first people contacted by Sarkisian was Davis after Sarkisian knew he had the Texas job. The guy left an NFL job to come back to Texas. He withstood the public posting of him losing his mind in a profanity-laced tirade at an extremely pious and straight-laced school known for putting its reputation above good personnel decisions. He’s turned down offers back to the NFL, back to LSU and back to Bama.
Now, I wonder, are all of those regimes who have or want the guy just a large group of clowns masquerading as people who know something about football and recruiting? Or is it possible, and believe me, this … is … a hypothetical, that the guys on Surly doubting Davis’ recruiting and coaching acumen are just a large band of buffoons pounding out the first hints of nonsense that cross their minds onto keyboards that spew this unintentional comedy onto this forum?