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Protest, Political officials and a flat out public outcry from Vol Nation stopped Greg Schiano from becoming the next head coach at the University of Tennessee.
On Sunday at 2:23PM I got an ESPN alert that Tennessee was finalizing a deal with current Ohio State DC, Greg Schiano, to be the new head coach. My phone blew up with texts. The first message was from my twin brother saying Tennessee football is F’d. I only knew of Schiano as the Ohio State coach that hit a bicyclist on campus. I turned on Tony Basilio on my Ipad and I was glued to twitter on my phone and witnessed the power of the T.
The UT Athletic Director, John Currie, was basically a one-man search and hire firm and well, he flat out sucks at his job! (He should be on the chopping block next.) Clay Travis said it the best. You don’t take home a five from the bar at seven at night. There was NO RUSH to go after Greg SchiaNO!
Penn State passed on Schiano TWICE! Butch Jones beat the crap out of Schiano (on the field) when he was at Rutgers. He never won the Big East at Rutgers and UT needs more than a guy whose record is one game over .500 in 11 years at Rutgers. Heck, Iowa scored 55 pointing on his Ohio State defense this year! If Schiano is such a great coach then why are Arkansas, Texas A&M, and Mississippi State not rolling out the red carpet for him to come coach their programs? Hint, because he’s not that good of a coach! Oh, and he’s an even shittier person. In a Deadspin article, Schiano was viewed as a bully at Rutgers and described as “unaccommodating, intimidating and downright disrespectful”. His 11-21 record with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is less than stellar and players had no respect for him. WHY WOULD UT WANT ANYTHING TO DO WITH THIS? UT doesn’t need another Dooley or Butch Jones.
Then you add in the Penn State horror. Schiano was an assistant at Penn State from 1990-95. In court deposition, under oath, Mike McQueary (a key witness in the Jerry Sandusky rape case) named Greg Schiano as a witness to Sandusky in the shower with a kid. There are no court documents saying that Schiano ever went to the police about what he saw or tried to stop what he saw. Schiano never sued anyone for making false accusations about him or his character. What happened at PSU was the worst, the WORST, story to ever come out of college sports. Why would Vol Nation want anything to do with it? Maybe McQueary lied. Maybe McQueary had false info, but this isn’t passing the smell test and he’s not even that good of a football coach to give him the benefit of the doubt. Would you hire Harvey Weinstein to coach your dance team? NO! And he hasn’t been officially charged with anything…
At 8:13PM I got an ESPN alert that Tennessee had backed out of hiring Greg Schiano. Thank you to the sports gods that there will not be any Pedessee signs at College Game Day next year! A huge thank you to Tony Basilio, Nathanael Rutherford and Clay Travis for using the airways and social media to get Vol Nation involved and react! This was so incredible and powerful and it will be an ESPN 30for30 one day. I just hope they blur out that ugly NFL jersey Tony was wearing.