Let's talk coaches
Sports Illustrated college-football writer Stewart Mandel is trying to get some discussion going in the otherwise quiet dead of summer - so is it a crime for me to piggyback on his efforts and do the same here?
I think not ...
Mandel put together a list of the best and worst coaches in college football - and three Atlantic Coast Conference guys made the list.
Only one of them was on the best-coaches list - Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech, who, to my surprise, is way down at #7in Mandel's reckoning.
If it were me, I would have Beamer up at #2 - behind Pete Carroll of USC - if only because Beamer has led his Hokies to a 14-3 record in ACC play in his first two years in the league, during which time he had two different starting quarterbacks, not to mention the turmoil that one of them (Marcus Vick) had the team embroiled throughout his tenure in Blacksburg.
I don't disagree with the name at the top of Mandel's worst-coaches list - North Carolina State's Chuck Amato, who somehow wins seven games a year despite having guys like Philip Rivers and Mario Williams (one of three Pack first-rounders in this year's NFL draft) on the field.
The other entry - Chan Gailey of Georgia Tech at #3 - had me scratching my head at first. But the more I thought about it - seven wins a season, wins in 2005 over Miami and Auburn, losses to N.C. State and Virginia - the more it made sense.
One question - how many of the above criticisms of Gailey and Amato apply to Virginia's Al Groh? Hmm ...
- Chris Graham