In an alternate universe, Mike Bellotti, June Jones and Kevin Sumlin would have coached at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ State and UCLA. And, given the fickle nature of college football, maybe they would’ve already been fired.
It almost happened, for real.
The Pac-12 coaching shuffle began back in 2012, when ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ fired Mike Stoops midseason. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ State went 6-7 and fired Dennis Erickson. UCLA won the Pac-12 South, but canned Rick Neuheisel anyway.
The three schools went looking for coaches at roughly same time. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ was linked to Bellotti, the former Oregon coach. ASU offered its job to SMU’s June Jones before rescinding it. UCLA initially targeted Sumlin, then at Houston, before turning their attention to Boise State’s Chris Petersen. The Bruins struck out with both candidates.
College football fans know what happened next. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ hired Rich Rodriguez, who hadn’t coached in a year after a tumultuous three-year run at Michigan. ASU poached Todd Graham from Pittsburgh after just one season. And UCLA eventually picked Jim Mora, a former NFL boss with no college head coaching experience.
All three were initially thought to be home run hires. Mora won the Pac-12 South in his first season, and Graham’s Sun Devils took the division a year later. RichRod and ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ shocked the conference in 2014, capturing the Pac-12 South with a last-day-of-the-season win over ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ State and a Stanford upset of UCLA.
Now it’s 2017, and all three coaches are linked again. A Las Vegas sportsbook has pegged Mora (9-to-1 odds) Graham and Rodriguez (15-1) as the three coaches most likely to be fired this season. Perhaps, the thinking goes, it’s just time for a change. Consider: Between December 2011 and January 2012, 27 schools hired new coaches. Only eight of those coaches remain — and of those eight, Rodriguez (10-15), Graham (11-14) and Mora (12-13) have the three worst records over the last two seasons.
Here’s a year-by-year look at how Rodriguez, Graham and Mora went from hotshot hires to the hot seat:
