Move over Bobby Petrino there’s a new a face in the college football coaching ranks that seems to only care about his next gig, and his name is Todd Graham. Now I haven’t written much about our new ACC friends Pittsburgh and Syracuse since it was announced they would join the ACC, but now it’s seems like a good time to talk about this recent news at Pittsburgh.
If you don’t know, here’s the story… Todd Graham has been hired as the new head coach at Arizona State, and he told his players through a text message forwarded to the team. That’s real classy Todd, but I guess that’s par for the course for a guy that signed an extension at Rice, then bailed for a job at not Ohio State, Florida, or USC, but Tulsa.
Deservedly Graham is being slammed by people across the country. ESPN’s Mark Schlabach calls him the King of Liars. Holly Anderson of CNNSI says Arizona State has their own devil now. Maybe you might say hey this guy just left for a better job, it happens, but check out some of the details on his departure. He tried Tuesday to seek permission from Pittsburgh to speak with Arizona St. about the vacant head coaching position, after apparently already accepting the position. He then never responded to Pitt when they inquired about what was going on.
In a real act of hypocrisy, Graham called his former assistants that left Pittsburgh for Arizona “mercenaries” just days before. Coaching is a business we all know that. Graham says he did this so his wife could be closer to her family in Arizona, and that’s fine. The problem is he already has a reputation for this sort of thing. The backhanded way he treated the University of Pittsburgh and its players seems to indicate he’s just going to do it to Arizona State in the future. I wouldn’t trust him. As for Pittsburgh consider yourselves better off without him. He was 6-6 in his only season at Pitt with a history of jumping ship without notice. He brought an offense that was inconsistent at best and took a team generally regarded as a Big East contender and barely got them to a bowl game.
Look on the bright side you could have Maryland’s RandyEdsall coming back for a second season like the Terps do. He managed to destroy a 9 win team, run off scores of players, and pretty much alienate the entire Maryland fanbase. I’m betting Terp fans are wishing he’d just pack up and go after only one season.
Leave a Reply