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Split Zone Duo: College Football Podcast
Dabo's Decline and the History of CFB's Guy After the Guy
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Dabo's Decline and the History of CFB's Guy After the Guy

Just how cautious should a school be when a living legend is on his way down?
© Ken Ruinard / USA Today Co Inc SC / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Godfrey joins Richard and Alex for a discussion about college football history. For understandable reasons, people all cautious about calling for teams to make coaching changes when the incumbent is a legend in the job. How careful should we be, though? In this episode, we go through the past 40-ish years of coaching transitions from living legend to … someone else. How do schools do when they either fire an all-timer or need to replace him in retirement? The answer isn’t great, but it’s not as bad as you might think.

  • 2:04: Why Dabo Swinney got us thinking about this subject

  • 16:20: The rare cases of the “guy after the guy” arguably doing a better job than the coach he replaced, or at least winning more games for a while

  • 21:15: The maintainers who kept the train on the tracks, like Ryan Day

  • 39:13: The long, slow declines, like Virginia Tech post-Frank Beamer

  • 59:52: The tank jobs, like Ron Zook or Ron Prince

  • 1:24:16: The cases where the jury is still out, like Kalen DeBoer. (Is that jury still out? We have a mini-debate.)

  • 1:31:15: Lessons for Clemson heading into another fraught season

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Producer: Anthony Vito

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