Titan86

I can appreciate attempting to reduce payroll. However, I'm quite sure that there are MANY coaches around who are infinitely better than this hire and wouldn't have cost an arm and a leg. I think that McCallie could and should go after the very best there is, and they didn't. I can also appreciate McCallie's mission statement, but are you suggesting that any other coach couldn't help them attain their mission? All I'm saying is that this is a weak hire. I think the players, fans, and alumni of McCallie deserve the best they can get. This hire is not it. When your chief rival is playing for a state championship and beating you twice in a season in the process, it is time to change your way of thinking and do something. Hiring Coach Simmons because he's a great guy and because McCallie usually hires from within isn't going to help beat the Baylors of the world. I hope it works out for them, but I just think it was a very weak hire.

Call me crazy, but I find it hard to see how a school that charges $20k per year and has been around long enough to have LOTS of "old money" is "scrambling to cut payroll". Say what you will, but this hire looks like McCallie isn't serious about football.

I have no doubt that Coach Simmons is a good guy. He is obviously well thought of by the McCallie people as he is the current AD and had been there before this stint for 12 years. With that said though, this is a terrible hire. McCallie needed to make a splash and generate some excitement for their program. With this hire, all I hear is a thud. Forget that he's a "great guy" and look at it like this: What would you think of an elite school that has fallen on hard times with its football program recently going out and hiring a guy who hadn't been a head coach in a decade? I mean, if that guy was a proven winner or a builder of great programs, then maybe one could be excited. But, that is not the case here. Coach Simmons teams have lost 75% of their games at three different high schools. Is there going to be a worse active coaching record in the Chattanooga area next year when the Times Free Press publishes the career records of all coaches? The poster before who says "inside job" could have a point. To be honest, looking at it ANY OTHER WAY makes the move make even LESS sense. If I am a coach at Baylor today, I am very thankful for this hire. I can't imagine how it could have turned out any better for the Red Raiders. I don't know Coach Simmons and I wish him and the McCallie boys well, but this is an extremely suspect hire.