Okay, I have read through the tweets. I think they were very out of line. I also read through some of their other tweets that are not hockey related, and can definitely see that their tweets regarding BU probably are not out of the norm for their personalities. I do not think Albie O'Connell was the best person for the job, but I don't think it is going to cost the program "dearly." I don't think it will cost us much, I imagine things will stay pretty consistent and similar to the past four years.
I have no problem with requiring a college degree for the job. As someone posted the other day, isn't that a NCAA rule? Or at least something that is standard across the NCAA? I mean, come on - you want a job that pays several hundred thousand? Get a degree. It's not that tough. If Sacco couldn't get it done by September, then he shouldn't be eligible for the position. If Pandolfo could, then I think he should have been given strong consideration.
The aspect that I disagree with the most is the idea that we need a coach who is going to stick around for decades and decades. Our coaches don't all need to be Jack Parker. Yes, it isn't great that we had a coaching search again, five years later (can't blame Quinn at all - way too much money to pass up). It was probably sooner than most people expected - I figured more around the 10-year mark. But if you thought David Qiunn was going to coach at BU for 30 years, then you are insane. How many coaches have done that in the history of college hockey? Four or five? But I think you need to get the best coach available, even if he "might" leave after awhile for an NHL head coach position. There are way too many factors that go into that to be able to predict that a potential hire will ever get that call, let alone have it be the right situation with the right money offered. Not offering the job to someone like Pandolfo because he might want to be an NHL head coach someday? Sounds like a big mistake to me. Not talking to Hynes? I don't know ... that whole situation is weird, anyway. Rather than go for it and get a great coach, they got a guy who is one step down from that. Decent hire, but not great. Which is probably how we'll describe his career when it is over. I know we're going to be looking at a dysfunctional, underachieving power play. I just hope he recognizes his own weaknesses and gets a strong associate HC to do strategy, x's and o's, in-game adjustments. Who knows, maybe he was better at that stuff than Quinn and Quinn just never let him get his ideas out.
With that being said, I think anyone who thought BU would hire Bennett is an idiot. Including Bennett, if he actually thought that. Blow up the program and change to a completely different style of coaching, recruiting, and playing the game? No thanks. Bennett would know that, too. I am sure they brought him in (and probably considered other coaches, too) to get an outside idea of things. What are other coaches like, etc. Doing their due diligence. I don't think they strung him along at all. Do these writers really thing the AD and President and VP are going to waste their time interviewing candidates? The other thing to consider here is that these clowns at CHN were the ones who said Bennett was a candidate at BU. Everything started from them. Was he really a final candidate for the job?
My final thought is that, five or so years from now, we are going to be sitting here saying, "Man, we should've hired Freddy Meyer." He will end up being the Hynes of the last coaching search.
