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CLEMSON -- Around the time the news broke that Josh Huepel is Tennessee's new head coach, a text came through from a Clemson source:
"Pleasantville wins again."
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We don't need to tell you that Pleasantville was not being used to describe Knoxville.
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No, Rocky Top was much less than pleasant after learning that AD Danny White, after taking a $1.8 million salary to leave UCF for Tennessee, after devoting even more money to employ a search firm, ended up hiring the same guy he hired three years ago to run UCFs program.
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Gentlemen, start your rage engines.
One radio show, manned by two disconsolate fanboy types, used as bumper music Johnny Cash's splendid cover of Trent Reznor's "Hurt."
The opening verse:
I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that's real
Process this for a moment. Usually the day a coach is hired is a celebratory moment. Almost every coach "wins the press conference," whatever that means.
Reality, and reaction to reality, usually comes when the season starts and the new coach starts losing games. Kind of like when the lights come on after last call at a late-night drinking establishment.
Tennessee fans are at the point where the hire of a new coach, even one who has to be better than his probation-courting predecessor, feels like a funeral.
The last-call lights are on, like, right now. They don't like the look of their coach on the day he's hired.
And here's the part that has to bring laughter: They're blaming their new AD's "ego" for his alleged refusal to hire "a big name."
You would think that all this losing for a decade plus, plus the coming sanctions for some of the worst alleged infractions imaginable, would humble these folks to the point of having more self-awareness.
The folks in Knoxville should try blaming their own egos for their inability to see that Huepel is probably as good as they're going to get.
Yes, Tony Elliott was squarely in the mix for the Tennessee job. Yes, he was very much interested in the job to the point of spending considerable time researching it and pondering taking it.
Yes, Elliott ended up telling White no-thanks yesterday. That has been confirmed through numerous sources at Clemson.
We realize things are so good for everyone right now in Pleasantville that sometimes we need to take a few steps back to truly appreciate it.
So take a deep breath, a few steps back, and marvel over the following fact:
Clemson's two coordinators, Elliott and Brent Venables, said no-thanks to two SEC head-coaching opportunities in a little more than a month.
A decade ago, would you have ever imagined two Clemson assistants walking away from the chance to lead Tennessee and Auburn?
Back then, people in these parts were just hoping Clemson and the ACC could stay in the same ballpark with the SEC's money-printing machine.
National championship contention for a school from the ACC? It seemed like a long way off.
At present, one of our favorite pastimes is watching fan bases from the SEC get revved up about a fired coach being replaced by a "big-time hire," only to see the actual hire closer to the seventh choice than the big time. Rinse, repeat.
The natural conclusion to the Huepel news is that Elliott will now be a candidate at the vacancy Huepel created. But we don't believe he's interested in going to UCF; he can do better.
Elliott has also been the target of NFL interest recently, and while that's always something to monitor we believe the Tennessee job was the last big career-related decision for Elliott in 2021.
Smart money is on Elliott being here for his seventh season as the offensive coordinator, building on an 80-6 record the Tigers have compiled with him in the booth.
Smart money is on any Clemson coach thinking long and hard about looking elsewhere, even for head jobs in the SEC.
The smart money is on Pleasantville, USA.
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