SFCityBear said:
wifeisafurd said:
Big C said:
Heck, since Knowlton has had this issue on his radar for months, he probably already has.
You are absolutely correct. He looked at alternatives to Jones, and obviously narrowed the choices down. In fact, to six guys per a BI article.
I know that there some who don't like the way JK implemented the change, but now is the time to focus on picking a new coach. JK seems like a deliberative guy, and I expect whoever he selects will be vetted thoroughly with all stakeholders.
Right or wrong, he seemed deliberative up to the point in making his original decision, which was to support Jones. Then all it took was a conference phone call with 3 Dads to change his mind, and fire Jones. Right or wrong, that did seem impulsive, and not deliberative. I hope it is now a lesson learned, and he will cover all the bases with his first hire as AD.
Don't go around believing everything you read. Communication may not have been great in this process, I don't know. And neither you nor I have any knowledge as to whether Knowlton made an original decision to retain.
Did he say some things that led some people to believe he was going to keep Jones? According to some, yes (I have no direct knowledge, I'll trust some of those who have posted here). If he had made the decision that, if he had the resources and the support from up top, he was going to fire Jones, but did not yet have the resources and support from up top, was he correct to act as though parties should assume Jones would be retained? Should he act as though Jones had his support? Absolutely. If Knowlton wanted to terminate but may have been unable to for reasons beyond his control, then he could not let anybody know that. If an AD is forced to keep a coach he wants to fire, he absolutely needs to act like he wants to keep the coach. There is no realistic choice otherwise. Donors he talked to, coaches he talked to, may all be unhappy when the termination comes down that they were "misled," they may think that he pulled a 180, but that is absolutely what a competent AD should do.
Is it possible Knowlton had made a decision to retain and then reversed course after a simple call with 3 dads to change his mind? I suppose, but it seems very unlikely. In that case, Knowlton is incompetent, and I don't think he is. It seems more likely that he needed to push his timeline slightly because of the inaccurate report that he was retaining Jones when he wanted to terminate Jones. He starts to hear from pissed people about the inaccurate report, and pissed posters in BI is acceptable in the short term, even pissed donors and season ticket holders, but pissed parents and players, perhaps, not quite so much. I speculate that Knowlton decided to push his announcement up a little to deal with such issues, but that may be inaccurate.
Don't judge Knowlton as taking impulsive action based on the assumptions of others about what was going on that could be based on Knowlton's deliberate misleading statements of desire to retain. Don't assume a decision was made due to a call from 3 dads. There are no reasonable facts to support this beyond statements some here claim, which statements Knowlton should have been making unless he knew for sure he had the resources and support to fire Jones.
Bottom line, we don't know what really happened, and we probably never will. If you knew all the facts, you might say that Knowlton did everything the right way. Or you might say he screwed up. Without the facts, you just don't know which.
