It's an outlier primarily in that it's the only one that matters, as it took me a few minutes to even think of who you're talking about (the women hoops coach and the future soccer coach?). And my skepticism isn't based strictly on actual coach hire(s).
The whole country took notice of that lady soccer hire.
Hey dumbasses, it was an outlier because it was the only one that was a complete WTF on its face. He has hired 8 coaches here, Weber is the only one with a questionable resume. If this was Currie's hallmark, he certainly would have done it with the tennis coach or cross country coach, no one would notice anyway. Obviously the measure of success of an Olympic sports coach is much different than a football coach but he's done a good job finding coaches that are ready to take the next step. Mittie's case he took a job that many thought to be a lateral move, within conference for more money. The Mittie hire was anagolous to Utah hiring Mike Leach after Wittingham leaves.
When I really try to take emotion out of it, I ask myself how many coaches, specifically in men's basketball, would want to come work at a place where we're fishing Western Union receipts out of grocery store trash cans and suspending players before a 2nd round NCAA tournament game for said transgression.
I mean if you have an overly zealous compliance department, which we obviously did at the time (hard to say if we're really that zealous now...), it's going to be hard to recruit and win. You can, but it's just a lot harder.
I don't think a lot of guys wanted to sign up for that.
Also, the salary mark up on men's basketball seems to be really high for even lateral moves or slight upgrades. Weber basically took Frank's exact contract.
I think Currie saw a good fit for what he wanted in a basketball coach. Someone that wasn't going to cause him a lot of headaches in a the #2 sport, which would allow him to spend his time on his financial/capital raising priorities for football. I just don't think he saw it backfiring the way it did a few years down the line, especially after all of his "due diligence".
Currie still strikes me as a very SEC-esque AD. I'm not as concerned about football because I think it's clear that he knows what it means to this school and his career. He's going to swing for the fences.
Now, he may overthink it and try to get really creative, or he can go after someone big.
The wild card is that it's been rumored that Snyder's contract says he has a say in who the next coach is. I don't think he gets to pick, but he may get a vote. I haven't read the contract front to back, so someone can easily correct me there. That may coincide with the rumors that Leavitt and Venables were both back in Manhattan shortly after the season was over last year. Snyder will push Sean, but Currie won't pick him. So, I think he has backup candidates that he'll push.
