Mike Cavan

[couch 'em]

Someone mentioned Cavan as a bad coach in another thread. I checked out his coaching history......

WHY was he hired? Went down hill at Valdosa starting with 9 wins and then five years of 5/6 win seasons. Moved to East Tennessee and posted the following win totals: 5, 5, 6, 4, 10.

One good year in eleven and that year wasn't even a conference championship.

What is the story?

[DanFreibergerForHeisman]

Good question.

[vielsiehorsepower]

Someone mentioned Cavan as a bad coach in another thread. I checked out his coaching history......

WHY was he hired? Went down hill at Valdosa starting with 9 wins and then five years of 5/6 win seasons. Moved to East Tennessee and posted the following win totals: 5, 5, 6, 4, 10.

One good year in eleven and that year wasn't even a conference championship.

What is the story?

This is SMU, or as the real programs say- Amateur hour

[smusic 00]

He recruited Herschel Walker to GA.

[MustangStealth]

Gene Chizik had a worse resume and got hired by Auburn, and he won a NC for them. Maybe we were trailblazers.

Nah, Cavan was probably the cheapest.

[MustangStealth]

Check out this part on wiki:

Assistant coaches who have worked under Cavan and have gone on to become head coaches include: David Dean, Darrell Dickey, and Derek Dooley

Cavan loves the Double Ds!

[smusic 00]

Who doesn't???

[SoCal_Pony]

Did Cavan make even $500k per year?, I dunno.

I do know that if you include 2014's 1-11 record on tiki's resume, which I feel is not unreasonable, Mike Cavan's W/L % is almost the same as tiki's, right at 40%.

I posted this once, but without looking it up, I strongly suspect Cavan's W/L record against teams with winning records is better than tiki's and that his 5 worse losses were much more competitive than tiki's.

Of course, to be fair, tiki had many obstacles in place that Mike didn't such as small offices & bad lighting.

[ponyswim]

Many of the people that were interview did not want the job - that was at least part of it.
I think it was Tom O'Brien who Copeland really wanted - and knew from his days in Virginia. He ended up going to BC, then NC State.
I don't think many coaches felt like SMU was a place they could succeed at - and most were right.

[CA Mustang]

I posted this once, but without looking it up, I strongly suspect Cavan's W/L record against teams with winning records is better than tiki's and that his 5 worse losses were much more competitive than tiki's.

Take your pick:
L 46-16 to Navy in '97
L 44-17 to Arkansas in '98
L 32-10 to CSU in '98
L 26-0 to Arkansas in '99
L 53-19 to Tulane in '99
L 41-0 to NCSU in '00
L 35-10 to SJSU in '00
L 43-14 to Rice in '00
L 62-7 to TCU in '00
L 36-6 to LTU in '01
L 38-10 to TCU in '01
L 35-14 to Nevada in '01
L 38-13 to Fresno State in '01

Many of the people that were interview did not want the job - that was at least part of it. ... I don't think many coaches felt like SMU was a place they could succeed at - and most were right.

Exactly. The fact SMU wasn't paying much at the time dissuaded all but the foolhardy.

[smusic 00]

The '97 loss to 0-10 TCU was way worse than any of those. Killed our program and launched theirs.

[smupony94]

Yep

[SoCal_Pony]

CA Mustang, you made we work.

Cavan 6-23 vs teams with winning records, tiki 6-32, ADVANTAGE CAVAN

Cavan 5 worse beat downs 43-228, tiki's 30-243, ADVANTAGE CAVAN

Also, if chicken heart had stayed the entire 2014, his numbers above would have been even worse.

[Nacho]

At least cavan didn't intentionally set out to destroy us.

[smusic 00]

And if Cavan had all the resources surf prince tiki had....