Clemson Football: The worst College Football Playoff committee ever
By John Chancey
Jeff Long
On my perfect CFP committee, I made an effort to include someone who was a member of the real committee (Jim Grobe). I decided to consider a committee member for this nightmare list too, or at least a former member.
I also considered Bobby Petrino on this list, though he does have a recent connection to Fisher, who is already on the list.
Suddenly these two avenues met, and I remembered the athletic director who was fired while representing his university on the CFP committee: Jeff Long.
Long had a decade of experience as an athletic director before he succeeded Frank Broyles at Arkansas. It seemed like a good choice. Long’s first football hire was Petrino.
Petrino’s hire seemed like a solid one. He was most recently coaching the Atlanta Falcons. It was well known that the guy was a scumbag, but he was a good coach, and he got the Razorbacks into the Top 5.
Then the motorcycle/affair thing happened. Petrino was out and Long had the brilliant idea to hire John L. Smith, who had flamed out once already as a Power program head coach. Long apparently thought he was hiring a veteran who would provide a steading presence to care for the program during a sensitive time. Think of Grobe when he was hired at Baylor to oversee the team after Art Briles was fired - it was the same idea.
Instead, Smith was a clown. Long fired him at the end of the season and then hired Bret Bielema to right the ship, but soon the university lost faith in him. Long was fired on November 15, 2017, and served the balance of that season on the CFP committee while unemployed.
Long got another chance at a Power program when he was hired at Kansas. He hired Les Miles as head coach. He either forgot to vet Miles or he neglected to vet Miles. Soon enough, a sexual harassment lawsuit that dated back to Miles’s previous job at LSU popped up and both Long and Miles were shown the door.
As the only committee member who was fired by the university he represented and then proceeded to screw up again, Long is a must on the worst committee ever.
Next: Skip Bayless/Stephen A. Smith (same person)