Derek Mason has some big shoes to fill at Vanderbilt. (Kirby Lee/Image of Sport-USA TODAY Sports)
It is an old axiom in college sports that says it is better to be the coach who follows the coach who follows a legendary coach.
Ralph “Shug” Jordan was a legendary national championship-winning coach at Auburn. Doug Barfield followed him and did not live up to Jordan’s legacy. Pat Dye followed Barfield and was hugely successful.
Bear Bryant was legendary not just at Alabama but in all of college football. When Bryant stepped down, Ray Perkins followed him and was rather successful, but he could never escape Bryant’s shadow. The man who followed Perkins was Bill Curry, and he immediately became one of the most polarizing coaches in Alabama history.
Vince Dooley enjoyed a Bryant-like tenure at Georgia, but when he turned the reigns over to his successor, Ray Goff, things went comparatively downhill.
The scenario played out at places like LSU, where Jerry Stovall tried to replace Charlie McClendon, and at Ole Miss, where Billy Kinard had the misfortune of trying to follow Johnny Vaught. At Tennessee, several men tried to capture the success that General Robert Neyland had but all failed miserably with the exception of John H. Barnhill, who had a five-year run that was close to Neyland’s standards.
For the most part, stepping in for a legend usually is not a recipe for success.
Just ask Ron Zook how replacing Steve Spurrier at Florida worked out for him.
Of course following a legend is not always a disaster. Lou Holtz took over for Frank Broyles at Arkansas and was a success, as was Ken Hatfield, who replaced Holtz. Further back, Frank Thomas followed Wallace Wade at Alabama and was extremely successful. Doug Dickey was a success following Ray Graves at Florida.
Allyn McKeen was Mississippi State’s most successful coach between 1939 and 1948 but only two of the next 11 Bulldog coaches had winning overall records.
At Tennessee, Johnny Majors was a legendary player for the Vols and from 1977-92 he won 115 games as the UT coach. He was replaced by Phillip Fulmer in a controversial move in which some claimed Fulmer orchestrated Majors’ exit. However he got the job, Fulmer coached the Vols for 16 years and became the second-best winningest coach, percentage-wise, in Tennessee football history
More recently, Les Miles has been a big success at LSU following Nick Saban’s short but successful run at LSU.
So who is currently under the gun in the Southeastern Conference in trying to live up to the success of a predecessor?
There’s only one new head football coach in the conference in 2014. That man is Vanderbilt head coach Derek Mason. And while it might be a stretch to say he’s following a legend, he does have some big shoes to fill stepping in for James Franklin, who accepted the head coaching job at Penn State.
In three seasons, Franklin guided the Commodores to a 24-15 overall record and three consecutive bowl games for the first time in Vanderbilt history. The Commodores won two of the three bowl games.
Last season three new football coaches made their SEC debuts. Arkansas’ Bret Bielema was a huge failure. Kentucky’s Mark Stoops was better than Bielema but didn’t set the conference on fire, although he did give Wildcat fans reason for hope. And, of course, Auburn’s Gus Malzahn was a huge success, winning several coach of the year honors and coming within three points of winning the national championship.
Will Mason fall victim to the hex of following a popular coach or will his season fall somewhere between Bielema’s season, Stoops’ season or Malzahn’s season?
“I loved what I saw. I think the guys came out today and were really intentional,” Mason said following Vanderbilt’s second spring practice. “I saw guys running to the ball and I thought we did a good job of getting plays run. We probably ran double the amount (of plays) than we did Tuesday.
“These guys are starting to understand what our goal is each practice. That’s winning the day. If we accomplish that for the next 13 practices, we’ll like where we’re headed entering the summer,” Mason added.
Mason may not be facing the problem that faced many other coaches trying to follow a legend, but he knows that Franklin actually gave Commodore fans reasons to be proud of Vanderbilt football.
Now it is up to him to keep the ball rolling in Nashville.
