Turner Gill

I'm sort of on the fence as far as affirmative action is concerned. I've always thought the best person should get the job, but I also understand what some people will do to identify the 'best man' for the job. In the case of college football head coaches, there needs to be some sort of change in the hiring process. Currently, off the top of my head, I can only name one black head football coach in all of the Football Bowl Subdivision schools and that is Turner Gill at the perennial powerhouse Buffalo. After Tyrone Willingham and Sylvester Croom each moved on, there is only one left.

What Turner Gill has done at Buffalo is simply amazing. It's one thing to take over a school like Kansas or Illinois and win 8 or 9 games a season and work your way into a decent bowl game. But to take over a team that most people have never heard of and one of the 4 or 5 teams of which I don't know the mascot, is incredible. And that is exactly what he has done at Buffalo. He just won the MAC championship last night against a heavily favored Ball St. team and will now play in what is probably their first bowl game.

Unfortunately for Buffalo, Turner Gill needs to move on. I will totally buy into the racial prejudice theory if Turner Gill doesn't get a job offer from a BCS school. First and foremost, if I was the athletic director at Syracuse, I'd have Gill and his agent on speed dial. I couldn't think of a better fit for Syracuse than Gill. He knows the area and would walk into the Big East as the second or third best coach in the conference. Mississippi State and Auburn should at least give him an interview, but Syracuse should give him the keys to the city and a hummer to get him to become the coach of the Big Orange.