Very interesting.
Via The Birmingham News:
Memo to Auburn or Tennessee or any other major college football program that thinks it might be a good idea to fire your current coach and hire a proven winner like, say, Butch Davis.
Think twice.
That memo comes from no less an authority than Jimmy Sexton, agent to the coaching stars. One of whom is Butch Davis.
"I think Butch Davis will be at North Carolina for a long time," Sexton said during Monday's speech to the Birmingham Touchdown Club. "I don't know that. He'll have to make that decision.
"I do think that's a place you can win at, and the ACC isn't nearly as hard, at least right now, as the SEC."
Few people know what college football coaches are thinking as well as Sexton. He represents five head coaches in the SEC alone in Nick Saban, Tommy Tuberville, Phillip Fulmer, Houston Nutt and Steve Spurrier.
Sexton is starting to hear that coaches across the country don't necessarily want to bang heads with those guys on a daily basis.
As he said, "They look at it as, `Why do I want to go do that? If my school will pay me an SEC-type salary in another conference, I might be able to stay here forever.'"
Davis is a perfect example. He's a former Arkansas player, but when that job opened after last season, he showed no interest in leaving North Carolina after one year to coach the Hogs.
But, at North Carolina's big home win over Notre Dame two weeks ago, Davis' wife did ask Sexton the difference between UNC and Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Florida and Georgia.
Obviously you can assign this whatever worth you choose.
Here is what I find intriguing about it. If it is your job to look out for your client's best interest which means making sure he gets the best salary or has the top job offers come his way, do you stand up in front of a group of people and say this. Yes, he left himself some wiggle room by saying Davis makes the final decision on such things and he does not know this for a fact. That being said, I would think Sexton has a pretty good idea of what his client's thinking on this point, especially if he is willing to speculate about it publicly. And since the media took it to mean Davis has no interest in any SEC jobs is almost guarantees someone(Robbi Pickeral or Caulton Tudor, flip a coin on it) will ask Davis about the quote and whether it is true or not. So either Sexton stepped in it by boxing his client into this idea that he is saying at UNC for "a long time" or this is a fairly accurate representation of Davis' thought process. Either way, it is bound to be a question asked of Davis in the very near future.
I also find Sexton's reasoning for Davis staying at UNC to be interesting as well. The speculation is Davis would rather stay at a good school which is paying him a good salary, playing in a conference that it completely winnable than go to the SEC and be in an arms race all spring/summer then at war all through the fall. That is a lot of stress and perhaps Davis wants no part of that. Now, one can argue that UNC would never match what Nick Saban is getting at Alabama and since the prevailing wisdom is Tennessee or Auburn will shoot for that salary level to keep pace, the money question is probably not as easily dismissed as Sexton indicates here. However, the rest of the theory is valid. If you are satisfied with winning at UNC and the school generally treats you well, why go to the SEC to deal with the veritable madhouses down there?
Only Davis can answer that for certain. I for one hope is agent is spot on with this assessment of his client's intentions.