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Since he doesn't have any background in defense, and he can free up some extra salary by calling his own plays and not having a high-priced offensive coordinator, there's been speculation that Willie Taggart would be willing to pony up for a proven defensive coordinator to try and fix what was a lackluster unit in 2012. From the beginning, the one name everyone has brought up is Randy Shannon, the former coach at Miami who has been on TCU's staff coaching linebackers the last two years.
(If you don't mind, I'd just like to put the name of TCU's defensive coordinator in print a few times. Dick Bumpas. Dick Bumpas. Dick Bumpas. OK, that's out of my system, I'm better now.)
Shannon may get a bad rap because of his middling results as a head coach. As defensive coordinator from 2001-06, though, Shannon's defenses at Miami ranked in the top 7 nationally in yards per game five times. (Those Miami teams slid into mediocrity because the offenses were horrible.) It's tempting to say, oh, well they had a ton of talent on those defenses, and that's true, but someone still has to coach them up. And Shannon's results as DC are a lot better than, let's say Chris Cosh's results were when he was hired.
Anyway, if USF wants Shannon, and Shannon wants USF as has been suggested, what's the holdup? The logical explanation (other than money, which is always possible when we're dealing with the best athletic department in the Big East) is that they may be waiting until after TCU's bowl game on Saturday to make it official. If you're into such hints, a poster on Bulls 247 noted that Shannon is no longer listed as a coach on TCU's Web site... so we may know something pretty soon.
What say you, readers? Randy Shannon, yea or nay?