Quote Originally Posted by Jarius View Post
Croom had the resume to be a head coach. The problem was giving him so long to win football games. I guess we were scared to death of being labeled racists or something if we fired him too quickly, but it was painfully obvious after year 2 that he was never going to work out. We gave ourself the death penalty by hiring him. We just didn't know it yet.
There was no way we could have fired him after 2 years, especially given what he inherited. That just wasn't going to happen, no matter the race. You can make the argument we should have let him go after 3 years, but that's the only point at which we could have fired him before we did. If I remember correctly, I remember the fan base being restless after year 3, but I don't remember an overwhelming push for him to go.

We beat Alabama that year, we almost beat Georgia, we played a tough schedule that included a great WV team non-conference, and it would have still been difficult to let him go at that point. Things weren't quite as cut-throat in coaching even then as they are now, and 4 of our losses came by a combined 12 points. Everyone seemed to be at least ok with giving him the 4th year, and after we went to a bowl and he won COY that year, obviously he was getting year 5.