Mike Shula Enters Dolphins' Coaching Hunt

[Syrinx]

The Dolphins' search for a coach may be making a bold and nostalgic reach toward the past with the team interviewing Mike Shula, son of Don Shula, over the weekend.

Shula spent Saturday talking with Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga and his staff about the possibility of succeeding Nick Saban.

Ironically, Saban left the Dolphins to become coach at Alabama after Shula was fired by the Crimson Tide.

The idea of bringing Shula back to the franchise has been kept under wraps because the team wanted to gauge if he was indeed a legitimate candidate for the job. Having had two interviews, he apparently is.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/16473100.htm

[Jo March]

1. Wow - just wow.

:wow:

I like Shula but I'm wondering if I like him because he is such a cutie. :9 If he weren't so good looking, I would have been griping about him way more than I did.

He was an okay coach but he just couldn't win the big games. In the SEC, you can't hesitate or you get flattened. I'd kind of like to beat Auburn after 5 freaking years of losing to them.

This will be interesting, to say the least.

[Syrinx]

4. I hope Shula gets a good position, if he wants one

He certainly doesn't need the money. UA is going to be paying about $70,000/month for the next four years. I think I could live off that. ;)

[Jo March]

6. $70K/month? Does he need a wife?

I could help him spend that. No matter that he's married already. ;)

[Scurrilous]

2. From Miami Herald writer Greg Cote's blog:

"For what's worth, the Shula development sounds to me like a professional courtesy to enhance Mike's stature and chances of landing work elsewhere. It sounds like a nod to Big Daddy Don Shula and to Mike's friendship with Dolphins president Bryan Wiedmeier."

http://blogs.herald.com/random_evidence/2007/01/its_looking_lik.html

[Syrinx]

3. that's exactly what I was thinking

[Jack from Charlotte]

7. Me too. A bone thrown to .... "The Don" (nfm)

*

[Jo March]

5. Interesting.

Well, I hope Mike lands somewhere. He should try a smaller college where the expectations aren't nearly as high as they are in Alabama. He can get more experience under his belt and then move up to a larger school.

I'm sure someone will offer him a job. He's not that bad of a coach but he does need more experience. I still can't believe Bama hired him, as green as he was.

[Phredicles]

8. Who's the Shula who coached the Bengals in the mid '90s and

got nowhere with them - Mike or David? Not that this would necessarily reflect poorly on a coach; lots and lots of people have flamed out coaching the Bengals. But I haven't seen a lot of evidence that great coaching is genetic, either.

[Jo March]

9. It wasn't Mike

Mike hadn't been a head coach previously, if I remember correctly.

[Syrinx]

10. That was David Shula

Apparently coaching skills aren't genetic. Don may be a little over-rated anyway. Just a little.

[Phredicles]

11. He may have coasted on what his teams did in '72-'73 for a

looooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnng time. But it's hard to call "over-rated" when his achievement with the '72 team remains unmatched.

[Awsi Dooger]

12. He lost the personnel guys

The Dolphins had some terrific personnel evaluators in the early days, namely Joe Thomas, George Young and Bobby Beathard. The drafts in the late '60s and early '70s were excellent, producing the Super Bowl talent.

But they all departed, Thomas to the Colts, Young to the Giants and Beathard to the Redskins. Joe Robbie was notoriously cheap with the scouting staff. I remember Beathard fuming because he couldn't get Super Bowl rings for his scouting guys.

Miami's draft started to suck actually long before the glory years were over. I remember top picks like Mike Kadish, Otto Stowe, Donald Reese and Darryl Carlton. Once the stars aged or were snapped up the the WFL, there wasn't a great young foundation behind them. Miami then turned to personnel guys like Chuck Conner, no not the Rifeman, and Shula never had trump card talent again, just a few excellent players scattered throughout the roster.

[Syrinx]

13. no doubt, Don Shula was a great coach

But you're also right that he coasted a "looooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnng" time.

Did you know that Bear Bryant accepted the Dolphins job, before backing out at the last minute. That's when Don Shula was hired. I wonder what would have happened, for the Dolphins and 'Bama, if Bryant had not backed out of the deal? It's interesting to think about.

[Phredicles]

14. Wow, I didn't know that at all. I have to think everything would have

been WAY different: 'Bama has to find a new coach. Bryant goes to Miami, has either success or not. But my guess is that sooner or later he would have gone back to college football, unless he did extremely well with the Dolphins - clearly he was happy in the college game. However, it seems unlikely he would have gone back to Alabama unless they happened to have an opening. And Shula probably would have stayed with the Colts (the Dolphins were penalized for tampering with him). One decision sure has a lot of effects.