This week's list topic is the toughest jobs in college football, or at least toughest jobs connected to college football. I spent a fair amount of time interviewing folks in pretty much every facet of the game for this one and the responses were pretty interesting.
1. Recruiting Coordinator at Buffalo: This is one of a handful of the toughest sells in I-A football, but what separates it from the likes of Louisiana-Monroe and Louisiana-Lafayette is that Buffalo isn't in a very fertile area for football talent. Worse still, there is little football history to sell and whatever talent there is in the area will either be scooped up by the Big Ten or Syracuse. Worst of all: the average temperature in Buffalo during the month of January is 23 degrees, and yes, January is when 90 percent of recruits take their official visits to colleges. This alone might be reason enough to lobby for an early signing period.
2. Sports Information Director, Alabama: Doug Walker has worked with more than his share of high-profile coaches. He was with Dennis Franchione at TCU; Butch Davis and Larry Coker at Miami; Ty Willingham and Charlie Weis at Notre Dame; Don Shula's son Mike at Alabama, but none probably are as much of a challenge as Nick Saban, who is notorious for his harsh rep in dealing with staffers. Just a few months into Saban's arrival at Alabama, Walker had a few sticky situations to deal with. This job was actually further down the list until I started looking at the reactions to a little survey I did of people in the SID world. I'd asked which coach would be the toughest to work for in terms of gruffness towards staff and overall 'throw you under the bus' quotient. Of the 28 SIDs who responded, only two coaches drew more than one vote: Charlie Weis, who was nominated twice and Nick Saban, who was named 17 times.
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Bruce Feldman
