I haven't read everything in this thread but
elimunelson's post raises some things that I think are worth mentioning in this discussion. Thinking back to 2 and 1/2 years ago when Autry was named by ADJW as JB's successor, my recollection was it was a bit of a somewhat chaotic situation. It was announced that JB was retiring I think after a loss to WF in the first round of the ACC tournament. The timing seemed to many as a bit of surprise. As some have alluded to in this Forum it may not have been JB's choice to "retire" but that he was "retired". By whom? probably not by ADJW but he was the bearer of the news. Possibly by KS and/or the BoT. Remember, this was a time when NIL was just starting and there seemed to be a bit of controversy surrounding certain activities by AW involving potential recruits. And it later came out that the NCAA might have been nosying around about AW's activities. So the game ends, and if I recall correctly the news came out in JB's post game press conference. Everything seemed a bit chaotic at the time. It is possible that ADJW acted immediately to steady the ship and bring some order to the program and the easiest thing to do was to name AA as JB's successor. Should he have done so quickly without interviewing others? In hindsight maybe not. But in the moment he may have done what he thought was needed for the program. Obviously, he'd previously given some thought to AA succeed JB. But this wasn't a situation where JB announced in advance of his last game that he was going to retire and the Athletic Dept. had time to plan a succession. In fact, one could argue that if JB really had planned it out and wanted AA to succeed him he would have done what other Hall of Fame coaches have done -- wait until the Fall and announce his retirement at the last minute before Fall practice started so the AD had no choice but to name the next person in line. My point is - there may be more to the story than we all know.
