The state is fully garnet for the first time in quite a while.
If we'd lost to Clemson in football, MBB and baseball, he for sure would have been the target of our fans' ire, so I suppose he logically must get the credit since we dominated the rivalry this year.
I never really understood the venom our so-called fans sink to when it comes to Tanner. ADs are judged on the health/success of their programs, hiring of coaches, and running a clean ship.
1) Health and success of programs: Of the sports most people care about (football, baseball, men's and women's basketball), football is on the rise. Baseball off to a good start after an injury plagued year, women's basketball speaks for itself, men's basketball currently in "Year Zero" with a new coach that has very little talent after Martin was fired... which a lot of people on this board wanted. Most or all of the other sports are doing very well winning conference championships and earning top 25 rankings, going to postseason. Financially, I read an article a while back about how USC under Tanner is one of the few (maybe less than 12) D1 Athletics Departments that actually operate in the black. That's huge.
2) Hirings - Muschamp wasn't a great hire but what we got stuck with after Kirby Smart (or more accurately, his agent) played him. Tanner can take the blame for a C+ hire that actually started out pretty good the first two years but then unravelled. Hiring Beamer was a a solid A hire. Men's basketball Lamont Paris remains to be seen, and it will take a couple more years to see if it works out, but on paper seemed like an OK hire based on Paris' recruiting record. Baseball - hiring Holbrook was the right hire at the time he was hired. Our fans would have gone crazy if Chad went to Tennessee. It was the right hire that didn't work out. That happens, but it was still the right hire. He was fired at the right time as well. Kingston wasn't the first choice, and USC would have had Florida's coach had the Gators not won the CWS that year. That was going to happen and then UF promised him a new stadium and he couldn't leave. So you go further down the list and Kingston seemed like a guy who build programs that didn't have many resources, so it made sense to think he could really do something at a place that has resources. Kingston gets a pass because of all the injuries last year, so this year he's got to get to postseason in a stacked-league at the minimum. Tanner's volleyball and men's soccer hires were good by most accounts (VB has made some trips to NCAA Tournament and men's soccer got a widely respected coach who had to take over floundering program that plays in a mid-major conf - SEC doesn't carry men's soccer). Tanner also responsible for keeping Dawn Staley from leaving for Ohio State a few years back. That's a real thing! Based on the number of football coaches that get fired every year, there are very few AD's who can claim to have made a home run hire.
3) Clean ship - financially USC is in good shape. No major violations from programs. Coaches are doing things the right way.
