Judgement expert provides analysis of Josh Heupel, Lane Kiffin, Dan Mullen and others

Ken Smithmier has worked closely with Alabama’s football program under seven-time national championship head coach Nick Saban.

Smithmier is a judgement expert with P3 Insights who provides advice to the likes of Saban and other coaches and administrators throughout college football.

His calling with Alabama came on the heels of Saban firing then-offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin during the College Football Playoff in 2016. Kiffin was hired as Florida Atlantic’s head coach, and was relieved from his duties by Saban after he did not provide his full attention to Alabama’s team.

Smithmier joined the show “Football Two-A-Days” and discussed how he was connected with Alabama’s program and Saban. Smithmier also discussed how much longer he anticipates Saban to coach. Saban turns 70 on Oct. 31.

“Saban loves what he does and is good at we he does,” Smithmier said. “He is never going to retire until he either gets sick or dies because there would not be a replacement for the psychological replacement that comes from what he is doing right now and is so engaged.

“When Saban fired Kiffin a week before the national championship, I wrote a column in the Business Journal about it. The headline was ‘Did Saban make a judgment error? What stress and pressure can do to any leader.’ A few weeks after it was published, I printed out a copy of the article and put together some materials about what I do. I put them in an envelope and I mailed them to Saban. I have done this before with Ole Miss when Hugh Freeze blew up, I did it with Baylor, I did it with Tennessee with Butch Jones. One day, a few weeks after that, my phone rings and I look at it and it says Tuscaloosa. I pick up the phone and it is Scott Cochran. He said ‘Coach gave me your materials and told me to call you and see what you can do to help improve our football team.’ The one guy in the United States that probably does not need a thing from me, was the one guy out of all the schools that I wrote all of these letters — to learn what I do — I wound up getting hired by them.”

Butch Jones, Jeremy Pruitt and Josh Heupel

Butch Jones, Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire

Smithmier has interacted with former Tennessee head coaches Butch Jones and Jeremy Pruitt, as well as watching Josh Heupel from afar.

Smithmier emailed former Tennessee athletics director John Currie about Jones before he was relieved of his duties as the Vols’ head coach.

He did not hear back from Currie, but did connect with Jones in Tuscaloosa.

“I connected with Butch when he was an analyst at Alabama,” Smithmier said. “Near the end of his tenure, I had sent an email to John Currie when I watched Butch, what I thought was kind of a disastrous press conference. I was trying to describe to Currie what I thought was going on with him. I never heard anything from it.

“I told Butch about that in Tuscaloosa. I actually pulled the email up on my computer and let him read it. Butch always carried a notebook and a pen. He was writing down all these things that he and I were talking about. My sense of Butch was, he knew how to check off the boxes, but he did not grasp, or does not grasp, how to take all of those boxes and assembling them and organizing them into a broad strategic plan.”

Jeremy Pruitt, Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire

During the early stages of Pruitt’s tenure he questioned fans who were not at the annual Orange & White Game, as he expected them to be in attendance.

“I met Jeremy, I did the same work for Jeremy one year at Tennessee that I did for Alabama,” Smithmier said. “Hubris, it’s a Greek word. The Greek’s put the word together, that they said when a mortal starts to act like a God, the gods will come down and wreak havoc from their heads.

“I thought Jeremy suffered from a little bit of that hubris. We saw how he talked about the fans early on in his tenure for instance, maybe comments he shouldn’t have made.”

Josh Heupel, Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire

From afar, Smithmier views Heupel with high praise during his first season as Tennessee’s head coach.

“Heupel I do not know, but other than Mel Tucker at Michigan State, I don’t think there is any coach in the country that has done a more remarkable job in getting a program back on track than Heupel,” he said. “He clearly has a way to connect with his players personally or else they would not be rallying and playing like they are playing. He also has a clear sense, I don’t know if he ever articulates it, of kind of what he wants this team to be and what this offense is — because this offense works.

“I know coaches don’t believe in moral victories, but I believe in moral victories when you are rebuilding a company or when you are rebuilding a football team. The tangible victories, the big product sale, or the big win over Alabama, those don’t come very easily, but if you could get the psychology of the organization moving in the right direction, you have people bought in, like I think Heupel does, the product results are going to come. Maybe they won’t come this year, maybe there won’t be a whole lot of them next year, I don’t know, but I am on board of what Heupel is doing.”

Lane Kiffin and Dan Mullen

Dan Mullen, Photo by Dan Harralson, Vols Wire

Dan Mullen enters Florida’s matchup in Week 9 against Georgia 2-6 in games against Power Five opponents in its last eight contests.

The Gators have defeated Tennessee and Vanderbilt, while suffering defeats to LSU twice, Alabama twice, Oklahoma and Kentucky.

Smithmier questions if Mullen is a national championship head coach.

“I don’t know Mullen, so once again, I am looking at people from afar,” he said. “Mullen’s profile is one that I run into a lot in successful executives. I describe it this way, there are people who are successful in spite of themselves and there are people who are successful because of themselves. Those who are successful in spite of themselves have success that is limited.

“I think Dan is a guy who’s success is going to always be in spite of himself. He thinks he is the smartest guy in the room. If he were an athlete, I think we would say he is a guy that does not take coaching well because when you think you are the smartest guy in the room, you don’t think you need that coaching. I personally would be surprised if he were to ever win a national championship.”

Lane Kiffin, Syndication: The Knoxville News-Sentinel

Smithmier further detailed Kiffin and his past of not staying at jobs very long and a desire to overcome Saban in his career.

“Kiffin strikes me, and his history supports this, as a guy that is inherently unstable,” he said. “I don’t mean unstable psychologically, I am not implying that, I am not qualified to make that call. Just look at his tenure. How it turned out at Tennessee, how it turned out at USC, Saban fires him a week before the national championship game while he is down house hunting in Boca.

“Whether he goes to LSU, or USC, or anywhere, I can’t imagine that Lane is going to spend the rest of his career, or even 10 years at Ole Miss building a program. I think somewhere in him, is this desire to ultimately overcome Saban. I think the one job that if he were to ever plant and stay for a long time would be if he could get Alabama. My fun kind of hypothetical scenario is Lane gets the LSU job, wins the national championship, and then Saban retires. Lane jilts LSU and goes to Alabama because he ultimately wants to be the guy that sits in Nick Saban’s chair.”

The entire show with Smithmier can be listened to here or below. He further discusses Tennessee’s program dealing with looming NCAA sanctions, Heupel’s connections to Oklahoma and Utah and how his tenure with the Vols parallels Dennis Franhione’s at Alabama.