Ron Zook sucked, and it's the reason why Leach and Rodriguez will too

The overall consensus seems to be that Washington State and Arizona did very well in hiring Rich Rodriguez and Mike Leach, respectively. After Rich Rod was hired, CBS's Bruce Feldman, who The Crew generally likes, posted on Twitter that 'The Pac-12 just got tougher.' And after the Leach-to-Washington St. story broke, Ted Miller, who covers the Pac-12 for ESPN.com, wrote that it was a 'major coup' for the Cougars.

It's crap. Both were shitty hires.

The chief reason can be found in the latest BCS rankings:

1	LSU	12-0
2	Alabama	11-1
3	Oklahoma State	10-1
4	Stanford	11-1
5	Virginia Tech	11-1
6	Houston	12-0
7	Boise State	10-1
8	Arkansas	10-2
9	Oregon	10-2
10	Oklahoma	9-2
11	Kansas State	9-2
12	South Carolina	10-2
13	Michigan State	10-2
14	Georgia	10-2
15	Wisconsin	10-2
16	Michigan	10-2
17	Baylor	8-3
18	TCU	9-2
19	Nebraska	9-3
20	Clemson	9-3

No team above is coached by someone who either totally flamed out in a previous college job (Rich Rod) or who was fired as a result of a scandal (Leach). Exactly zero -- which incidentally mirrors the chances either of these two coaches experiences a high level of success at their new schools. In fact, I implore anyone to find us a case where a coach was fired for poor performance or scandal and returned to coaching with any sort of acclaim afterward. Certainly, if you can, it would represent the exception.

These guys are retreads, much in the same way Ron Zook, who was canned last week after a 6-6 season at Illinois, was a retread when he was hired following a very mediocre run at Florida. And also in the same way Rick Neuheisel, also recently fired, was a retread when he was brought in by UCLA a few years removed from leaving Washington amid scandal.

Leach and Rich Rod, while they may be name coaches who carry with them a certain level of panache, did not make the conference 'tougher' and certainly were not 'major coups.' On the contrary, they were ill-conceived, short-sighted, not just bad, but terribly bad hires.