LSU Football: Top 5 all-time worst SEC coaching hires

2. Watson Brown — Vanderbilt (1986-1990)

I honestly can’t believe Watson Brown stuck in Nashville for five seasons.

In three of Brown’s season as the Commodores’ head coach, Vanderbilt won only one game. Their best season with Brown at the helm came in 1987 when the Commodores won four games.

Brown’s record in five seasons at Vanderbilt was a dreadful 10-45.

But this shouldn’t have been shocking to the folks at Vandy.

Brown was terrible before he ever got to Vanderbilt. He had two decent years at Austin Peay in 1979/1980 (going 7-4 in both seasons). But then Brown went 4-6-1 at Cincinnati in 1984 and went 4-18 in two years at Rice (1984-1985).

I’m not exactly sure what the Commodores were expecting. Brown performed exactly as he had his whole coaching career.

Much like with Joker Phillips, the Brown hiring was a good story at Vanderbilt simply because he was a former player.

Beyond that, it was a bad all-around hire.