The Utah Utes Announce the Heir to Kyle Whittingham

Today's Shower Thought on The Andy Thompson Show listen above.

Transcript:

The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson averaged 19 million viewers a night his last week as the host. He was the king. Everybody went to bed with Johnny. And when it came time to replace him everybody said...they gotta be loyal they gotta give it to Letterman. That's Johnny's good friend, it's an in house hire he's already at NBC, and the corporate people said no. We're not going for loyalty to anybody but the viewers. They hired Jay Leno. Leno was #1 in the ratings nearly every year 22 years.  Then when Leno was about to retire, NBC did something different. There was a lot of pressure to hire in house. Get Conan Obrien as Leno's successor. Don't open it up. Give it to Conan. He's in the NBC family. They did, Obrien never got any ratings, and was thrown out months into his show.

It's tough to be the in-house hire, heir to the throne after a legend retires. rarely succeed after the main guy leaves. Longtime assistant Bill Guthridge lasted 3 years after Dean Smith retired at UNC. Longtime assistant Tim Duryea lasted 3 years at Utah State after Stew Morril. Longtime assistant Frank Solich lost lost 7 games in 2002 at Nebraska, something his predecessor Tom Osborne never came close to doing in a 2 year span let alone one season. Solich was cnnaed. Ron Zook after Steve Spurrier, Longtime assistant Clay Helton at USC, ... it's a tough spot to be put into. The University of Utah announced today that longtime defensive assistant Morgan Scalley will take over once Kyle Whittingham eventually retires. It's an unenviable and often short lived experience. God speed.