If you were paying attention toward the end of\u00a0The Bill Simmons Podcast on Dec. 1, you might have been surprised to hear the Sports Guy take a side in a relatively obscure coaching search from all the way back in 2023.<\/p>\n
During a conversation about Lane Kiffin as the mercurial coach arrived at LSU, The Ringer\u2019s Van Lathan speculated that Kiffin overlooked Florida because of its athletic director\u2019s reputation. Simmons then took a surprise shot at the Syracuse athletic department and the way it handled the head coaching search that ultimately led to Fran Brown taking over the Orange.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Florida AD Scott Stricklin is) worse than the Syracuse AD who didn\u2019t hire Bob Chesney?\u201d Simmons quipped<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s some layers to it,\u201d responded Todd McShay, who was also a guest on the episode.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, we found out what those layers were.<\/p>\n The main joke Simmons was making likely went over fans\u2019 heads. The AD at Syracuse is John Wildhack, a longtime former ESPN executive who ran programming when Simmons and McShay both worked for the Worldwide Leader.<\/p>\n \u201cHe couldn\u2019t do that job, either,\u201d Simmons laughed.<\/p>\n But the layers go deeper than that.<\/p>\n Simmons was also not-so-quietly advocating for Chesney. Why? Because for five years, Chesney oversaw perhaps the most successful run for Holy Cross football of Simmons\u2019 life. And Simmons is a Holy Cross graduate who clearly keeps a close eye on the football program at his alma mater.<\/p>\n The lobbying also went deeper than Simmons\u2019 podcast quip. Chesney, who went to James Madison after being turned down by Wildhack and Syracuse, was just hired to take over in Simmons\u2019 backyard at UCLA. And in an interview on Wednesday with the school\u2019s in-house\u00a0Bruin Insider Show<\/a>, Chesney revealed that Simmons was one of his first and most prominent advocates as he pursued the UCLA job.<\/p>\n \u201cI got a call pretty quickly, and there were some players involved in this that I knew from my past. One Bill Simmons, that\u2019s I think pretty close with Casey Wasserman and another guy named Brett Veach who\u2019s really close with Adam Peters,\u201d Chesney explained. \u201cAnd those were calls that happened way early, before anyone was even talking about this actually being a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n For years, Simmons has shared a public friendship with Wasserman, a powerful L.A. impresario and sports super exec (as well as one of the more boring recurring podcast guests in the history of Simmons\u2019 show). Wasserman, notably, served on the search committee for UCLA football this fall.<\/p>\n