Honestly, I believe the coach hires the assistants...not the AD. Which is exactly how it should be. I do believe Tanner handled Spurrier about as well as he or anyone could have.
But look at the posts on this site which somehow want to prove otherwise. I'm just playing along with their stupid fallacies.
The last coach at USC that I was pretty sure the AD interfered somewhat with positional coaching decisions was Brad Scott. At the time, it was rumored that prior to his final year the AD told Brad he needed to make changes on his staff....and Brad refused to make a change.