coaching vs. superior talent

[ScubaCane]

Read Jimmy's book, "it's jimmy's and joe's not x's and o's"

 

[ageezy]

Read Jimmy's book, "it's jimmy's and joe's not x's and o's"

we've had guys, i think putting them in positions to be successful is just as important as talent

 

[DTP]

On paper who has more talent Clemson or Bama?

Top to bottom, Bama is the superior team talent wise. The biggest difference was Clemson's huge advantage at the most important position. If you switch the quarterbacks, Alabama wins 55-0.

 

[DTP]

Read Jimmy's book, "it's jimmy's and joe's not x's and o's"

we've had guys, i think putting them in positions to be successful is just as important as talent

Exactly, Randy Shannon and Al Golden pulled in top 25 classes every season but only finished in the top 25 one time between the two of them.

 

[Insanecane]

Coaching and player development is #1 IMO. People speak about Butch as a recruiter, but I believe his biggest impact was as a player developer -ie- hiring the right hungry and skilled assistant coaches for development and setting the tone for the team.
Santana Moss- track guy, developed into a stud WR
Dan Morgan- RB, developed into the most decorated college LBer ever.

Just a couple of examples.

Now, if you can both recruit and coach up/develop talent...that is what gets you into the big January bowl games.

Most power-5 schools can give examples of underrated players that blew up after high school even under crap coaches. Saban wasn't sh.it until he inherited sec bagmen at LSU.

Actually Saban is a phenomenal defensive backs coach. His DB's are usually really good at coverage. Clemson's WR's made circus catches to stay in the game. That's what you have to do against a Saban coached defense.

 

[John77]

The gap in talent between a #8 ranked class and the #1 ranked class usually isn't all that big.

If you crunch the numbers, I remember reading an article where someone did, the teams that win the NC aren't necessarily the ones who had the higher rated class than their opponent in the game.

All the teams that did win it in the past 15 or so years have had at least two top ten classes in the previous four years to winning. Once you can get to a relatively similar level of talent anything can happen. For us to compete at that level we need to recruit at a higher level. I'm not critiscing the coaching staff because I think they have done quite well, but it is the reality of the situation.

Once you have a relative parity of talent, it becomes about coaching.