While these are prior to the hiring of Saban at Alabama, two of the greatest transformations are:
1)
Schnellenberger: he took a woefully underperforming program and transformed it by (among other things): (1) recruiting the best talent from the State of Miami (including the less beaten paths) and (2) utilizing a pro style passing attack. It's actually amazing that he connected so well with his recruits. He also completely transformed the way CFB is played (with greater emphasis on the passing game). The Canes took CFB by storm & will forever be one of the greatest stories in all of sports. No-one (not even Bama) does it with quite the flair & swag as the Canes when they are in full flight.
2)
Butch Davis: he took a program from the ashes to the absolute pinnacle (the greatest CFB team ever). The degree of difficulty on that task is off the charts. He had to hit on virtually every eval with limited schollys. To sell big time recruits on his vision (with a big black cloud of issues as the backdrop) was amazing. To assemble that staff (which was unbelievably good) while the U was still being pretty darn frugal was a tremendous feat. To recruit that many 1st round picks, NFL HOFers, CFB HOFers (including some players that are among the best ever at their position) and package that into a dynamic & super fast team that ended up destroying highly ranked opponents by 2001 is astoundingly good. His teams were also disciplined & appeared to win with class. Even though his departure was not ideal, he should be revered forever by Canes fans for that body of work. He had almost nothing to work with (program on life support, limited schollys, limited budget, brutal backdrop of prior issues etc) except some very fertile recruiting grounds & brand that still had some national cache.
In terms of more recent transformations:
1)
Mario: It appears that he basically insisted on gutting the place before signing on the dotted line (which was very intelligent). Everything has changed or is changing, including but not limited to:
- AD (from incredibly mediocre to now having someone that knows what a winning organization looks like & the significant support that requires)
- level of support from the Admin & Golden Canes (what a difference this is already making)
- strong staff both on-field and off-field (the current # of off field positions likely dwarf the prior #....and that's huge). I don't know if we do it, but I'd love Mario to have a staff dedicated to breaking down every opponent's tendencies on every single type of play (over the last 2-3 seasons with emphasis on years the opponent's current QB, HC, OC & DC were involved in) & then distilling that into simple-to-follow presentations for the coaches & players
- intense focus on recruiting (with all coaches expected to be strong recruiters). This should supplement intense film study by the coaches & players
- expansion of our recruiting territories (yes, we've been a national recruiter for over 40 years but we've undeniably gotten stronger on the West Coast with Mario & the coaches he retained from Oregon and in the Midwest with Gattis). The implications of this are huge for the program going forward. We should always make dominating the State of Miami our #1 priority but some of our best teams had great players from TX, LA & CA.
- significant emphasis on the trenches
- S&C
- work ethic
- culture.
2)
Wake Forest: from cellar dweller to ACC contender.
3)
USC: they've been a powerhouse program for much of their history but Riley is going to take a woefully underperforming program & re-invigorate it. They've been flat out mediocre for the most part since old Petey hightailed it out of there (when it was about to became apparent that his alleged "che@ting" was going to come to light).
4)
MSU: most of their turnaround seems attributable to some strong work in the Portal last off-season. Not sure what other elements of the program changed.
Not that impressed with their turnarounds:
1) Texas A&M: Jimbo is winning at about the same rate (very slightly better) than his predecessor and he's been there 4 years. Losing 4-5 games a year just ain't that impressive. He strained relationships at FSU by relentlessly asking for money from mostly mom & pop type boosters. He's received tremendous financial support at A&M and produced nothing special of note yet. Consistent 4-5 loss seasons ain't good. Maybe he's now b@ught his way (allegedly) to some incremental success but if he doesn't start winning at a higher rate soon his a@@ will be gr@$$ because he demands tremendous financial support from the Admin & boosters.
2)
UGA: winning the MNC was a great achievement but UGA had pretty much everything you would want in a powerhouse program before Kirby. They had elite recruiting classes every year long before he arrived. His changes were more subtle & I think of him more as putting spinners on a Bentley.
