I think the biggest thing left out of the upcoming coaching debate is "does any candidate impact fundamental infrastructure changes."
What do I mean by infrastructure? It's almost another post altogether, but it includes all aspects of administration starting with a true leader at AD and whoever he or she hire as support. This means medical/training staff, a real system of player evaluation (I'm in talent development and can tell you this is wildly overlooked in our AD), investment in talented admin *professionals* to surround whoever is the coach. Infrastructure is a system that will support a coach and realistically outlast any specific coach.
This post is about which coach comes with these more fundamental changes, as the reality is each candidate comes with different warts. That's what happens with coaches who've gone to war already.
I 100% have concerns about Mario's history on offense, the gameday stuff, and the situation with reliance on coordinators. I 100% have concerns with Lane's ability to build a program/foundation and CEO/lead his way to a solid evaluation and selection of coordinators and player talent. I 100% have concerns about Stoops (and I like him!). I 100% have concerns about Aranda's ability to build a program down here (and I really like the dude!). I have 1000% concerns with doing any other experiment with a coordinator or someone from a program with different current and future problems.
But, our question is luckily a simpler business question: is the cost of any coach's risk less than the benefit of what comes with ________ (insert coach's name)? Who has the best cost-benefit for our current and future problems in the current competitive landscape of college football?
That's why we need someone leading these decisions right now who actually knows business and strategy. That's why Blake needed to be let go immediately, if not sooner. That's why anyone who entrusted Blake to make near-unilateral decisions or at least massively influence full-on leadership decisions needs to step aside for this one.
Personally, I despise how we almost always go back to "how things were when we won." Mainly, because the environment changes and therefore problems are not the same. If we're going to look back at any real past successes that match the current problem, then that conversation needs to have the word "Jankovich" in it and how he surrounded himself with really great Associate ADs (ask around, these were great people!) and true leaders (unafraid to hire alpha coaches).
Bottom line? If any of our specific candidates cause a monumental shift in our [entire] program's infrastructure, if that person is the catalyst for that commitment, then you have to mark extra pluses on that column. I'm not sitting in Rudy's or Joe Echevarria's office to have the details of what candidate does that more, so I can't really say much about the details of what boosters will contribute more or less to systemic changes. Maybe it's Mario because of his leverage? Maybe it's Lane or Freeze or Aranda because they have holes in their leadership resume and need this type of system of support?
I really don't know (and don't care) because I only care that we take this opportunity to build a system.
I'll repeat: what ails this program is at its root! Please stop looking at past, external successes (or failures) for what may solve current and future problems. We have an infrastructure problem that permeates everything from how the program is run to how players are evaluated for recruitment to how coaches and players are evaluated for on-field success. Is this not obvious to everyone who's watched us crash our program into the rocks for 20 years?
For once, let's make this decision based on foundational reasons rather than the bizarre external reasons (player preference for Coker, Randy's perceived local advantage, Golden's "organizational pillars," Richt's "polished" history, Diaz's apparent proximity to the Hecht office) we've used for the last 5 hires. Someone, anyone, make a real business decision here. Please. I don't care who the **** is coach so long as our infrastructure is weak and fake.