Judging Coaching Candidates - Coaching Trees

[NYCane89]

I think obviously there is a degree of luck involved. Crapshoot if you will. But I think more of it is similar to analyzing companies for stock investment.

The best way to know what works, is to find shared characteristics of your past coaches. You then can eliminate candidates that don't share those common characteristics.

For example, none of our 4 great coaches came from the college coordinator ranks. All either were college HCs, or NFL coordinators. So right off the bat, in a coaching search you eliminate every single coordinator.

Jimmy, Howard, and Butch all coached under LEGENDARY, Hall of Fame level guys: (Chuck Fairbanks, Don Shula, and Jimmy Johnson) respectively.

They all (except Dennis) were championship winners as coaches or players.

Find a guy who fits all that, and my guess is you have yourself a winner.

Tom Herman fits the bill completely, for example. Pagano has a ton of the qualifications. Butch obviously does. Fuente comes close.

Of course nobody doubts that Chip Kelly would succeed bc he already proved he can. Trying to find the "next" chip kelly is where the risk comes into play. If you want to make a safe hire, chose a PROVEN winning elite coach, or hire a guy who fits the above qualifications.

My only concern with Herman is the small sample size. He's only been a head coach for all of 7 games. You can't really judge anything in such a short time. How's he going to recruit year after year? No one really knows. Recruiting is the lifeblood of any program.

Thats not to say that he won't be successful. At this juncture we just can't afford to roll the dice. We need someone proven.

 

[LuCane]

Lu what are thoughts on A Jeremy Pruitt who would come from Saban's coachings tree as a DB coach, as well as spending the year with fisher as a DC and now with Mark Richt being the DC. He UGA's defense has been improving compared to what it was before he got there and he's been adding talent to that crop as well, we all know at FSU he had the talent for a top defense. Players seem to gravitate towards him as a person and even some people have said he changed the culture with Georgia's defensive atmosphere where it had a country club feeling to the players working hard but having fun playing for him and it seems like the places he does go he runs an attacking style defense that tries to dictate the game.

Unnecessarily high risk at this point. No idea how he hires. He doesn't do anything technically that is so elite that makes him "special" (think Gus Malzahn). He may be great. He may be a Muschamp type. I just really don't know enough about him and I'm not sure anyone judging him as a candidate would have enough info to judge.

These convos are making me more and more concerned as we go on in this thread. Ha. They better f'in dig deep on this one!

 

[LuCane]

I want them to show a pattern of winning. Winning in their division. Winning in conference. Winning OOC. If we go after a Non P5 guy, how has does he perform against higher comp? We need someone that wins and knows how to use his relative talent to win.

Agree with all of this. Well, if they didn't learn from Coach Golden....

Here's a somewhat rough and stupid way to judge:

Which coaching candidate makes UF and FSU fans uncomfortable?

Which coaching candidate will have fans of their current team feel as though it's a LOSS?

Which coaching candidate will have fans of their current team start talking about all the negative things they won't have to deal with (ala Temple fans with Coach Golden)?

 

[FullyERicht]

I think obviously there is a degree of luck involved. Crapshoot if you will. But I think more of it is similar to analyzing companies for stock investment.

The best way to know what works, is to find shared characteristics of your past coaches. You then can eliminate candidates that don't share those common characteristics.

For example, none of our 4 great coaches came from the college coordinator ranks. All either were college HCs, or NFL coordinators. So right off the bat, in a coaching search you eliminate every single coordinator.

Jimmy, Howard, and Butch all coached under LEGENDARY, Hall of Fame level guys: (Chuck Fairbanks, Don Shula, and Jimmy Johnson) respectively.

They all (except Dennis) were championship winners as coaches or players.

Find a guy who fits all that, and my guess is you have yourself a winner.

Tom Herman fits the bill completely, for example. Pagano has a ton of the qualifications. Butch obviously does. Fuente comes close.

Of course nobody doubts that Chip Kelly would succeed bc he already proved he can. Trying to find the "next" chip kelly is where the risk comes into play. If you want to make a safe hire, chose a PROVEN winning elite coach, or hire a guy who fits the above qualifications.

My only concern with Herman is the small sample size. He's only been a head coach for all of 7 games. You can't really judge anything in such a short time. How's he going to recruit year after year? No one really knows. Recruiting is the lifeblood of any program.

Thats not to say that he won't be successful. At this juncture we just can't afford to roll the dice. We need someone proven.

SMH if I hear "recruiting" one more time I'm going to kill myself.

The days of Bobby Bowden style coaches are OVER. The guy has been a winner everywhere. He has a ring as a coordinator. He learned under what may be the best coach of the last 10 years. He is now running his own program, and is undefeated.

Would I chose Herman over Chip Kelly? No. But Herman has all the qualifications you could possibly look for.

 

[FullyERicht]

Since we last won a National Title, every coach who has won the big game had been a previous HC, with two exceptions.

Jimbo and Chizik. Both of whom won with Heisman winning, number 1 overall NFL draft pick QBs. Chizik and Jimbo without their golden goose are mediocre coaches.

So again, not only has Miami never succeeded with college coordinators, but unless you want to shadily recruit a Cam or Jameis, they haven't won anywhere.

Let that process.

 

[wushah]

Agree Lu. Pedigree is important and should be a variable that's evaluated and considered. The problem I see is that the person who may be leading the charge, Blake James, is flawed which will poison the process and the decision. What's his pedigree? UMaine? When has he proven to be capable of making the right hire? Never.

Could he make the right decision? Possibly, but the odds are lower I would say.

 

[jerzeycane]

Bunch of this stuff points to Herman, but I don't feel like we'll pony up to get him.

 

[LuCane]

Agree Lu. Pedigree is important and should be a variable that's evaluated and considered. The problem I see is that the person who may be leading the charge, Blake James, is flawed which will poison the process and the decision. What's his pedigree? UMaine? When has he proven to be capable of making the right hire? Never.

Could he make the right decision? Possibly, but the odds are lower I would say.

I would be really surprised if Blake James makes the decision.

 

[NYCane89]

I think obviously there is a degree of luck involved. Crapshoot if you will. But I think more of it is similar to analyzing companies for stock investment.

The best way to know what works, is to find shared characteristics of your past coaches. You then can eliminate candidates that don't share those common characteristics.

For example, none of our 4 great coaches came from the college coordinator ranks. All either were college HCs, or NFL coordinators. So right off the bat, in a coaching search you eliminate every single coordinator.

Jimmy, Howard, and Butch all coached under LEGENDARY, Hall of Fame level guys: (Chuck Fairbanks, Don Shula, and Jimmy Johnson) respectively.

They all (except Dennis) were championship winners as coaches or players.

Find a guy who fits all that, and my guess is you have yourself a winner.

Tom Herman fits the bill completely, for example. Pagano has a ton of the qualifications. Butch obviously does. Fuente comes close.

Of course nobody doubts that Chip Kelly would succeed bc he already proved he can. Trying to find the "next" chip kelly is where the risk comes into play. If you want to make a safe hire, chose a PROVEN winning elite coach, or hire a guy who fits the above qualifications.

My only concern with Herman is the small sample size. He's only been a head coach for all of 7 games. You can't really judge anything in such a short time. How's he going to recruit year after year? No one really knows. Recruiting is the lifeblood of any program.

Thats not to say that he won't be successful. At this juncture we just can't afford to roll the dice. We need someone proven.

SMH if I hear "recruiting" one more time I'm going to kill myself.

The days of Bobby Bowden style coaches are OVER. The guy has been a winner everywhere. He has a ring as a coordinator. He learned under what may be the best coach of the last 10 years. He is now running his own program, and is undefeated.

Would I chose Herman over Chip Kelly? No. But Herman has all the qualifications you could possibly look for.

You're forgetting one very important qualification -EXPERIENCE. Undefeated in 7 games. 7, not 17.

Don't downplay the importance of recruiting. Look at guys like Saban, Meyer, Pete Caroll. These 3 guys have dominated CFB in the last 12 years. 8 championships between them. Guess what, they were all tremendous recruiters.

 

[FullyERicht]

Don't downplay the importance of recruiting. Look at guys like Saban, Meyer, Pete Caroll. These 3 guys have dominated CFB in the last 12 years. 8 championships between them. Guess what, they were all tremendous recruiters.

You are completely and utterly clueless.

They are great recruiters b/c they won a billion games.

Pete Carroll played in a BCS game in his SECOND SEASON at USC. That wasn't from him recruiting, it was from his COACHING. Then once it was obvious that the dude was a beast, kids came in droves. That's how it works at major brand programs.

Urban won the title in his SECOND SEASON at UF, and was undefeated HIS FIRST SEASON at OSU. That's not recruiting. That's coaching.

Saban played in the BCS in his second season at Bama. Again, not recruiting. Dude is a grumpy ******* who hates to recruit, but b/c he is such a **** good coach kids line up to play for him.

Miami recruits itself when it has a good coach. I mean after the last decade how the FVCK have you not learned how things work???

 

[imurcane]

Sounds like you might like this guy:

Mario Cristobal, Alabama offensive line coach, 45: He’s spent the past three seasons working under Nick Saban and was named the National Recruiter of the Year this winter after helping the Tide reel in, among others, Calvin Ridley, Daron Payne and Minkah Fitzpatrick, three of the nation’s top freshmen. No one is any more plugged into South Florida in college coaching than Cristobal, a Miami native and former standout O-lineman at UM. Cristobal has head coaching experience having spent six seasons transforming FIU from by far the worst program in Division I into one that went to two bowl games. He also has a good eye for coaching talent, having hired Scott Satterfield, Geoff Collins and Todd Orlando -- three of the more respected up-and-comers in the college game -- and played a key role in helping Greg Schiano flip Rutgers from laughing stock status.

Cristobal’s teams were fast and physical. They beat eventual Co-BIG EAST Champion Louisville and then C-USA power UCF, two programs with much greater resources than FIU. At FIU, things went bad in a hurry in his final season but a lot of that stemmed from the dysfunctional administration. Some may knock that Cristobal doesn’t have coordinator experience on his resume. Of course, neither did Jim Harbaugh, Urban Meyer or Art Briles, and things have worked out fine with those guys.

He's never been a Coordinator. In today's highly technical and situational game - again, especially where you have to win an ACC championship, then two playoff games - my theory is you need an elite skill. Is his talent evaluation, like Butch's? Is it Xs and Os? What is it, exactly?

I'm open to discuss anything.

Elite coaches: Meyer, Harbaugh, Saban, Tressel (imo), Snyder . . . picking start to get slim for elite.

Next tier: Whittingham, Jumbo,

Then: Stoops, Rodriguez, Sweeny, Richt,

Then: Leach, Dana H, Franklin

Feel free to switch list around . . . Don't think we get elite hc here. Question is will we get a third or fourth tier HC, and is that good enough here?

 

[FrancisSawyer]

Tom Herman

 

[Loafers]

Agree Lu. Pedigree is important and should be a variable that's evaluated and considered. The problem I see is that the person who may be leading the charge, Blake James, is flawed which will poison the process and the decision. What's his pedigree? UMaine? When has he proven to be capable of making the right hire? Never.

Could he make the right decision? Possibly, but the odds are lower I would say.

I would be really surprised if Blake James makes the decision.

please expound on this

 

[FullyERicht]

Ok again people there is a large difference between asking us to hire Urban Meyer and getting Rich Rod or Leach.

Tom Herman now, for example, is a lot like what Urban Meyer was before UF hired him. Justin Fuente actually reminds me a lot of his former mentor, Gary Patterson as well.

But the list doesn't end there. Pete Carroll was a decent, fired NFL coach with an insanely great pedigree (Pagano). Harbaugh was a big time college winner who killed it in the pros at first but then flamed out (Kelly). Bill Snyder was a legendary program builder who came back for one more dance (Butch).

There are options out there for us, and we have to treat this hire like we did back in 1978. Invest and make a STATEMENT hire.

 

[CaneInTheBrain]

I want them to show a pattern of winning. Winning in their division. Winning in conference. Winning OOC. If we go after a Non P5 guy, how has does he perform against higher comp? We need someone that wins and knows how to use his relative talent to win.

We don't need someone who "does more with less."

At Miami, the next coach will not have to do that. We need someone who can win with superior talent.

 

[LuCane]

Agree Lu. Pedigree is important and should be a variable that's evaluated and considered. The problem I see is that the person who may be leading the charge, Blake James, is flawed which will poison the process and the decision. What's his pedigree? UMaine? When has he proven to be capable of making the right hire? Never.

Could he make the right decision? Possibly, but the odds are lower I would say.

I would be really surprised if Blake James makes the decision.

please expound on this

Gonna pass.

If you don't mind, let's keep this thread to coaching candidates and attributes.

 

[CaneInTheBrain]

Agree Lu. Pedigree is important and should be a variable that's evaluated and considered. The problem I see is that the person who may be leading the charge, Blake James, is flawed which will poison the process and the decision. What's his pedigree? UMaine? When has he proven to be capable of making the right hire? Never.

Could he make the right decision? Possibly, but the odds are lower I would say.

I would be really surprised if Blake James makes the decision.

please expound on this

Blake James is not making the decision.

 

[NYCane89]

Don't downplay the importance of recruiting. Look at guys like Saban, Meyer, Pete Caroll. These 3 guys have dominated CFB in the last 12 years. 8 championships between them. Guess what, they were all tremendous recruiters.

You are completely and utterly clueless.


They are great recruiters b/c they won a billion games.

Pete Carroll played in a BCS game in his SECOND SEASON at USC. That wasn't from him recruiting, it was from his COACHING. Then once it was obvious that the dude was a beast, kids came in droves. That's how it works at major brand programs.

Urban won the title in his SECOND SEASON at UF, and was undefeated HIS FIRST SEASON at OSU. That's not recruiting. That's coaching.

Saban played in the BCS in his second season at Bama. Again, not recruiting. Dude is a grumpy ******* who hates to recruit, but b/c he is such a **** good coach kids line up to play for him.

Miami recruits itself when it has a good coach. I mean after the last decade how the FVCK have you not learned how things work???

Dude, don't be such a phuckin douche.

Urban won with a stacked team that his predecessor (a Known recruiter) piled up. Is he a great coach? **** yea. Is he a great recruiter? **** yea.

Your whole point is that recruiting is NOT important is just simply asinine. A great coach needs to be good at both.

Once again as to your guy Herman, if you want to crown him after 7 games, once again, SEVEN games, then so be it.

 

[Southcane]

Lu, I remember you starting a thread a while ago about some BOT members warming up to the idea of bringing back Butch Davis, am I correct?
If so, can you please let us know if anything else has come up since then?

 

[Loafers]

Agree Lu. Pedigree is important and should be a variable that's evaluated and considered. The problem I see is that the person who may be leading the charge, Blake James, is flawed which will poison the process and the decision. What's his pedigree? UMaine? When has he proven to be capable of making the right hire? Never.

Could he make the right decision? Possibly, but the odds are lower I would say.

I would be really surprised if Blake James makes the decision.

please expound on this

Blake James is not making the decision.

Genius, thanks for adding so much to the discussion