OrdunaDrive
Freshman
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2016
- Messages
- 572
Coker got another raise in 2005 to bring his salary up to $2 mil/year. That inflation adjusted total would still earn him just slightly less (probably $2.8 million) than Diaz earns now. At that time, coaching salaries had not quite ballooned like they have today, so his $2 million deal was Top 10 in CFB, but he'd won a championship, been to another, and won multiple major bowl games. Diaz is just starting, and therefore doesn't remotely warrant a Top 10 salary. The more far more relevant comparison points are his first 2 deals, which are more analogous with Diaz's current situation, and clearly show that Miami values the coaching position as much or more than they did when they were on top of the world. My original point still stands.Coker got a raise in his later years, to where he was making significantly more than that.
But your bigger point is more interesting. Why is B+ good enough? Alabama has A+ coaching, and they have far more talent than we do.
If we were competing for championships (we're not), then that would be the bar.
As for the other concept, I consider B+ coaching (and I'm grading on a bell curve here, so a B+ warrants approximately 80th percentile coaching quality) sufficient for 3 reasons:
1) It is my opinion (and maybe I'm being generous) that we've received only occasional brushes with B+ coaching in the last 20 years. Shannon (great early classes that got worse, 0 originality or energy) and Golden (tough row to hoe, poor manager of talent) lived closer to 50% or beneath during their tenures. Richt started at about B+ level, but the Rosier QB conundrum, complicated by original sin of hiring his unqualified son, really threw him into a tailspin. Last year was obviously a **** show that indicated more **** show was to come. Given that Richt got Miami to perform at a level at least commensurate with their recruiting quality during his B+ time, a coach that can maintain that level would live at the 10 win mark, with occasional bursts above and below that level.
2) Recruiting is driven chiefly by winning. There are a few outliers that coach up lesser talents (TCU, VT) and others that steal quality recruits and ruin their careers thanks to big budgets and "big budgets" (Tennesse), but these exceptions prove the rule for the rest. You win on game day, you can win on signing day. For the last 15 years, Miami has recruited at about #15 in the country according to 247. During the same period, we've only won 7 or 8 games a year on average. If a B+ coaching effort begets production commensurate with recruit quality, then a B+ coaching effort gives Miami 10 wins a year. I would be willing to bet that a Miami team winning 10 games every year can increase their recruiting prowess above the #15 level in the top 10/top 5 level. Then, if you have a Top 5 talented team coached by a B+ coach, you've got a team that will get to the playoff nearly every year, a la Bama/Oklahoma/OSU/Clemson.
3) More of a philosophical point, but I don't believe that A+ coaching is a quality anyone alive can deliver year after year. The level at which the successful Power 5 coaches are competing at is unimaginable, and it only takes a few small mistakes in a year to drop your performance relative to your peers. Maybe Alabama is producing A level coaching each year, but I seriously doubt that. I absolutely respect Saban's ability, but I think it's reckless to assume his extreme player quality doesn't mask several mistakes.