My left field take...

[Dghustla]

Most of the highly successful coaches in CFB & the NFL have been highly demanding disciplinarians:

CFB:

Saban
Jimmy Johnson
Meyer
Butch Davis
Bear Bryant
Paterno

NFL:

Tom Landry
Chuck Knoll
Mike Ditka
Bill Belichick
Parcells

How many “Players Coaches” have had sustained success (where the wheels didn’t fall off after a couple of successful seasons)? I don’t know how Bowden was in his youth but he likely comes the closest to being a legendary coach that succeeded without being a tyrant. But, he had Mickey Andrews as a DC for all of those years & I’m sure he wasn’t exactly a “picnic.” Pete Carroll is another one that could be deemed a Players Coach but underling that external veneer there’s for sure a determination to win at all costs & control everything. In other words, his apparent demeanor is a bit of a facade.

One thing that has surprised me about Mario is that there wasn’t a better process in place for making the decision at the end of the GT game. Saban is a tremendous coach and great recruiter & evaluator of talent for sure. He also succeeds due to his organization of the program. Defined processes & tremendous organization can prevent incidents like the end of the GT game. With a clearly defined process in place that epic mistake never would have happened. It literally should have been a “no brainer” requiring almost no thought in the heat of battle that is instead dictated by a Time Remaining Chart. An Analyst should be assigned to reviewing that between every play in the final few minutes of every game. Every offensive coach should know that Chart cold. The Analyst should be given a voice & relay that info to Mario & Dawson via the headsets. In the heat of battle, mistakes will happen without pre-defined structure & process. Organization & process alone could have prevented what was a very costly mistake. It honestly surprises me that this ever happened. Expected more from Mario especially as he learned from both Saban & great coaches at Miami (and a big part of their success was Organizational Skills).

I love this post but want to address something, we keep speaking like Mario was not aware that we could have kneed it.

I know you don’t have an agenda or narrative with your post but that is the CIS Mario is a meathead take.

Mario was aware and was made aware that he could have kneed it and made a decision not to veto Dawson’s desire to keep handing it off.

We can debate the head coach giving his OC that much free reign (although that doesn’t align with CIS new conspiracy is that over the bye-week Mario decided to sabotoge his offense because of his obsession with inside zone runs. ) at the end of a game, but this notion that Mario wasn’t aware or made aware of his options are pure CIS fan fiction.

 

[Canegrad89]

I love this post but want to address something, we keep speaking like Mario was not aware that we could have kneed it.

I know you don’t have an agenda or narrative with your post but that is the CIS Mario is a meathead take.

Mario was aware and was made aware that he could have kneed it and made a decision not to veto Dawson’s desire to keep handing it off.

We can debate the head coach giving his OC that much free reign (although that doesn’t align with CIS new conspiracy is that over the bye-week Mario decided to sabotoge his offense because of his obsession with inside zone runs. ) at the end of a game, but this notion that Mario wasn’t aware or made aware of his options are pure CIS fan fiction.

That decision not to kneel to win the GT game was a Process failure then. What I mean by that is the decision should have been made: (1) as a result of a pre-determined process for the end of games mapped out in detail before the season starts and (2) by simply reviewing a Time Remaining Chart.

A pre-determined process for managing the end of games would have effectively rendered that a scenario where no decision needed to be made (other than adhering to the Chart & that pre-determined process) as I can’t think of any scenario where kneeling in victory formation would have been the wrong decision at the end of that game.

That to me has nothing to do with intelligence but everything to do with organizational skills (which I thought Mario would excel at). He spent time coaching under Saban who has everything mapped out in an incredibly detailed & effective manner (which is critically important when you have 85 players plus a big staff).