If that's the formula then programs without a legacy of winning championships are doomed to eternal mediocrity. An actual record of success tends to attract the best recruits.
Yep. And then there are the Muschamps of the coaching world that have plenty of talent (LOADED with it, in Florida's case) and can't coach their way out of a wet paper bag.
But we did have gap integrity, so it wasn’t all bad.....sarc.
I always laugh at certain programs always getting plucked. As if there are 4-5 guys on any one staff better than the other choices you have. They are benefiting from their surroundings for the most part.
But a team that isn't in that top tier can join it with a charismatic coach and a few good years.
Situations are different. It's a lot easier to build a winner in the Mountain West when all you have to do is beat other Mountain West teams. How much success did Hawkins have at Colorado? Dabo took over at Clemson when the toughest competition was GT. I've pointed out plenty of times that for 5 straight seasons we were clearly better than Clemson and proved it on the field. In those same seasons we were going to Outback and Citrus Bowls while Clemson was winning ACC titles and playing in BCS games because of their inferior competition. They got better recruits because of it. If we would have just beaten Clemson the year before the 5-peat started we might never have had to deal with Dabo's Clemson.
Through the last 3 HCs (Moore, Satt to Eli) and not including the present HC....They recruit very well. They are smart recruiters. They go get a Dexter Coakley who is the best player on the field....but is 5'9. I feel like USC was doomed the last 7-8 years because we fell into the late 90s/early 2000s FSU trap (on a lower level). Just taking random 6'3 190 lb WRs and 6'2 225 LBs with 3-4 stars b/c their measurables fit categories, instead of them being the right fit, with the needed moxy/work ethic/talent/drive/size ratio. Those intangibles are everything...and ASU has done great over the last 25-30 years at getting those guys...usually at the expense of 2 inches and 25 lbs light as an overlooked HS senior for bigger D1 programs.
I agree. But good coaches can identify good players that may have been overlooked. Talent evaluation can help if you are not a team that routinely has high recruiting classes. It is not easy though.
Not necessarily true. Great coaches use strategy to their advantage. Take for instance the development of the spread offense. It’s designed to create holes and seems against a superior defense. In fact great coaches design most plays to match your strength against an opponents weakness. I don’t care how good your players are, if all you do is line up and run right up the middle, you’ll lose. Unless you have the Waterboy.
Thus the 50/50. The counter to your point is, I don’t care how creative, inventive, and detail oriented a coach is, if his players are smaller, slower, weaker, and less skilled, their opponents will physically overwhelm them.
Correct. Those things may help win games in regular season, but if talking national championships, you have to know the Ohio states, Clemsons, Alabamas with millions to spend are going to have creative, inventive and detail oriented coaches too. If your players are smaller, slower, weaker, you can't win, despite great coaching.
There wasn't a lot innovative about Alabama's offenses in the mid to late 2000s. It was pretty much smashmouth football. They lined up and out-physicalled everyone.
I doubt anybody on this board would put him in double digits.
I think to be fair, head coaches don't do the coaching, their assistants do. So the proper criticism of Muschamp is not he doesn't coach, but instead he didn't putting the right assistant coaches in place, hiring friends and comfort hires rather than top developers of the talent. Look at who Saban hires. He doesn't hire his friends or buddies. He hires the best and holds them to a high standard. The relationship Saban has with assistants is almost adversarial, not buddy-buddy. They know they will coach on a winner, coordinators will get hired by other teams as head coaches (see Smart and Sarkisian) and position coaches as coordinators. Saban just reloads.
80% coaching and 20% recruiting. A bad coach like Muschamp can take a team of 5 stars and make it look like no stars.
