Which Conference Has the Better Coaches Now?
- Thread starter tejones
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Yes, and I read someplace that, for the second consecutive cycle of coaching changes, none of the current hottest young coaches wound up in the SEC. This year, they went to Baylor, Texas, and Minnesota. Just someone's opinion but hard to dispute. As for the SEC rebounding, a lot depends on whether Orgeron turns out to be the real deal at LSU and Auburn gets legitimate at quarterback, where they were pathetic this year. Those are bellwether programs.
Look at the SEC's overall record against the "inferior" ACC over the past three years - up to today. See what you find. It isn't pretty.
The fact that Big 10 schools are hitting SEC conference territory harder than ever is giving southern recruits more options. It's turning some heads.
I get what you're saying. The East has had issues for quite some time. We're also in transition and time will tell how that works out. UT and UF is getting better. Us and UGA have new staffs. Still not ready to concede anything other than the acc was better this year. Is that coaching? IDK, maybe. We'll see. I can tell you this, I have no room to talk about the acc being "inferior" to us or the rest of the SEC at this point in time. But I got to believe it's temporary.
No I do not think so. I believe recruiting has gotten better in the ACC due to in the past that would be the easier path to the NC game. That will change some now.
I want to think so. It blows my mind that UPC's only loss - at home - came to a conference team that plays in a pro stadium and does well to draw 40,000 fans in a huge urban area. And then, that same team also beat Penn State. There are several smaller schools in the ACC; the stadiums aren't big, and many of them stress basketball. But somehow, the overall aggregate football product is there anyway. At the same time, the SEC, which puts more into football than anybody, has slipped to comparative mediocrity. It's mystifying.
It seems for years when ever a sec coach left his post,for whatever reason, they almost always landed at another sec school. Not so much anymore
Clearly the ACC was the superior conference this year. Too soon to say whether or not a trend, or that SEC coaching is inferior. The ACC has greatly improved while the SEC has clearly slipped. But many on this board should be very pleased with this. They say we are stupid to pull for the SEC, that we should want all other SEC teams to lose to make USC recruiting better. I do not agree with that argument, that a bad SEC will improve USC's fortunes. Well now we can say the SEC is an inferior football conference (not sure for how long). So tell me, those that think all SEC teams losing every game, do you still feel that will somehow benefit us? Because the SEC getting worse means someone else is getting better, which is supposed to be good for USC? Don't understand the logic.
In my view, nothing beneficial comes out of a degradation of the SEC brand, and that's exactly what we're seeing right now. I can understand wanting to always see your arch-rival lose, even if that arch-rival is a conference school. I'd never pull for UPC even if we were still in the conference with them. Auburn fans rolled the trees at Toomer's Corner last night when Bama lost. I get that. But I don't understand anyone wanting to see his school's other league members lose all their non-conference games. It doesn't make any given team better and only lowers our conference's prestige. We also recruit against schools in other conferences.
When the sec was on top,a 2 or 3 loss sec team often would be ranked ahead of 1 loss teams from other conferences because the strength of schedule.Other teams hated that n often complained,but they really had no legit argument.To me,that says a lot
I don't regret being in the SEC whatsoever. But the maladroit decision to leave a league we helped establish, when you factor in the 20 years in the Wilderness and the fact that the ACC is now the best football conference, and a great all-sports conference, as well as the residing place of all our historical natural rivalries (no, Georgia isn't one of them), has been roundly repudiated.
In theory, I agree with you. But I do think Bama's dominance is hurting the league. Why don't "up and coming coaches" want to come to the SEC? Saban. It would benefit the league if someone else wins the championship next year. It would really benefit the league if the East could win the SECCG. Alabama dropping down a few pegs would be a good thing.
The SEC has unimaginative coaching and no quarterbacks. Football has changed with offenses putting up huge numbers. Meanwhile, the SEC is grinding it out and pretending that nothing has changed. We took a defensive coach that runs an incredibly conservative offense. UGA took Smart from Alabama. Missouri promoted their DC. Bielema is a defensive guy that runs an offense that Woody Hayes would adore. Ed O is also a defensive guy and previously served as a HC in the SEC West. He replaced a guy that would prefer a punch in the face to scoring points.
McElwain is an offensive guy but he's from the Bama/Sabin family tree, not some out of the box hire. Dan Mullen came from Florida. UMISS and Auburn look like the only programs that tried something different, though both had deep ties to their schools/area before being hired.
Seems to me that everyone in the SEC thinks that outsiders can't compete or recruit in the region and prefer to recycle old coaches or pluck from Sabin's staff. And now you see what that inbreeding has produced.
McElwain is an offensive guy but he's from the Bama/Sabin family tree, not some out of the box hire. Dan Mullen came from Florida. UMISS and Auburn look like the only programs that tried something different, though both had deep ties to their schools/area before being hired.
Seems to me that everyone in the SEC thinks that outsiders can't compete or recruit in the region and prefer to recycle old coaches or pluck from Sabin's staff. And now you see what that inbreeding has produced.
It might be, Saban is 65, and won't always be there. And history has shown that Bama, just like anyone else, succeeds in direct proportion to the quality of its coaching. They were very pedestrian with Dubose and Shula on the sideline. Let their decline come when it will. It doesn't prevent other schools from building their programs in order to be ready for that moment. Bama can't sign them all.
True but they've had like 7 straight number 1 classes....
Pretty difficult to contend with
But last night proved they can be beaten. In recent years, both A&M and Ole Miss beat them at Tuscaloosa. We beat them in Columbia when they were defending national champions and boasted the nation's longest win streak. Saban was there for all of that, but even Saban can't last forever.
UM and Franklin know the territory and have built relationships from their stints at UF and Vandy, respectively, and Harbaugh is a huge name from his stint at San Fran and isn't afraid to go toe-to-toe with anyone. If Miles lands in the B1G, like he should, it will only get worse.
That's been my argument recently. The ACC does have better coaches, and it's starting to show up on the field.
I see two problems for the SEC:
1) A serious loss of coaching talent:
Back when the SEC was clearly dominant we had Bobby Petrino, James Franklin, Urban Meyer, Mark Richt, Steve Spurrier, Les Miles. Those guys have either retired or are coaching in the ACC/Big 10. That's a lot of coaching talent to lose. Perhaps we are a victim of our own success. Why wouldn't Tom Herman want to coach in the SEC? Why did Justin Fuentes go to Virginia Tech? Why did Urban Meyer get so stressed at Florida? Why would Mark Richt leave for Miami (oh wait, that was self-inflicted, sorry dawgs!).
2) The SEC peaked in the late 2000's, early 2010's because a lot of perennial powers were struggling:
FSU declined under Bobby Bowden at the end and it took Fisher some time to get them back up and running. The Big 10 was struggling....Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State are all doing much better today. Clemson wasn't really much of anything back then.
In order for the SEC to clearly regain its dominance, they are going to have to make smarter coaching hires or hope for some surprises with current coaches. This probably isn't an overnight fix, but I wouldn't expect the SEC to stay down for very long. These things tend to go in cycles. For example, if Kirby Smart doesn't succeed very quickly at UGA....I'd expect them to bring in a big name. Same thing for LSU and Tennessee. I'd also expect Auburn to start coach shopping soon as well. In the meantime, I'm hoping Muschamp uses this to his advantage and starts out-recruiting everyone to make his move.
I see two problems for the SEC:
1) A serious loss of coaching talent:
Back when the SEC was clearly dominant we had Bobby Petrino, James Franklin, Urban Meyer, Mark Richt, Steve Spurrier, Les Miles. Those guys have either retired or are coaching in the ACC/Big 10. That's a lot of coaching talent to lose. Perhaps we are a victim of our own success. Why wouldn't Tom Herman want to coach in the SEC? Why did Justin Fuentes go to Virginia Tech? Why did Urban Meyer get so stressed at Florida? Why would Mark Richt leave for Miami (oh wait, that was self-inflicted, sorry dawgs!).
2) The SEC peaked in the late 2000's, early 2010's because a lot of perennial powers were struggling:
FSU declined under Bobby Bowden at the end and it took Fisher some time to get them back up and running. The Big 10 was struggling....Ohio State, Michigan and Penn State are all doing much better today. Clemson wasn't really much of anything back then.
In order for the SEC to clearly regain its dominance, they are going to have to make smarter coaching hires or hope for some surprises with current coaches. This probably isn't an overnight fix, but I wouldn't expect the SEC to stay down for very long. These things tend to go in cycles. For example, if Kirby Smart doesn't succeed very quickly at UGA....I'd expect them to bring in a big name. Same thing for LSU and Tennessee. I'd also expect Auburn to start coach shopping soon as well. In the meantime, I'm hoping Muschamp uses this to his advantage and starts out-recruiting everyone to make his move.
Look at the good coaches SEC teams have fired recently. Mark Richt, Les Miles, Spurrier was one of the better coaches and he abruptly quit instead of sticking it out. The jury is still out on McElwain at UF. Ditto for Butch Jones at Tennessee.
There are a couple of factors that have made the ACC a much better conference than the SEC right now. 1) Coaches - I'll name the coaches that are now in the ACC. Fisher, Swinney, Petrino, Babers, Doeren, Clausen, Adazzio, Fuente, Richt, Mendenhall, Paul Johnson, Fedora, Narduzzi and Cutcliffe.
Of those coaches, there isn't any of them that you can say are not good coaches.
2) Quaterback Play - There is no comparison between the Quarterbacks that were in the ACC this season and those that are in the SEC. There is a reason Alabama was thought of as possibly the best defense of all time: There simply aren't any good Quarterbacks in the SEC. Generally, the SEC teams have higher rated recruiting classes than their ACC counterparts but they haven't gotten better Quarterback play and Quarterback is the most important position on the team. Everything centers around the Quarterback and the rest of the team follows the lead of their Quarterback. When you don't have a good QB, even if you are strong in every other area you will have problems winning. Hurts vs Deshaun Watson is the reason Clemson is this year's National Champion.
College football moves in cycles. In the 90s, Spurrier's Florida teams, along with FSU and Miami, were dominant programs because they had innovative offenses that were nearly unstoppable. Then, in the 2000s, the SEC began dominating with defense. The idea that a defense had "SEC speed" became a household catch-phrase in college football. But offenses around the country have caught up and the best teams among the power 5 conferences have virtually neutralized the SEC defensive speed. There are two exceptions: Alabama is still dominant, notwithstanding their loss the other night, and the Big Ten power teams still appear slow on offense and defense.
The SEC will cycle back around. I'm not sure we'll ever have another run of 7 consecutive titles, but these programs won't be down forever. These fan bases will not tolerate mediocrity and I expect we'll see some innovative offensive-minded coaches in the league within the next few years.
I also think the sports media is probably getting a little carried away with the "SEC is down" narrative after Monday night's game. The SEC _is_ down, no doubt about it. But if Bama wins that game, nobody's having the discussion. The conference is no more down after Renfrow caught that last pass than it was before it was thrown. Likewise, everything wasn't great in the conference last year when it went 9-2 in bowl games. The SEC enjoyed an unprecedented level of dominance for 7 years. The fact that other conferences are now producing champions as well doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong in the SEC.
The SEC will cycle back around. I'm not sure we'll ever have another run of 7 consecutive titles, but these programs won't be down forever. These fan bases will not tolerate mediocrity and I expect we'll see some innovative offensive-minded coaches in the league within the next few years.
I also think the sports media is probably getting a little carried away with the "SEC is down" narrative after Monday night's game. The SEC _is_ down, no doubt about it. But if Bama wins that game, nobody's having the discussion. The conference is no more down after Renfrow caught that last pass than it was before it was thrown. Likewise, everything wasn't great in the conference last year when it went 9-2 in bowl games. The SEC enjoyed an unprecedented level of dominance for 7 years. The fact that other conferences are now producing champions as well doesn't necessarily mean something is wrong in the SEC.
1. I don't think the jury is still out on Butch Jones. He doesn't have what it takes.
2. I'd take any current SEC coach over Dave Doeren. He doesn't last much longer at NCSU.
This. Creative offenses are the great equalizer. SEC will probably still put more players in the NFL, but the ACC is running better offenses right now. Plus, the rules are favoring offense more over defense. 2017 will be the year of the shootout. SEC teams need to quit copying Bama. Spurrier was a great QB coach, SEC teams need better QB coaching too.
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It sickens me when I realize Muschamp ran our program so far into the ground it's going to take
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