[seaborneq]

Kevin Sumlin Texas A&M
Rich Rod Michigan
Terry Bowden Auburn
Chip Kelly Oregon
Lane Kiffen USC
Steve Sarkesion Washington
Rick Neuheisal UCLA
Dennis Erickson Miami
Butch Davis Miami
Tommy Bowden Clemson
Les Miles LSU

To name a few. How do guys go from winning at the highest level to not be able to win at lower levels. Or can't coach at all. Most are just on coaching staffs after reaching their peaks. Seems like they should be better as they go down in competition yet they still can't win enough.

[jjgold]

It’s called having players there’s no such thing really as a good coach you got to have Players and then you look good

[Roger T. Bannon]

NCAA coaching is 99% recruiting and some luck. Sumlin always did better than I expected. Worse at Arizona. That was probably a little bad luck. Rich Rod was bad a Michigan. Did about as well as you can do at Arizona.

Bowden took over crappy programs and made them better.

Kelly has been OK at UCLA. Hard to meet Oregon standards.

Kiffen has been better than at USC.

Neuheisal dropped off. Hard to figure what happened with him.

Erickson was good wherever he went. He cheats.

Davis made FIU a lot better but has stalled. Tough job.

Tommy Bowden just never got another chance.

Miles was recruiting well at Kansas but got taken out. He would have probably turned them around in a couple more years.

You can't just win the same anywhere.

[Roger T. Bannon]

Chip Kelly was always way overrated. The guy that built that program was Belotti. Brooks did a good job of building the foundation. Kelly just came in and had a good run and got all the credit. He was pretty good but if you have do something on your own, it is pretty tough.

[ChuckyTheGoat]

Roger T Bannon, great post! So true.

My theory on Football coaching:
*Up to AND including High School: football is about Organization. So, good coaches beat bad coaches over and over.

*College and higher: it's 99% talent and skill. 1% scouting and luck.

A college coach has to have some ability. The DIFFERENCE in skill between coaches gets smaller and smaller.

Coaches at college+ are essentially doing the same thing. Hard to carve out an edge. Have to bring in superior talent and hope for the best.

[Roger T. Bannon]

Roger T Bannon, great post! So true.

My theory on Football coaching:
*Up to AND including High School: football is about Organization. So, good coaches beat bad coaches over and over.

*College and higher: it's 99% talent and skill. 1% scouting and luck.

A college coach has to have some ability. The DIFFERENCE in skill between coaches gets smaller and smaller.

Coaches at college+ are essentially doing the same thing. Hard to carve out an edge. Have to bring in superior talent and hope for the best.

Coaches can make a difference sometimes. I mean Saban has made a difference at Alabama. He's a good coach. But he is cheating at an epic scale. Nobody is that good.

You have to judge coaches by what they can accomplish at a certain school. A guy wins 9 games at Arizona and that is doing something. It is not the same as winning 9 games at UCLA. People think it is the same.

You can look back at some coaches that have coached for a lot of years and see times when they would have gotten fired nowadays and then they had big runs. So now it is hard to tell who is getting lucky and who is really good.

Cristobal got fired at FIU doing a good job and now he wins 12 at Oregon. Some of this stuff is overrated. Anybody can win some places and nobody can win other places. You can win for a while some places but you will eventually start losing. A lot of coaches get fired and then the bottom really drops out because they did not know what they had.

[ChuckyTheGoat]

That's my point. It's always relative to the talent you have available.

Show me a coach who can win at a rate well above his talent. Very hard to find.

Your IQ goes up 20pts when u have talent. Down 20pts when the cupboard is bare.

[Roger T. Bannon]

Harbaugh is an example of a coach that might have gotten fired and will probably go back to winning 10 games. When he does, they will talk about how he changed his attitude and changed coaches and all kinds of bullshit. The real reason will just be his recruits panned out a lot better than before. No difference. Just luck.

[Brock Landers]

Lovie Smith

Just horrendous in every possible category

[Roger T. Bannon]

Lovie was a bad hire. But they did go 6-6 and go to a bowl and his recruiting was not that bad. He left them better than what they were before. So actually not any worse than what they had previously. He did at least move them forward and put Bieliema in a position to succeed.

[Buckandadime]

I don't know if this has been said and if so, I apologize..
Coaches are about the isometric's of the game..
Fallen into the trap of what "can he do" vs "what he will do"
Its not about winning anymore, its about how the guy you post as your "MVP" does..
Just my simple assessment..
Carry on..

[Brock Landers]

Anyone mention Charlie Weiss?

How about Matt Patricia in the NFL

[seaborneq]

Sounds like coaches either forget how to coach or the game passes them by. Very few get to reinvent themselves. Once you start getting fired and getting worse jobs it doesn’t get any better even if the competition lessens with you.

[Roger T. Bannon]

The key to being a good college coach is being able to recruit. The key to being an NFL coach is talent evaluation. Belicheck is a great talent evaluator. That is why his assistants are never any good. He is a master talent evaluator in addition to being a great coach.

One thing Kingsbury showed as a college coach is an eye for talent and he has not been a bad NFL coach because he can spot a player.

[seaborneq]

It’s called having players there’s no such thing really as a good coach you got to have Players and then you look good

So coaches stop getting good players all of a sudden?? Coaches usually get fired because the players they have do not perform up to expectations . Ive yet to see a school get rid of ALL of its players and keep the great coach.

[Roger T. Bannon]

So coaches stop getting good players all of a sudden?? Coaches usually get fired because the players they have do not perform up to expectations . Ive yet to see a school get rid of ALL of its players and keep the great coach.

You did not ask why those guys got fired. You asked why they forgot how to coach. They went other places and did not have the same players or the same ability to get players. When you get another job, you are usually starting with a loser so not going to do as well.

[carolinakid]

you are looking at it from a betting thing, if you had no money on said game you would not think about it.

[seaborneq]

The key to being a good college coach is being able to recruit. The key to being an NFL coach is talent evaluation. Belicheck is a great talent evaluator. That is why his assistants are never any good. He is a master talent evaluator in addition to being a great coach.

One thing Kingsbury showed as a college coach is an eye for talent and he has not been a bad NFL coach because he can spot a player.

Do you remember Florida coach Rob Zook?? Excellent recruiter and a sorry excuse for a head coach. He set Urban Meyer up for life!!! Why Illinois gave Zook a chance is absolutely asinine. If he couldn’t win with the best talent he definitely won’t win with average talent. Nobody else was stupid enough to hire Zook as a head coach. Its definitely more than just recruiting. Its more than just recruiting, game plans, assistants, talent evaluation, development, schedules, budgets, etc. I do believe structure and organization is crucial in winning but that doesn’t guarantee anything either.

[sweethook]

you wont find worst than les miles thats a fact

[Roger T. Bannon]

Do you remember Florida coach Rob Zook?? Excellent recruiter and a sorry excuse for a head coach. He set Urban Meyer up for life!!! Why Illinois gave Zook a chance is absolutely asinine. If he couldn’t win with the best talent he definitely won’t win with average talent. Nobody else was stupid enough to hire Zook as a head coach. Its definitely more than just recruiting. Its more than just recruiting, game plans, assistants, talent evaluation, development, schedules, budgets, etc. I do believe structure and organization is crucial in winning but that doesn’t guarantee anything either.

Ron Zook was an unknown commodity. You take a huge risk when you hire a guy like Ron Zook because he is a good recruiter. It is easy to be a good recruiter some places. Just like Kansas hiring head coaches, you might want to ask yourself how well a MAC coach is going to recruit against Big 12 guys. It might not be very good. Better find somebody you know can recruit.

So Zook was a decent guy to take a chance on. They take chances on lots of guys. It does not work most of the time.

[Roger T. Bannon]

you wont find worst than les miles thats a fact

Maybe Ed Orgeron. He won with Miles players and now not doing so good.

[seaborneq]

you wont find worst than les miles thats a fact

LSU did more for Les Miles than any other coach benefited by being hired in the last 50 years. Les Miles wasn’t great at Oklahoma State before LSU or at Kansas after LSU. Les won a lot of games at LSU because he had more talent than the coach across from him, but he lost more games with better players than anyone else I can recall in a long time. Just no imagination on offense and always trying to get dual threat quarterbacks when all he needed was a guy to get the ball to the playmakers he had. LSU always had great offensive line play, great TEs, great wideouts, and great running backs under Les Miles and never could get a guy who could get those players the ball. Of course he’s going to be terrible when he doesn’t gave a talent advantage.

[Roger T. Bannon]

It is doubtful that LSU will ever have a coach that has the success of Les Miles.

[seaborneq]

It is doubtful that LSU will ever have a coach that has the success of Les Miles.

It is also more doubtful that Les Miles will ever win at the level that LSU afforded him when they brought him in after Nick Saban.

[Roger T. Bannon]

It is also more doubtful that Les Miles will ever win at the level that LSU afforded him when they brought him in after Nick Saban.

True enough. Saban cheated at an epic level at LSU and Miles took over the infrastructure. Saban then went on to cheat at an even more epic level at Alabama.

Tough to be a head coach at LSU in the future when you will not be able to do as well as the worst coach ever.

[pavyracer]

You give Guardiola the Sheffield United roster without a budget he will win the Premier League?

A coach is only as good as the talent around him.

[seaborneq]

You give Guardiola the Sheffield United roster without a budget he will win the Premier League?

A coach is only as good as the talent around him.

Some coaches are not very good, even with good talent.

[stake1]

Most are overpaid "baby sitters"

[DR225]

The game changes very quickly and those coaches fail to adapt.

[RudyRuetigger]

Kelly has been OK at UCLA. Hard to meet Oregon standards.

so you think OREGON has harder standards than UCLA



just stop



what a clown

[seaborneq]

The game changes very quickly and those coaches fail to adapt.

There is something to this. I'm using the word forget, but the game can pass you by while you are in between coaching jobs. What worked before may never work again.