CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => Big Ten => Topic started by: Cincydawg on October 02, 2018, 06:58:15 PM
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Magically, you are suddenly head coach of a P5 football program. Pick your program. How do you think you would do versus whoever is there now?
I am pretty sure I don't know enough about the position to have an opinion worth much. Let's limit this to game week preparation and game day decision making.
Being almost entirely ignorant, I would put enormous authority with the OC and DC and other coaches. I'd try not to muck up preparation. I could look at tape and anything I said would probably sound amateurish and stupid, so I'd nod and ask others.
Game day decisions? Holy cow. I would go for it on fourth down more than most coaches, probably anywhere outside our own 40 with 3 yards or less to go. That is situational of course.
Let me take Purdue, because I think their HC is pretty good. Obviously there would be a fall off, but how much do you think? Could I woof my way through a few games with the same record or would I botch one he would have won?
Forget recruiting, I'm like SoS on that note.
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I'd be catastrophic in terms of ... knowing football. But assembling and motivating a team is a trait I've built over decades. That and press conferences, I like to think I'd have down.
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Well, I'll be the first to be boldly arrogant. I could watch film and work on play calling/strategy reasonably well.
Aside from that I would be a dumpster fire.
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I am pretty sure I don't know enough about the position to have an opinion worth much. Let's limit this to game day decision making.
I could make a few decisions on gameday relative to the head coach. Wouldn't pretend to be able to call plays on either side of the ball on time. The game moves fast. I could have some high level input after studying the playbook and watching practice and games for a year.
If I was simply dropped in tomorrow for the Husker Badger game, I'd stay out of the way until Sunday morning
elementary decisions such as:
declining or accepting a penalty,
attempting a FG, punting, or going for it,
when to use timeouts and challenges
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Not... Not good.
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I can tell you what I would not do. I would not hide my face behind a play card. There would be going for it on the plus side of the field, aside from very long situations. I'd probably spend too much time talking and listening to my guys up in the booth, as I tend to operate strategically, in the moment. They will see what I cannot.
Of course I'd have a gameplan, but as Mike Tyson always said.... That means, I probably wouldn't call the plays. Oral arguments, panel discussions at conferences, presentations, I keep my plans down to one page or less. That means a lot drilling to master the material during the week. If you can't dominate at practice you can't just roll it out there and expect to control the game.
I'd be very distracted by mental mistakes by players. Kids not lining up properly, I'm sure I'd burn a timeout because of some misalignment on a punt or something like that. I coach 3rd and 4th grade vball, so I'm stuck on teaching technique, positioning and court awareness. Talent is randomly distributed, so nobody looks good unless you have kids playing the right way.
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None of us would even be mediocre at it because a HC at a P5 school has so much BS and plates to spin, we wouldn't know where to go or what to do.
It'd be like landing a 747.
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As a self-employed guy for a whole lot of years, I think I could manage people. And that's where it would stop.
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much of our problem with the position would be lack of experience
we have knowledge of the game, passion, some intelligence, although it doesn't appear that is a strong indicator.
we just need practice and reps
I'd guess if we were to stand next to the head coach for 2 -5 years and soak it all up, we could probably at least be functional
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much of our problem with the position would be lack of experience
No doubt. And probably true of everything. Although intuition is real, very little talent is inborn in my experience. Yahtzee, hockey, poetry, law, medicine; being great at anything only comes with repetition. It's safe to bet the same of coaching. Practice, practice, practice.
Because even if this means we could all have been particle physicists, how many of us cared so much about that subject to invest the majority of our life to try? On this board, I think the count is zero (my apologies if I've forgotten a person's vocation). Coaching is the same way. The people who do it are - more or less - equally as ab/normal and un/healthy as the rest of us. They do it. So could we. But as with anything, football is sufficiently complicated that we can't rise to a high level without first investing the majority of a life.
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The speed at which these endeavors takes place would overwhelm us without appropriate preparation. Think back to the first time you took the field or court in a real sporting event with refs, fans, a scoreboard, lights, a buzzer and whistles. Then the strangers on the other team. It's such a strange feeling the first time.
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How much money do I have to hire assistants and what kind of behind the scenes network of boosters to pay for top recruits am I working with?
If I got a blank check and can hire Don Brown away as my DC and Rich Rodriguez as my OC I think I'd be just fine.
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I'd go younger than that, so the coordinators would be younger than me. :93:
Gimme Aranda and Canada, along with a few recruiting aces, and I'd find a way to make it work. Not sure what happened at LSU to make them get rid of Canada after only one season. That's a weird one to me. Just give him the clipboard and headset and leave him alone.
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You'd have the DC and OC currently on staff, say at Purdue.
We're a modest bunch here, which is good, and I think realistic. I was pondering this hypothetical because of the criticism afforded Franklin on his 4th down call, and how often "we" criticize coaching decisions that are obvious on TV.
I'm reminding myself that I'd be pretty bad at it, in real time, which as noted is different from watching a play call fail on TV and claiming I WOULD have done differently.
Real time is pretty fast, and you only get 3 TOs a half obviously.
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The speed at which these endeavors takes place would overwhelm us without appropriate preparation.
That is what I was thinking when I first read this question. Watching on TV from the comfort of my own couch/living-room I can see the down and distance and the relative field position (it helps that the TV gives me this information). Seeing this in real time and getting a play called quickly enough to get the right personnel onto the field, aligned correctly, and ready to snap the ball would be something else entirely.
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As a self-employed guy for a whole lot of years, I think I could manage people. And that's where it would stop.
I had ~150 students report to me as computer lab manager. I had to get real good at group speak and delegating.
I don't know enough about football coaching to be any good or demand the athletes respect. I would have to have great people to delegate to.
I'm really confident that given the chance to get mentored in coaching I could get really good at it, but right now I'd have no clue.
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I think any of us, had we made this a career, starting out coaching PeeWee and working our way up, could become at least competent, if not Nick Saban, but none of us have, though I'm sure a few have coached at lower levels perhaps up to HS.
I agree about the speed needed for decision making without access to a screen full of information. A computer game might make this interesting where you had to decide in real time to run X or Y or Z.
I know game prep comes into this in a big way so you have a sheet which narrows the options to 4 or 5 plays perhaps in certain down and distance situations. I wonder if anybody uses a computer upstairs to run an algorithm on which plays should have most success.
Someone could input real time plays and results to update said algorithm.
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I'd have no business doing this. I'd probably quit at halftime.
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I'd have no business doing this. I'd probably quit at halftime.
Retire, you'd retire at half time.
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I’d be very bad at it.
I’ve met people who became HS coaches because too early, even the young and precocious ones often struggle.
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I'd sign a multi-year contract at OSU with guarantee's and tell the they all need to take ballet to improve flexibility. I'd also run the triple option and go back to the old 5-2. Then I'd give my staff more time off, promote studies over workouts and work on a book.
but that's just what I'd do as the OSU coach.
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I'd sign a multi-year contract at OSU with guarantee's and tell the they all need to take ballet to improve flexibility. I'd also run the triple option and go back to the old 5-2. Then I'd give my staff more time off, promote studies over workouts and work on a book.
but that's just what I'd do as the OSU coach.
and you'd mysteriously find a way to lose to the Cornhuskers
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I'm not sure I could even do that...
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JMO, but given the staff and support personnel that are available even at mid-majors these days, the HC job is far more management than coaching. Make good strategic decisions on personnel and be a successful motivator, and you'll be fine.
Those tend to be inherent traits IMO, as opposed to learned. There are guys out there (NU hired one a few years ago) that have been coaching for decades and still make basic mistakes in judgment. Then there are young guys, first-time HCs, who make the right moves most of the time.
I'd be a terrible motivator...not a Rah-rah type of guy, and that's what most athletes respond to.
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Pulling from my experience of coaching my daughter's soccer team, a lot of the challenge is just organizing everyone. Think about the logistics of defensive subbing - you need to have subs ready to go in and players run off, often in a matter of seconds. We focus on the easy stuff - playcalling and clock management, but that's just a drop in the bucket for the head coach.
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I'd be catastrophic in terms of ... knowing football. Brut assembling and motivating a team is a trait I've built over decades. That and press conferences, I like to think I'd have down.
Then I think you would have the best chance at being successful. You can surround yourself with coaches who know the game and can take care of the schematic part.
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Football is a really tough one, probably the toughest, in terms of learning curve.
The speed of the game would crush me. I love baseball, and I think it's chess. But chess is slow, so I think any baseball nerd with interpersonal skills could be a good manager pretty quickly.I think all the moves on the fly is why we would all suck as football coaches. The time to plan is why I think Of have a chance as a baseball manager.
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Pulling from my experience of coaching my daughter's soccer team, a lot of the challenge is just organizing everyone. Think about the logistics of defensive subbing - you need to have subs ready to go in and players run off, often in a matter of seconds. We focus on the easy stuff - playcalling and clock management, but that's just a drop in the bucket for the head coach.
This is another time-crunch issue that I was thinking about. Think about everything that goes into this:
- Your defense gets an eight yard sack on 2nd and 4 setting up 3rd and 12.
- The offense runs off a FB and a TE and replaces them with two WR's.
- You need to identify the opposing players exiting/entering so you know what you are up against.
- You need to grab your next two DB's and send them in with instructions to send two LB or one LB and one DL out.
- Your two entering guys need to get on the field and into position AND your exiting guys need to get off the field prior to the snap or you are dinged for too many men on the field.
Now add to that the fact that in addition to simply swapping LB's and DL's for DB's in nickle/dime situations a number of teams also have running down and passing down DL's and LB's so in addition to the LB's and DL's being swapped for DB's you also have running DL/LB being swapped for passing DL/LB. You could easily have four guys entering/leaving all in a matter of seconds.
I don't know the exact rule but I know there is some provision that offenses have to provide time for defenses to make substitutions IF the offense makes substitutions but they don't have to give them all day. The coaches have to make these decisions almost instantaneously in order to provide time for the personnel groups to get on/off the field.
Then add this consideration: When we watch a game on TV or even in person we are generally up pretty high so it is easy to see the #'s on the offensive guys who exit/enter. Thus, we can pretty easily see that (for example), a FB and a TE left and two WR's entered. The HC is at field level with his 11 guys and the other team's 11 guys between him and the opposite sideline. It has to be difficult sometimes just to know what people the offense deleted/added. In the 3rd and 12 example that I listed above this is probably not important since it is an obvious passing down but what if it is 3rd and 4-5? That is a passing down for probably most offenses but if the defense brings in a dime package it would make sense for a lot of offenses to bring in extra TE's and just try to overpower the smaller defenders for those 4-5 yards.
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This is another time-crunch issue that I was thinking about. Think about everything that goes into this:
- Your defense gets an eight yard sack on 2nd and 4 setting up 3rd and 12.
- The offense runs off a FB and a TE and replaces them with two WR's.
you have a D-coordinator responsible for this. He has assistant coaches on the field and in the booth with responsibilities.
Players are also responsible to be ready and know the situation and expectations of their roles in the defense
obviously, when something breaks down, you, as the head coach get called out in the post-game presser
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I think the head coach has to be a manager more than anything. I think that's what trips up some of the coaches who end up failing miserably, that they don't effectively manage their coordinators and assistants.
Darrell Hazell wasn't in over his head because he didn't understand football. I'm sure he understands more football than the folks on this board ever will in our lives. But he didn't effectively select and manage coordinators that could do their jobs.
I honestly believe that if most of us on this message board were in Hazell's position, we wouldn't have ended up with John Shoop and Greg Hudson as our coordinators. We wouldn't have tried to play Tresselball without OSU-level talent. We wouldn't have tried to over-manage our players to the point where he wanted to project an image of professionalism so boring that when he was fired and Gerad Parker took over, they made the emphasis to actually try to have fun again.
I don't think any of us would be excellent coaches. But we've all seen the coaches that want to do it "their" way and end up stubborn, exuding hubris while continuing to do what isn't working, all the way to the unemployment office.
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I think the head coach has to be a manager more than anything. I think that's what trips up some of the coaches who end up failing miserably, that they don't effectively manage their coordinators and assistants.
I definitely think this is true in any managerial position. I only have a fairly small staff but I can tell you that when I have good people, life is easy and when I don't, there aren't enough hours in the day for me to make up for it.
The thing that makes it difficult, and I imagine that this is at least somewhat true for HC's as well, is that hiring seems to me to be more art than science. I know that I have made hires that I thought would be great that were only so/so and hires that I was nervous about that ended up being great. You just never know.
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Ya well Duh,Saban & Meyer would be envious and asking me for pointers
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I recall an embarrassing incident back when I played baseball. I used to coach 3rd base, because someone had to do it. Obviously there isn't much to it really. We had a few signals and whatnot but the batter often didn't bother looking. Fine with me.
One time we had a runner on second and the batter hit a gapper into left field, not hard, but right at the LFer, and as the runner approached 3rd base, I completely froze in indecision. The guy kept running and was out by 20 feet on the throw. My mind hit that 50-50 point. Obviously I should have held him unless I was pretty sure he could make it. But I froze.
I can imagine something similar happening in a football game, 4th and a yard or something, and you HAVE TO DECIDE quickly.
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I recall an embarrassing incident back when I played baseball. I used to coach 3rd base, because someone had to do it. Obviously there isn't much to it really. We had a few signals and whatnot but the batter often didn't bother looking. Fine with me.
One time we had a runner on second and the batter hit a gapper into left field, not hard, but right at the LFer, and as the runner approached 3rd base, I completely froze in indecision. The guy kept running and was out by 20 feet on the throw. My mind hit that 50-50 point. Obviously I should have held him unless I was pretty sure he could make it. But I froze.
I can imagine something similar happening in a football game, 4th and a yard or something, and you HAVE TO DECIDE quickly.
There’s a guy who coaches third for my daughter’s softball team. We were playing in a tournament this summer and we were down 2, bases loaded, with his daughter at bat. She hits a gapper into left center. The kid didn’t play it very well off the fence, and had a weak arm so it ended up being an inside the park grand slam.
So as his daughter is rounding the 3rd the ball is still in play but it’s pretty clear she is going to be safe. So he holds out his hand and slaps her five as she is heading home. Well, this is illegal. You can’t touch a baserunner while the ball is in play. The coach of the other team protests and sure enough they call her out.
Not only does it cost us a run in a tight game but he’s cost his daughter a rare grand slam. He’s devastated, she’s devastated. Luckily, we held onto win. We made him do 20 pushups after the game. LOL.
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great story
the opposing coach is a dick
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We had an opposing coach call time out and complain to the ump about a play. Our kid slid into base and according to league rules, sliding is only allowed on forced play. Kids were 8 yrs old. Kid called out is devastated and crying because he doesn't know what he did wrong. The opposing team was up 16-1 at that point as well. (our team was full of kids who played other sports.. we were in the wrong division for the competition... that team/coach knew that as well..)
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I used to coach and ref rec soccer. I have a lot of stories about that one.
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for a single game, i think myself and many others here could do... ok.
over the course of a couple year, any program i took over would fall apart at the seams. partially, or maybe primarily, because i don't have the desire (not to mention the knowledge) to run a program full time. it's not day job, not even a heavy-load 5 day week job. it's 24-7-365, and i don't have any desire to work like that.
and, again, i'd be so far over my head from a knowledge standpoint, it wouldn't really matter if i did have the gumption anyway.
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The point I was pondering, obviously, is how ready "we" are with criticisms for coaching calls. (I mean the "we" of course being folks who don't post here.) Those folks are ready with criticism, including the Talking Heads, who by and large can't coach, so they criticize.
I am reminded me of a quote by Teddy Roosevelt.
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'It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.' - Theodore Roosevelt
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This is the kind of question that a person only asks, annoyingly, if he already has the answer he would give for himself, but I persevere despite my tackiness:
Is there a coach in the game that you really relate to? Like, can you think of a CFB coach that you believe is similar in habits or personality to you?
For me, and I know there are many people who see him rather negatively, like he can never turn it off, just way too up all the time, but it absolutely has to be PJ Fleck. BTN has this new program all to itself that is 100% Monday/Tuesday pressers. I DVR it and have that in the background fairly often. And I gotta say that, aside from Harbaugh (because that's my team), no one makes me look up from my household chores or computer screen to nod along like PJ Fleck.
Whether I'm lecturing in front of a class or leading my labmates (or thinking about building a team/clinic/department in the future), I notice that he and I speak similarly and have similar philosophies about life. Enthusiasm through the roof. And putting on a pedestal the idea that there's nothing a healthy human brain can't think and do that any other healthy human brain has ever thought or done before. That kind of optimism has basically always been my entire teaching philosophy. And so far it's never failed.
Anyway, I always kind of liked PJ, but this weekly presser thing is making me like him more and more. He's not for everyone, I'm sure. And I wouldn't be surprised if the same people on this board who think he's a blowhard have felt the same about me. It's fully cool and comes with the territory.
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Saban probably exhibits the closet personality to me, always finding fault with something somewhere.
That's why I'm so lovable in person.
And no, I'd never be in Saban's coaching universe except as an observer.
I'd be more like Spurrier when it comes to recruiting. But SoS could flat out coach gameday.
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Hah!
Goes to show how little we know each other sometime. I always saw you as more of a Lloyd Carr. A serious thinker with classy habits. I'm liking this exercise!
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Interesting, I've always been told my sense of humor is very dry, very sarcastic, very straight faced, which is why I think I get MD, where some don't.
But I think I'm more quirky and obscure, generally less serious. Maybe like a Les Miles.