Final Exam Time for ADs

See these grades?
Funny, because BCS AD's won't on this year's report card

Close your eyes. We’re going to play a couple of word association games. Read the following words, close your eyes, and tell me what’s the first person that comes to mind with each . USC football. Ohio State football. Alabama football. Ok, tell me, what faces did you see when you closed your eyes? My guess was you saw a surfer, a sweater vest, and a half-man/half-zombie that lives on the blood of Alabama high school recruits, kitten blood, and the tears of children’s lost dreams. In other words, you immediately associated USC, OSU and Alabama with Pete Carroll, Jim Tressell and Nick Saban.

You should, because coaches are the faces of these football programs. Football players are usually faceless behind their helmets, most only play at most 3 years, and most fans only really recall seeing their number in the school colors. It’s up to the coach to embody a program, and the successful coaches do so. I guarantee all football fans can picture Mack Brown. How many non-Texas psychos would pick Brian “Iraq Police” Orakpo out of a line up. (Note to self: I hate myself for that nickname. It’s terrible and Skip Bayless-esque. Maybe I should over use it now in a desperate attempt to gain any laughs. “Hey, I have a nickname for TO: he’s Team Obliterator! No one? Really? Team Obliterator! Nothing? Team Obliterator, because they start with a T and an O! Please? Please? Someone vindicate me, I lost my job with the San Jose Mercury News because I’m awful! First Take, Monday through Friday mornings on ESPN2, catch it!)

So when a BCS school fires its football coach, unless it’s a basketball school like Indiana or Duke, hiring a replacement is most likely the most important decision an AD will make. If I were an AD, in order, this would be my criteria for selecting a new coach:
1. Is he a good coach? If a guy can coach, he can make any team better. You never know how good any recruiting class is, it’s all about how a coach can develop the talent he brings in
2. Does he have college head coaching experience? Being a head coach at the college level is a completely different set of responsibilities from being a coordinator. Working with college kids is completely different from coaching professionals. If you’re a football school, you don’t want a guy learning on a job, you want a guy that will turnaround and win quick
3. Is he a good recruiter? While coaching is most important, talent is still essential. In particular, you want a coach who can keep talented players in state and recruit in the region. Contacts in the Big 5 of Texas, Florida, Ohio, California and Pennsylvania is also a plus.

So with this in mind, and also remembering I’m a teacher and its exam time, let’s grade the coaching changes in BCS schools so far this season.

1. Lane Kiffin, Tennessee. Let’s go through the criteria. Is he a good coach? This is debatable. He served as co-OC for some very successful USC teams, but what coach wouldn’t look like an offensive genius with Dwayne Jarrett, Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, Ryan Khalil and Winston Justice on the same roster? It’s also hard to draw anything from his experience as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders. He only won five games in 20 tries, but it’s the friggin’ Raiders, so that may actually be a miracle. One thing you can point to is that he built a really good run game in 2007 with Justin Fargas and Dominique Rhodes, not exactly Pro Bowlers, and despite having Daunte Culpepper as his QB. Let’s call that one a push.

So let’s go to point three: is he a good recruiter? Again, this is difficult to gauge. He was successful bringing in talent at USC, but he’s been out of the recruiting game for two plus years now. Additionally, he was recruiting primarily out of the West coast at USC. At Tennessee, while fans may be attracted by the potential of California players dotting the roster, their talent base remains the Southeast where Kiffin has no real contacts.

To his credit, however, Kiffin has brought on a really impressive staff to help with his recruiting. First of all, getting his Dad, Monte, to leave the Tampa Bay Bucs and join the Volunteers is huge. It gives Kiffin’s staff instant credibility, and will also help recruiting defensive players. Monte shows up in a kid’s home, shows his Super Bowl ring, reminds them that he made Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp, John Lynch and Ronde Barber Hall of Famers, and then kid signs. He also signed David Reaves, the QB Coach and one of the primary recruiters at South Carolina, and reportedly is going to bring in former Ole Miss head coach Ed Oregon to coach the D line. Luke Skywalker wasn’t a good Jedi, but he had Yoda, Obi Wan and Han Solo to help him out. Both of Reaves and Oregon are tremendous recruiters with deep ties to the South, so they will definitely make this staff big players in recruiting quickly. No word yet on whether Oregon accepted the role of staff “Wildcard” in this foursome.

Grade: B-. I don’t think Kiffin is realistically any better than Philip Fulmer right now, but with the great staff around him, he has the chance to buy enough time to last long enough to turn into a top caliber coach. Plus side: wife is a total MILF


2. Steve Sarkisian, Washington. On the one hand, this makes sense. Sarkisian is the most high profile assistant on the most high profile team in the country. He also happened to be in the same conference as Washington, so he’s also addition by subtraction. These are all good reasons to bring him in.

Now for the bad. First of all, I have doubts whether or not he’s really all that good of a coach, for the same reason I doubt Kiffin’s coaching experience at USC. He didn’t really turn Matt Leinhart into a Top 10 pick, Norm Chow did that during Leinart’s first years at USC. So Sarkesian turned Josh David Booty, into what, a sixth round pick and Ken Dorsey’s #1 fan as a fellow 3rsd string QB? USC’s scoring offense was ranked 18st in 2006, 34th in 2007, and 14th in 2008. Not bad, but on the other hand, is this offense a product of him or the fact that he just has unbelievable talent on his roster? After all, RBs like Emmanuel Moody that fail at USC transfer to #1 ranked Florida. Read that sentence again. How can this offense not put up points? In fact, based on the number of five star recruits, isn’t 14th in the nation underachieving?

This also holds true for Sarkisian as a recruiter. If you read Bruce Feldman’s book “Meat Market,” you know a focus of the book was Ole Miss and LSU battling over top-rated RB recruit Josh McKnight. Then, suddenly, Pete Carroll just walks into McKnight;s house at the eleventh hour and gets him to commit to USC. This shows me that USC is so good right now, they basically get any player they want with no effort. So did Sarkisian convince players like McKnight and Mark Sanchez to come to USC, or does USC just get their pick of any player in the country? My guess is the latter, since I don’t expect any real drop off in recruiting for the Trojans on Signing Day 2009. Washington? Yeah, don’t really see a Top Ten class for them in 2009.

Grade: C-

3. Dan Mullen, Mississippi State. This is the hire that I like the most based on first reaction. He has no head coaching experience, but if you are going to bring in an assistant, this is the guy. He has not only headed up the most exciting offense in college football the past two seasons in Gainesville, but also as their QB Coach he has transformed Tim Tebow into a Heisman Trophy winner and the best-damn-cleft palate-nurse this side of the Indian Ocean. He did the same with Alex Smith at Utah, so it’s not even like Mullen is a one-time success story. He also has experience recruiting in the Southeast from his time at Florida, and might actually help Mississippi State get some talent out of the state of Florida.

The downside? What are the odds that he’s actually successfully in rebuilding the program into a long-term winner? Either A) He’s incredibly successfully in three years, then jumps ship for a high profile job or B) He struggles, and the impatient and unreasonable fans/boosters at Mississippi State force him out after three seasons of 6 wins or fewer. Don’t see option A happening? Just look at his mentor, the White-Jacketed-Douchebag of the South, Urban Meyer, and his success at Bowling Green and Utah. Don’t see option B happening? Sylvester Croom was SEC Coach of the Year last year. Now? He’s hoping to get a job debating Mark May on whether Notre Dame “sucks” or “blows” on ESPN. Follow up debate? With Lou Holtz about whether Mark May is a "dick" or an "asshole." Holtz chooses "dick" since he can't pronounce the other option correctly.

Grade: B. MSU is going to find it’s hard to be better than Sly. Even if he is a cracker.

4. Doug Marrone, Syracuse. Let’s stick with the positives. The guy is obviously a talented offensive coach, as the New Orleans Saints have been a dominant offensive team since his arrival in 2006. He was also a standout player in the 1980s for the Big Orange who called Syracuse his “dream job,” so he has an obvious vested interest in resurrecting his ol alma mater. His hiring also energized the fan base, which is great for the ‘Cuse.

On the other hand? Wow, ok. He has no college coaching experience, so he basically has no idea how to recruit other than memories of Syracuse coming to his living room during the Carter Administration. He has no head coaching experience period. The New Orleans Saints are a one-dimensional team that has no run game, and he’s inheriting a team with no passing game, so we don’t know if his offense will work. We don’t even know if the Saints’ is even “his” offense, since Sean Payton is an offensive guy and seems to be the one calling plays during the game since he’s constantly hiding his mouth. The team Marrone inherits was so awful that they almost lost to Notre Dame. Am I missing anything? Basically, Marrone being successful at Syracuse is about as unlikely as David Silver joining the cool crowd at West Beverly High in Season One of 90210 or Brian Austin Green traveling back through time to 2008 to save Fox's Monday night programming, and two of those already happened. Of these three, please step forward if you'll happen. Not so fast, Mr. Marrone

Grade: D

5. Gene Chizik, Auburn. Why hire him? Simple. He’s white.

Oh that’s not fair, even if Charles Barkley agrees. Other qualifications: he has a lack of melanin that makes it dangerous for him to live in tropical climates, his family is of European descent, if you hold up a sheet of computer next to him he blends in, his nickname amongst recruits from Watts is “Saltine.” He is bad at dancing. His friends would never think to describe him as “articulate.” He quotes Frank Sinatra seriously and Lil’ John ironically. He has a facebook account, not a myspace. He likes assists, coffee, and Portland Oregon.

So, other than race, why hire him? He was a successful defensive coordinator at Auburn five years ago. He was a successful coordinator at Texas three years ago. And if you just ignore the first two years of his two-year stint at Iowa State, where he won a total of 5 games and signed zero major recruits, then he did a helluva job turning ISU into a winning football program. Auburn fans: remember you could have kept Tommy Tuberville or hired Turner Gill. But instead, you got a young, unsuccessful white guy. Ain’t America, grand?

Grade: FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL