Tyler Stearns |
The world of College Football is changing. We have already seen the equivalence of free agency in the sport with the rule changes to the Transfer Portal. We have also seen players leaving their schools for bags of money through NIL deals. And in the coming weeks, we may even see players being counted as employees of their respective institutions.
Though all of this is important and will certainly shift the game in a new direction, many things stay the same. At the end of the day, it’s football, and it’s not the NFL. It isn’t a professional sport, but it isn’t amateur either. It is in the middle and should be treated as such. That’s why having a coach that fits a program well is extremely important.
Take the Georgia Bulldogs for example. They play in the SEC and have the most physical team in the country. Coach Kirby Smart is the perfect man to lead them to National Championships and he has already done so twice. He has built a winning culture that relies on the players’ physicality and size to succeed and has equally good coordinators that dial-up amazing plays. But is Smart a tactician or a player’s coach? He is both and neither at the same time. No player wants a coach too difficult on them, but every player wants to win. He offers both. He also offers a pro-style offense and a lockdown defense that appeals to any recruit in the country. That’s what makes him the best in the country.
Lincoln Riley is a lot more of a tactician. He is arguably the best offensive mind in football. Though his defense has always disappointed, he has nearly always made up for it with his dynamic passing attack. The “air raid” offense he runs is not really just about passing. At their best, his Sooners and Trojans ran the ball for 250 yards per game and took the top off the defense with big passing plays. Stat sheet watchers will say it’s just about passing, but it’s not.
It’s established that he is great at calling plays, but does he know how to manage a team of players? It is too early in his career to call. His time at Oklahoma may say so considering the buy-in that the guys at his program had into the OU football team, but his time at USC offers a different story. He saw over 10 players enter the transfer portal, many of which were former five-star recruits, after the 7-5 regular season the Trojans had. At that point, it seemed as if no one wanted to be at USC, but after a great win against Louisville in the Holiday Bowl, he seems to revive the belief in the program. That moment showed a glimpse of what type of coach he can be if he can utilize his skills as a tactician and a leader of men.
Other coaches are more one-sided. UCLA recently hired DeShaun Foster, the Raiders’s Running Back’s Coach. He was a former Bruin. The move was made entirely to keep the locker room intact, a play that may seem unnecessary now considering their two top defensive backs and one of their starting receivers left for the other LA school. If he fails to create a spark in the UCLA team that leads them to even a winning record, he will be looked at as purely a player’s coach.
On the other hand, coaches like Jeffy Lebby at Mississippi State can be looked at as purely tacticians. He hasn’t been a head coach of a major program yet, only an offensive coordinator. Though his time as a playcaller has been successful, being an integral part of the success of the UCF and Oklahoma offenses, he hasn’t proven himself as a player’s coach. If the worn-down Mississippi State Bulldogs can win some big games this season and create a winning culture, he will change that narrative, but until then, he remains an offensive designer.
The best coaches are both. Nick Sagan, Bear Bryant, John McKay, Pete Carrol, Urban Meyer, Knute Rockne, Kirby Smart, and even Lincoln Riley revolutionized the game. But they also created cultures that gave off a winning vibe and attracted talent who wanted to participate.
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