Monday, December 03, 2012

An Open Letter to Auburn, Tennessee and Arkansas: Hire a Proven Head Coach

You might wonder why I, as a hardcore Alabama football fan, would write a letter giving advice to three of the Tide's rivals.  Well, first, I have little expectation that anyone of consequence at these schools will read this, so no real danger there.  Secondly though, and this is hard to say, but as much as I love crushing these three programs (average margin of victory by Alabama in 2012 against these three teams was 44 points), the only exciting rivalry Alabama has right now is with LSU, and that's a bit of a shame.

At one time, Tennessee and Auburn were games that Alabama fans anticipated all year - a measuring stick against which success or failure for a season was judged.  Former Tennessee coach General Robert Neyland famously said, "You never know what a football player is made of until he plays Alabama."  Among SEC teams, not counting the two new members, Auburn and Tennessee have the closest winning percentage against Alabama.  Alabama has beaten Auburn in 55.2% of its matchups, while Tennessee sits at 55.9%.  Among the old SEC, only these two teams and Georgia have beaten Alabama more than 40% of the time that they have played.  Arkansas, although its history against Alabama has largely taken place since the Razorbacks joined the SEC in 1992, has a respectable 8-13 record against the Tide, which is second place in winning percentage among SEC West opponents (not counting newbie Texas A&M, which is 3-2).  Alabama has played Tennessee 94 times, more than any other opponent but Mississippi State.  And even though Alabama and Auburn didn't play each other for 40 years, stemming from a minor dispute, the Tide and Tigers have still played 77 times.  That's tied for fourth among Alabama opponents.

My point is that Alabama's success in many ways is bound up with the teams that they call their rivals, and years of terrible or even mediocre play by those rivals serves to tarnish the rivalry.  I often cringe when I hear Bama fans say that they want Auburn to win every game except against Alabama.  I don't.  I (perhaps irrationally) hate Auburn.  I hate their colors.  I hate their traditions.  I think Auburn's trees are stupid, their toilet paper rolling is stupider and their fans are the stupidest of all.  But I recognized last week that beating them 49-0, while satisfying, lacked any real punch.  Every Auburn fan I know knew that they were going to get killed.  Some of them ignored the game completely.  As much as I hated losing to them in 2010 by one point against *** Newton, I would have enjoyed winning that one and ruining their dream season a lot more than I did this year's contest.  So, that being said, I have some advice for the administrations of Auburn, Tennessee, and Arkansas.  Hire a proven head coach.

As almost any college football fan can tell you, Alabama fans speak with experience on this front.  Our greatest coach of all time, the legendary Paul William Bryant, was a Bama alum and championship winner as a player.  But Bryant was also an experienced winner when he was hired to helm the Tide in 1958.  Bryant won an SEC championship at Kentucky, for Pete's sake, the only outright title the Wildcats have ever won, and turned Texas A&M into a Southwest Conference champion before he came to Alabama to become the Greatest of All Time.  After Bryant, Alabama ran through nine different head coaches in 25 years, which incidentally was the same amount of time Bryant coached at Alabama.  Do you realize that Nick Saban, the supposed mercenary head coach, has been at Alabama longer than any other head coach since Bryant, save one?  Saban is only one year away from equalling Gene Stallings' tenure at Alabama.  What did Alabama learn during those (largely) fallow years?

Among those nine coaches, the people Alabama hired fell into three categories: proven head coach (one with a winning record and championship experience), unproven head coach (one with a losing/mediocre record), and former coordinator (little or no head coaching experience).

Proven Head Coach - Dennis Franchione (138-65-2 at Southwestern/Pittsburgh State/SW Texas State/New Mexico/TCU, nine conference championships); Nick Saban (91-42-1 at Toledo/Michigan State/LSU, three division championships, three conference championships, one national championship; 15-17 at Miami Dolphins)

Unproven Head Coach - Ray Perkins (23-34 at NY Giants); Bill Curry (31-43-4 at Georgia Tech); Gene Stallings (27-45-1 at Texas A&M; 23-34-1 at St. Louis/Phoenix Cardinals); Mike Price (129-122 at Weber State/Washington State)

Former Coordinator - Mike Dubose, Mike Shula, Joe Kines (interim)

As you can see from these breakdowns, Alabama only hired two proven head coaches in the years after Bryant retired.  Everyone knows about Saban - the greatest college football coach of this era.  He had three conference championships and a national title before he came to Alabama, and he has won two more of each since arriving, with a third national championship potentially looming.  Franchione was also a proven commodity, winning nine conference championships before coaching the Tide.  Franchione was successful in his two seasons at Alabama, but NCAA probation scared him off to coach elsewhere.

Among the unproven head coaches, Stallings turned out to be the best of those - winning a national title and 70 games in seven years.  Perkins and Curry are generally regarded as failures, although both finished with winning records.  Price was an unmitigated disaster who never even coached a game for the Tide, unless you count A-Day.  And the coordinators?  The kindest way to put it is that they weren't ready for one of the biggest stages in college football.

So?  Why should Auburn, Arkansas and Tennessee learn from Alabama's head coaching misfires?  Well, if that isn't enough of an example for you, take a look at the coaches in the SEC.

First, among the four coaches that were fired at the conclusion of the 2012 season, see if you spot a common pattern:

  • Gene Chizik (Auburn) - former defensive coordinator, 5-19 as head coach of Iowa State
  • John L. Smith (Arkansas) - interim, former special teams coach
  • Joker Phillips (Kentucky) - former offensive coordinator
  • Derek Dooley (Tennessee) - 17-20 as head coach of Louisiana Tech

Of course, all of these coaches were either unproven head coaches or coordinators.  What about the other current coaches in the SEC?  Let's start with the teams that are currently ranked in the BCS top ten.

  • Nick Saban (Alabama) - proven head coach - (62-13 at Alabama, 2 SEC, 2 NC)
  • Will Muschamp (Florida) - former defensive coordinator - (18-7 at Florida)
  • Mark Richt (Georgia) - former offensive coordinator - (117-40 at Georgia, 2 SEC)
  • Les Miles (LSU) - proven head coach (85-20 at LSU, 2 SEC, 1 NC)*
  • Kevin Sumlin (Texas A&M) - proven head coach - (10-2 at Texas A&M)
  • Steve Spurrier (South Carolina) - proven head coach - (65-37 at USC)

Richt and Muschamp are the only coaches here that were not proven commodities when hired.  Richt has clearly been successful.  It's too early to conclude anything about Muschamp at this point, although he looks better now than he did a year ago.

As for the rest?

  • Hugh Freeze (Ole Miss) - proven head coach - (6-6 at Ole Miss)
  • Dan Mullen (Miss. State) - former offensive coordinator - (29-21 at MSU)
  • Gary Pinkel (Missouri) - proven head coach (90-61 at Mizzou)
  • James Franklin (Vanderbilt) - former offensive coordinator - (14-11 at Vandy)

Freeze and Franklin are too new to really pronounce judgment, but Mullen may have already hit his ceiling.  Pinkel has taken Missouri to new heights in the Big XII, although it remains to be seen whether he can win big in the SEC.

All this data shows us that there is no perfect way to hire a head coach.  There have been successful coaches in this league that have come from all different levels.  Tomorrow's great head coach might truly be today's offensive coordinator, but with each choice there is a degree of risk.  Auburn, Tennessee, and Arkansas are big-name programs in the most difficult conference in college football.  The fan interest, media scrutiny and cost of failure are as high in this league as they are anywhere in the country, especially for the top-tier programs.  While a perennial bottom-dweller like Kentucky can take a risk on a up-and-coming coordinator like Mark Stoops, two or three years of on-the-job training are not an option for a program that hopes to compete against those six guys in the top ten I mentioned previously.  Furthermore, all three programs have wealthy boosters who can help pony up to get a successful coach into the door.

A head coach with a proven record of success is going to be successful at an SEC school.  Most likely, he has been doing more with less somewhere else.  Take Urban Meyer for example.  A guy who can turn around a losing program at Bowling Green and go 17-6 in two seasons might be pretty good, right?  Then he went on to lead Utah to a BCS bowl and an undefeated season.  His success at Florida (2 SEC and 2 NC) was fairly easy to predict, and he has already led Ohio State to an 12-0 finish in 2012.  While few will attain Meyer's level of success, there are plenty of experienced winners out there that could do even more with the resources of an SEC program.

While I would never presume to tell the presidents and ADs at these institutions of higher learning how to do their jobs, I would give them this one recommendation: find a head coach with a record of success, even if it's with a lower tier school.  Steer clear of an unproven one-hit wonder or worse, a coordinator with no experience as a head coach.  Your job may depend on it.



*Miles is debatable as a proven head coach before LSU, but he had a winning record at Oklahoma State and turned around a losing program, taking them to three straight bowls.

Saturday, December 01, 2012

Bama Wins 23rd SEC Title, Looks Ahead to Notre Dame

Alabama escaped the Georgia Dome Saturday with a 32-28 win over the Georgia Bulldogs to win the team's 23rd SEC Championship.  The Crimson Tide scored the winning touchdown on a 45-yard pass from AJ McCarron to Amari Cooper with 3:15 remaining in the fourth quarter.  The Bulldogs drove to the eight in the final seconds with a chance to win, but a tipped pass was diverted from the intended receiver, instead going to Chris Conley, who came down with the ball at the five yard line as time expired.  The second-ranked Crimson Tide will go on to play number-one Notre Dame in the BCS Championship Game in Miami, while Georgia will, unfortunately, be relegated to a second-tier bowl, possibly the Capital One or the Cotton.

1.  Tide Wins by Going Back to Basics.

The unanimous opinion of Alabama fans following the Texas A&M game was that the Tide largely abandoned the run game in the loss to the Aggies.  While that may not have been entirely true, offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier's playcalling in the red zone late against A&M seemed to forego running the ball for the pass.  Early success against the Bulldogs rushing the ball, as well as significant pressure from the UGA defense on passing downs, led the Tide to rely heavily on the running game Saturday.  Alabama set  at least two running records in the game, rushing for 350 yards as a team (most in SECCG history), and having two backs rush for over 100 yards.  Eddie Lacy, who won the game's MVP trophy, had 181 yards on 20 carries - an amazing 9.1 yard per carry average.  Lacy had two touchdowns, including a 41-yard effort that was a sight to behold.  Freshman sensation T. J. Yeldon carried 25 times for 153 yards, and also had a touchdown run.  The Tide's success running the ball led to the team's most unbalanced offensive effort of the season - 51 rushing attempts versus only 21 passes.  The game-winning pass actually came about as a result of this effort, as Georgia had gone to an eight man front with man-to-man coverage on the outside receivers in an effort to stop the run.  McCarron executed a play-action pass to perfection and hit Amari Cooper in stride to take the final lead of the game.

2.  Georgia Proved Ready for the Big Game.

Much was made in the lead up to this game of the fact that Georgia, under head coach Mark Richt, has had a tendency to underperform in big games.  In addition, the knock on Bulldog quarterback Aaron Murray, who recently became the first signal caller in SEC history to throw for 3000+ yards in three straight seasons, has been that he has dominated weaker opponents, but played his worst in big games.  I personally felt that, despite the loss, Georgia had its best big-game performance since the 2008 Sugar Bowl win over Hawaii.  First, keep in mind that the Bulldogs were one play away from the win in the biggest game of Richt's career.  Murray completed 18 of 33 passes for 265 yards - a 55% rate of completion.  Murray was able to direct the Bulldogs up and down the field on the nation's top defense, and threw accurately in pressure situations.  Murray wasn't error-free, by any means, but he clearly performed well enough to win.  Even the alleged poor clock management at the end of the game was arguably better than Alabama's management of the clock at the end of the first half.  All in all, Georgia played its heart out and came up short.  That should be a welcome sight to Bulldogs fans who had been disappointed with previous efforts in marquee games.

3.  Nick Saban is the Greatest College Football Coach of this Era.

I made a point in one of last week's pieces that Alabama coach Nick Saban, who has won 67 of his 80 games at Alabama on the field (officially, his record is 62-13, as Alabama had to vacate five wins in 2007), has outperformed Bear Bryant in his career so far at Alabama.  Bryant won a record six national championships, coached 13 conference championship teams (plus two others before Alabama), and won a then-record 323 games.  None of those marks are within Saban's reach.  However, Saban has won 83.8% of his actual games at Alabama, and officially he has won 82.7%.  Both marks exceed the 82.4% winning percentage that Bryant had at Alabama.  Saban has also now won two national titles,with a third win one game away, and two conference titles - all in six seasons at the helm.  He is the only coach in the BCS era to win the national title at two different schools, the only one to win it three times, and the only one to get his teams into the game four times.  Unlike Bryant, he has done this in an era with scholarship limitations and NCAA scrutiny at an all-time high.  I'm not arguing that Saban is better than Bryant, and it might even be a lively debate whether or not Saban is the second-best coach in Alabama history (although I think he edges out both Frank Thomas and Wallace Wade at this point, and closes the book with a win over Notre Dame).  However, he is indisputably the best college football coach in this era.  The fact that Alabama's then-record $4 million-a-year contract offer to woo Saban from the Miami Dolphins in 2007 was heavily criticized now seems laughable.  Even at nearly six million dollars a year at this point, Saban is worth every penny and then some.  Alabama is enjoying another historic high point, and fans should savor every moment.

4.  Notre Dame versus Alabama BCS Will Be Epic

Let's set aside for a moment the game itself.  There will be plenty of time to analyze the personnel, coaches, and position matchups in the weeks leading up to January 7th.  I just want to talk about the historic significance of the game.  On the one hand, you have top-ranked Notre Dame - currently number 1 in the nation in overall winning percentage and fourth nationally in all-time wins (865-301-41).  The Fighting Irish have won 13 recognized national championships (although the program only claims 11) out of 23 total, and have played in 31 bowl games.  The Irish have seven Heisman winners and 96 consensus All-Americans, both NCAA records.  On the other hand you have Alabama.  The Crimson Tide is currently seventh in the nation in overall winning percentage and in all-time wins (826-321-43).  Alabama has won 13 recognized national titles (claiming 14) out of 31 total, and have played in 58 bowl games, winning 33, both of which are NCAA records.  Bama has one Heisman winner and 47 consensus All-Americans.

The two teams are arguably the two greatest programs in college football history, with large, loyal fan bases.  Notre Dame supposedly has the largest following in the nation, but has been largely absent from the national stage competitively since the late 1990s.  Alabama conversely is in the midst of the program's third major "golden age," playing for its third national title in four years, and the Southeastern Conference is having an unprecedented title run.  The media and public attention for this game will be astronomical, and ESPN is already rubbing its collective hands together at the projected ratings.  The fact that these teams have won the most recognized championships among FBS schools and have some previous championship game history (which frankly is completely in Notre Dame's favor) just makes the pairing more attractive to fans of the two teams.  Notre Dame has a 5-1 record against Alabama, and I am really looking forward to an opportunity to even that up a little.  Roll Tide!