Reading this article about Urban Meyer and big time coaching really made me think about a post I made two and a half years ago about the future of coaching.

While my admittedly rose colored outlook on the potential of WVU's staff was a bit off, I think that a lot of the points I made are even more salient now than they were back then.

My OP is a bit incomplete and I really go into a lot more depth and back and forth stuff later in the thread, but you can get the general idea.

I still think that this is a really viable way to build a football program at a a second tier BCS school that could be a paradigm shift on the cfb landscape.


Also, Auburn's staff this year is very, very fitting for the mold that I proposed. If you read the bottom of the thread there are a lot of lol/quality bumps about the 2009 season as well.

The flaw in that system is that the good assistant coaches are going to leave and become head coaches. There is a very limited number of great assistants out there. The head coaches that are going to be the most successful are great with X's and O's, have a defined system, and develop players for that system. Player development is probably the most critical aspect of any program not in the top tier of college athletics.

Gus Malzahn is making $350k or so I believe so I have to imagine he's going to leave for some sort of head coaching job unless Auburn wants to step up and pay him a million. They might need to offer him a million to stay on as OC and still hope Texas doesn't come in and offer him $1.5 mil.

Is Malzahn not worth a million, though? Chizik is making $2m. Would you rather have Les Miles as your head coach and no money for assistants, or $2m for Chizik, $1m for Malzahn and another million leftover to hire whoever you want as DC?

Also, I don't get why seemingly almost all assistants want to become Head Coaches. Not every CFO, COO or CTO wants to become a CEO of a ****** company. A lot of their dreams are to become the C level exec at an even bigger and more prestigious company. I think being an HC would ***** blow, but being an OC is like my fantasy job.

The difference is, all these stud coordinators are making like 350-500k max, while a bunch of mediocre HCs are making triple that. The valuation system is ******ed.

Sure, there are some career assistants that seem to like where they are at, but they are few and far in between.

I just don't think in reality Gus Malzahn or any other top OC or DC is going to be an assistant for 1 million if they can be a head coach for at least as much if not 2-3 million. Plus, most schools won't give the assistants more than a 1-2 year contract so job security comes into play. You also run into situations where the OC or DC could become more popular than the head coach. Chizik has done a great job of working with Malzahn. Nutt and Graham couldn't check their egos.

I would be really happy if Auburn announced tomorrow that Gus had signed a new 5 year contract for $1 mil/year. Even then it wouldn't to stop him from cashing in on a head coaching job though if that $3 mil/year to Vandy deal is real. That's life changing money for his family since the $350k he's making at Auburn was probably by far his best paycheck up to now. Maybe he doesn't want to be a head coach but $3 mil/year is an offer that's hard to refuse when you're making $350k now.

The pay gap between head coaches and top coordinators is a joke. Bobby Bowden's a perfect example, when he had awesome OCs like Brad Scott and Mark Richt and Mickey at DC when he still cared about coaching, Bowden looked like the greatest coach ever, but take away Richt and the Mickey that cared about football, and FSU looks like garbage for an entire decade.

At the same time though, it kinda shows the deficiency in GB's CEO model for head coaching b/c it works fine if you can get assistants to stay as loyal as Bowden's did, but that is rarely the case anymore, and then you're left with a coach who is solely a CEO, even a program like FSU that gets top 15 classes every year can look like crap. It's probably too hard in this day and age to either A) keep top coordinators around for a long time or B) keep finding new top notch coordinators to replace the old ones.

I would rather take a Bo Pelini or Gus Malzahn, who can lock down one side of the ball by themselves with their Xs and Os knowledge over a CEO type.

My post though is focusing on schools like Cal or Oklahoma State or Illinois. Schools that are like second tier and have to make some sacrifices. Obviously top tier programs can have the best of both worlds.

Schools that are second tier are going to have an even harder time hanging onto their top assistants, let alone getting them in the first place. How many other Gus Malzahns are there anyways, the supply of assistant coaches who will instantly turn your offense/defense into one of the best in the country is pretty slim.

Maybe on a personal level he would want to do something different like Alvarez did. But my comment was more about how he seems to have locked in a great recruiting advantage over his competition at a powerhouse program. He should be able to produce great seasons for some time. Look at OSU's position in the Big Ten division. Wisconsin is only good every 4th year because of their recruiting disadvantage. Penn St. is only good every 4th year because Paterno is really old. The other teams aren't going to challenge OSU more than once per decade. OSU is going to be in the big ten title game A LOT. And as long as that is the case Tressel won't be on the hot seat.

Hopefully Penn St's next coach can unleash the recruiting juggernaut potential and compete with OSU.

Vandy gonna go from paying Caldwell in chickens to paying Gus millions

Gus gonna go from paying players to having to only take guys that can spell their names correctly most of the time

But AGAIN, you can't KEEP Malzahn, even for $1MM/year. And you're not going to be able to find another Malzahn every other year.

Yeah, I didn't mean Tressel getting fired. He doesn't want to end up being like Paterno and will eventually want to step away. It could be in 4 years, could be 8. I hope he stays a while, but when the fire stops burning, hopefully he'll be ready to move on and have someone ready to take over where he left off.

Paterno is his own category, a guy who's been there forever and built the program from scratch. The only comparable coach left is Beamer at Va Tech. They'll both stay as long as they want to stay.


Tressel wouldn't have the option to stay forever if he'd obviously lost his mojo.

Also, as one of only two Vandy homers in SE I'm excited as hell by the possibility of getting Malzahn.
I assume he's waiting to see if other offers come in from places easier to win, but will take the Vandy job if not.

I don't care how much Vandy offers, it's a -EV move for Malzahn

Agreed. Going from a major program where he will be talked about for probably every major opening over the next few years to Vandy where he would have to pull up an historically inferior program just for the privilege of hoping to be considered for major openings is pointless.

I get he probably wants his own team, but he has to know he'll have better opportunities.

From an Auburn perspective, I wouldn't mind him going to Vandy. I know he's leaving anyway, probably this year. That way I doubt he would take any recruits with him, and we could likely get him back as HC if he does a good job and Chiz turns out to be a bust without him.

Question - would Florida fans welcome back Spurrier if UF even showed any interest in offering him the job again?

Anyone got any reliable links on Malzahn accepting the Vandy job?

In the late 80s or early 90s, I don't remember, someone asked Paterno when he was going to hang it up, and Paterno said, "Probably 4 more years."

He hasn't. The deal they offered is 7 years at 1.5 mil with another 1.5 mil possible in bonuses each year. The deal isn't as great as has been reported, but they have already upped it from 1 mil with 1 mil in bonuses.

News: Bob Stoops is reportedly in the final stages of finalizing a Florida contract. This is per gatorcountry.com (an ESPN affiliate).

I find it sort of surprising he would leave OU with his $4mil a year contract, but we shall see.

Plus the fact that he just built a ****ing absurd house in Norman which he will never be able to sell... I'll believe Stoops to UF when I see it.

Yeah, but coaches these days don't care. Sadly, loyalty is not a trait found in most of them anymore. I doubt having a big house would stop any coach from packing up if they liked the offer, the location and the recruiting grounds of a new school. I've heard this same story year in and out "Oh so in so is very happy in so-in-so town, his wife loves it, his kids love it, he would never leave." And then he does leave and the fans start burning merchandise in the streets.