COLUMN:
I used to think the best predictor we had of the true nature of the human beast was a total breakdown in the social order, for example the predatory behavior of the looters in Haiti following hurricane Jeanne.
Now I know I was wrong. The people of Cache Valley have turned on their football team after an 0-4 start in a fashion reminiscent of Kipling’s Seeonee wolfpack in The Jungle Book, who attempted to depose their wise leader, Akela, after he fails to take down a young buck.
I’m tempted to simply ignore the clamor of the uninformed masses, but sometimes if enough people repeat a folly and no one steps up to point out the obvious, the folly can become conventional wisdom. It’s time to talk about the facts before mass delirium takes hold.
USU is not moving down to 1AA two years after getting into the WAC. Even if we did drop down a division or drop football entirely, it’s not like there would be a huge windfall of dollars for academics at USU. Under Title IX, football doesn’t get any more state funding than softball or track and field. The big dollar checks from private donors like Jack Laub or Steve Mothersell that are paying for upgrades to Romney Stadium would not ever have been written if USU didn’t have a football program.
Firing Brent Guy is not going to make the football team’s 0-4 start any more palatable, nor is such a move likely to produce victories in the future. In fact, there is a strong argument to be made that showing patience with a new coach is the wisest course of action. In Figure A, I have tabulated some numbers on coaches who started slow, but rewarded their fans’ patience.
It’s not just that being lenient with a new coach is a prudent course, it’s that quickly firing a coach who doesn’t produce immediate results is the most disastrous thing that can happen to a football program. There are many cases where dumping the coach sent a program into a tailspin it took years to climb out of. Why is canning a coach quickly such a bad idea?
A great example is the situation at Baylor. In 1996, the school had had five winning years out of the last six under Chuck Reedy. Unfortunately, that year the team was hit hard by injury and was snakebit in close games. They lost 28-24 to Oklahoma, 28-23 to Texas and 49-42 to Missouri in triple overtime. Incredibly the university fired Reedy after that 4-7 season.
This set off a chain reaction at Baylor that led to the Bears becoming the worst team in the Big XII, where they have been outgained by more than 200 yards a game some years. In the nine years since, Baylor has only topped three wins once. Dave Roberts was hired in 1997, but after just two losing seasons, he was fired. Kevin Steele came in next and lasted four years, but was also fired. Guy Morriss is the coach there now and has a 12-26 record in four years. Intelligent Baylor fans hope they get to keep Morriss because he may actually have the team on the road to respectability.
Why do constant coaching changes translate into poor results on the field? It is usually difficult for a new coach to fill up an 85-man roster for at least the first couple of years. Athletes who are seniors and juniors may have come to the school to play for the coach who got fired.
For example, a huge tackle who got recruited to block for the option finds himself riding the bench because the new coach favors agile blockers for a spread-passing scheme. The player would have strong motivation to transfer to a school where he stood a chance of earning some playing time. Sometimes old players liked the previous coach better and don’t get along with the new staff, which can also lead to roster attrition.
Coaches usually have the most success when they’ve got a roster full of athletes well-suited to running the coaching staff’s scheme. In Brent Guy’s case his upperclassmen were all recruited to USU to pitch the ball around in Mick Dennehy’s spread offense. Guy’s background is playing and coaching defense and running the ball is a big part of his philosophy. This year the Ags have had much better luck establishing the ground game than last year when the offensive line was too light and there wasn’t a back the caliber of Marcus Cross. The running game at USU will only get better if Guy gets a chance to establish his scheme here and bring in a few more recruiting classes of run-blockers and mail-carrier type backs.
Generally, the strongest part of a football team is the group from three, four and five recruiting seasons ago. Since most coaches prefer to play their own recruits instead of athletes who might have been recruited to the program five years ago to fit into a system which is no longer in place, it makes sense to keep a new coach for five or six years and see how he does when his first recruiting classes are upperclassmen.
Perhaps I reveal my naivete when I say I thought Aggie fans would put their shoulders to the wheel and support their football team more than ever when the on-field results aren’t encouraging. Apparently, most of you would rather spew venom and take cheap shots at a team that is down on it’s luck.