Five-Tool Head Coaches
To my mind, the most successful head coaches in the college ranks (in every sport) share some common traits that underpin their success. Using an analogy to baseball's Five-Tool player, I think the following list captures what a Five-Tool HC ® has at his/her disposal. Spoiler alert: Depending on your disposition, our current Football HC has between one and three of these attributes and is, therefore, not referenced below.
1. Recruiter - This one is obvious. It's hard to win without horses.
2. Game Coach - Again, this is pretty basic. Xs and Os, play calling (or confidence in good play callers), RPS win ratio, game/clock management, schemes (1-3-1), formations (e.g.,punting), situational awareness etc. are all critical components apparently lacking inour program at the moment. I would put game preparation in this category.
3. Face of the University - The HC needs to positively represent the institution to the fan base, the press, and recruits. In addition, the HC should garner the respect of opponents and opposing fans alike (even if only begrudgingly or expressed as hatred). This is primarily for marketing purposes, but a coach behind whom the university/fan community can rally instills a culture of winning.
4. Fundraiser - This one is often overlooked, but if you can't pull in mega-dollars for the program, you're whiffing on a big part of your job. It's also a way to justify your bloated salary.
5. Educator - These are 18 -22 year old kids. They may not have come to college to play school, but intellectual and social development is essential in order to ensure any signinficant team development.
So who in the past 25 years or so has been a Five Tool HC?
I'm happy to put Bo and Beilein up here, but several other candidates form a veritable who's who of Wolverine Killers:
Urbs
Tressel (even in the educator category for the majority of his players)
Pitino (wins with freshmen, but grows them in the short time he has them under his tutlage)
Coach K
Saban
Pat Summit
JoPa (before the fall)
Roy Williams
Tom Osborne
There are plenty of others...
Are these the right five tools? Who would you put in this class of coach?
Perhaps more importantly, are there any who might be available at the end of this FB season?
September 22nd, 2014 at 3:56 PM ^
He is a really good coach. I would rank him higher than Urban.
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:07 PM ^
Agree here. He's a bit smarmy but it's silly to deny his ability. Wins a ton of games and does it with mostly middling 3-star recruits. Scary part is they've been steadily recruiting better. Narduzzi definitely helps him, though.
September 22nd, 2014 at 5:23 PM ^
How do you know that Narduzzi helps Dantonio and not the other way around?
September 23rd, 2014 at 10:02 AM ^
*sighs*
I imagine that Narduzzi helps Dantonio due to the auxiliary nature of assistant coaches who usually, you know, assist.
September 22nd, 2014 at 3:56 PM ^
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September 22nd, 2014 at 4:53 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:29 PM ^
graduating from U-M must have been a challenge.
Or did you?
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:35 PM ^
<slow dismissive wanking motion> Don you are my e-favorite poster. </slow dismissive wanking motion>
September 22nd, 2014 at 5:27 PM ^
five times (just tried again. I get two sentences in and say "nope").
Probably because I'm an idiot but I do have the wall trophy.
September 23rd, 2014 at 1:06 AM ^
That's where LSA2000 got his profile picture!
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:18 PM ^
Let’s look at Beilein. The knock on him coming in was that he wasn’t a good recruiter or, at least, there were doubts he could recruit at a high level. He was regarded as a top flight Xs and Os coach, and I’m not sure where the stance on player development was, but I would venture that could have been identified as a strong suit. To me this is the perfect example of the two traits that are absolutely necessary. The other three (recruiter, face of the university, and fundraiser are very far down the list).
With many coaches, recruiting at a high level has not lead to success nor has stepping in to good situations lead to success. Sure it’s nice to have the horses to compete, but if they aren’t coached properly it flat out does not matter one bit. Charlie Weis, Brady Hoke, Muschamp are just three examples of this.
Being a fundraiser or the face of the university doesn’t really do anything for the program. Sure you can desire a certain personality, but if you are a great coach it matters not how good of a speech you can give to a bunch of wealthy alumni. I would say it is important to hire someone who won’t destroy the program due to out of control infractions, but that’s pretty avoidable.
It is my opinion that game management and player development are the foundation of a good program. They will lead to success and with success comes the other three traits that you have desired. Beilein is going after top 25 recruits and shattering the worry because he is winning games due to the fact that he can develop players and call a good game.
If Hoke is fired, the 1 and 1A traits that should be required are the ability to call a good game and develop players over time. The second trait that would be desired is a strong attention to detail. The third should be a strong hatred of losing.
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:19 PM ^
The 4 criteria I usually use are recruiting, game management, assistant selection, and "program management" which includes academics, legal troubles, and NCAA violations. Here's how I would grade our last 3 coaches:
Hoke: recruiting A, game management C, assistant selection C (Mattison good, offense tire fire), program management B
Rodriguez: recruiting D, game management A, assistant selection D (meddled with DCs), program management C
Carr: recruiting A, game management C, assistant selection B, program management B
and a point of comparison
Mark Dantonio: recruiting B, game management A, assistant selection A, program management B
You have a point about fundraising, but fundraising depends mostly on how much you win which in turn depends on the first 3 factors I listed. Program management doesn't affect the W-L record much, but IMO avoiding embarrassment to the university is more important than winning.
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:53 PM ^
Rich Rod may not have gotten all 4 stars but he did recruit players that would would fit perfectly into his offense and also how can you give Rich Rod a C for program management when you give Dantonio a B. Dantonio has all sorts of player issues.
September 22nd, 2014 at 7:26 PM ^
You're basically giving Carr and Hoke the same grade. I think you're selling Carr short, especially with regard to game management. It's hard to go 19-8 against top 10 teams without being pretty good at that.
September 22nd, 2014 at 10:43 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:24 PM ^
A lot of the people on your list don't pass criteria #3 and possibly #5.
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:25 PM ^
From someone else who quoted Bo from Bacon's lasting lessons book to summarize the head coach must be able to deligate. As others have mentioned you must also have an eye for coaching talent. More importantantly the coach needs to have the confidence that details are being taken care of by the Coordinators who deligate to the postion coaches, who deligate to the grad assistants. If the team is not organized, hard work does not equal productive work.
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:26 PM ^
Just a quick question for the board.
How well do you think Saban/Meyer/Dantonio would do if they became the next Head Coach at Michigan?
This is if they came here at the end of this year, brought all of their coordinators, etc. Give me your thoughts where the program would be in 2015 and 2016?
This is completely hypothetical...Just wanted to see the thoughts.
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:35 PM ^
My feeling is they would do 1 win better than Hoke would next year. Obviously, that's an untestable hypothesis. I think Hoke's lack of attention to detail costs us around that much a year. Long term development wise, I think maybe add another win per year.
I don't believe those guys or anyone can 180 this team. Too many fundamental problems with the roster and long term issues that take time to resolve.
September 22nd, 2014 at 5:24 PM ^
The Peter Principle is brought up quite a bit here, but there is also the Pareto Principle (AKA 80/20 rule). Basically, I think a job like U-M will always attract guy who gets 80 percent of the possible yield. But to get the extra 20 percent (roughly literally in terms of winning percentage points), it'll take four times as much effectiveness in getting the right coach with the right structure. 1) DB ain't making that happen, and 2) the perfect coach would be a marginal improvement in wins, probably (tempting fate by assuming U-M only loses 4-5 games this year).
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:45 PM ^
I am actually higher on Dantonio than Urban right now. Guy has built a nationall relevant program without the stars ND, UM or OSU get. I dont like Urban's defense last year or what I have seen this year. His offense requires a QB who gets hit a lot - I dont like that either. One hit and your season is in jeopardy.
If you asked me Dantonio/Tressel/Saban I'd say it would still take 2 years to compete for the Big 10 - I am looking at the remains of the 2011 and 2012 classes and dont see many stars. Funchess is gone next year, breaking in a new QB who has not shown anything yet, and Jake Ryan and Frank Clark are gone - those are the stars from our team.
So 2 years to build it into a championship team in the Big 10, and a playoff team 3 years with those type of coaches IMO. I dont trust that the player evluation has been great and thats why i dont think this is a 1 year turnaround story - right now of the 2012 class for example which was 7th ranked nationally I see Funchess and Henry as stars (Funchess gone next year), with Bolden, Wilson, Ross III (maybe?), Clark, Darboh, Chesson, Magnuson out of that class as your core starters? Both 5 stars in that class (Kalis, Pipkins) seem to have been beaten out. This is a mid level SEC team in 2015 at best based on talent right now even with the right coaching. If Peppers and Lewis both are star corners you still have to find 2 DEs who can do anything for 2015 for this defense and replace Jake Ryan.
And I have no idea what can be done about this offense right now - are these OL good players who need another year? Maybe. Maybe not. What is Shane right now? Potential. Potential for what? After Funchess goes who are the top 3 WRs? Again a lot of potential. Only Butt is a star right now that we will return in 2015. Green looks competent. Everything else is open to how giddy you are about STARZ.
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:47 PM ^
We would win atleast 10 games next season with any of those guys. They would just need to find transfer/recruit QB that can takeover next year, the rest would happen in short order.
September 22nd, 2014 at 5:38 PM ^
I think it's pretty unlikely that any true freshman or JC transfer that we could land would be more effective than both Morris (as bad as he has been so far) in his 3rd year in the program and Speight in his 2nd year. Quick fixes at QB are rare.
September 23rd, 2014 at 10:37 AM ^
I suspect the poster was thinking more along the lines of a fifth year senior a la Russell Wilson.
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:32 PM ^
Mark Dantonio, Bill Snyder, Bobby Bowden, Lou Holtz, Stoops at Oklahoma
Steve Spurrier - dont believe me? look at what he did at Duke, the USFL ... and UF was an average program until he took it over as a coach. Made sad sack SC solid.
Brian Kelly has a pretty damn good record as well for your criteria. Unfortunately of maybe 10 guys in the country who fit this criteria, 3 of them are sitting at our rivals.
Briles and Gundy at Baylor and OK State are approaching that area of very good coaches over a long time.
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:49 PM ^
I would throw Mack Brown on that list too. His track record at both UNC and UT were pretty strong until the last 4 years when he got senioritis.
September 22nd, 2014 at 4:55 PM ^
Urbs
Tressel (even in the educator category for the majority of his players)
Pitino (wins with freshmen, but grows them in the short time he has them under his tutlage)
Coach K
Saban
Those are five tools alright
September 22nd, 2014 at 5:07 PM ^
John Beilein
September 22nd, 2014 at 5:09 PM ^
This post can't help but lead to: who are the five tool coaches out there who would come to Michigan?
Every time my mind has wandered down that road, it only ends with one name: Jim Harbaugh.
- Proven winner as a head coach at the highest levels in college
- Proven winner in the pro's
- Proven winner at a tough academic institution
- Understanding of Michigan culture and tradition
- Runs a system which would not require a complete overhaul
Every other realistic name you put on a potential list comes with questions.
I'm not saying Harbaugh will or will not happen, but the potential for replacing Hoke at the end of the season will be a very difficult search because it seems like the perfect candidate already exits.
September 22nd, 2014 at 5:09 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 5:17 PM ^
Brian Kelly, and Bret Bielema. Five coaches who are tools.
Oh, you meant something else.Nevermind.
September 22nd, 2014 at 9:09 PM ^
Ya I came here expecting Lane Kiffin to be number 1. oops
September 22nd, 2014 at 5:19 PM ^
JoePa was never that great of a recruiter. His classes were normally middle of the B1G. And his kids got into a heap of trouble before his fall happened.
September 22nd, 2014 at 5:25 PM ^
I think he was once a great recruiter, but by the time he got to be 75-80 years old, it wasn't quite as easy for him to convince recruits he'd be there for their entire careers.
September 22nd, 2014 at 6:30 PM ^
"There are plenty of others... " Really? Cause 5 of those people you named have been involved or are currently involved in academic and/or off field scandals that brought shame to their reputation and/or reputation of their universities. And that's not including Saban. (For the record, I don't think Saban is the devil, but he definitely does not fit criteria #5. See: Prothro, Tyrone* and his Gen Studies degree from the prestigious University of Alabama)
*autocorrect went for Tyler, not Tyrone. feel free to insert thatsracist.gif
September 22nd, 2014 at 7:00 PM ^
September 22nd, 2014 at 8:07 PM ^
I think you're really missing a couple of less historically renowned coaches like Art Briles who is turning into an excellent recruiter given his resources at Baylor and schematically is as innovative as they come. Gus Malzahn another fantastic coach who is immensely popular at Auburn.
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September 22nd, 2014 at 9:26 PM ^
I thought you meant the 5 coaches who were the biggest tools.
Kelly
Kiffin
you get the idea
Not a bad idea for a thread, though a lot less cerebral than yours.
September 23rd, 2014 at 9:38 AM ^
Rick Pitino??? He may be a damn good coach, just like Bobby Petrino is, but he does not pass Test #3. The guy banged a skank on a dining table in a public restaurant, he is a very well known philanderer, adulterer and gambler. If Gary Moeller can get canned from UM for being an obstinant drunk, imagine how long a cad like Pitino would last here.