Well, Fitz has a choice and he has chosen-- yet again--to stand Pat. Now, it's "on him." I think Fitz51 pretty much nails it above.
Fitz: No Staff Changes at Northwestern
- Thread starter corbi296
- Start date
The team has won 17 games in the past two years which is good by Northwestern standards. Not sure how you could justify making wholesale staff changes especially considering the offense has been saddled with an underclassman QB.
Obviously had this season gone down the way it seemed it was after the ISU and the offense never got back on track I would have endorsed a change in OC, but the offense had a good enough year to justify keeping McCall.
Obviously had this season gone down the way it seemed it was after the ISU and the offense never got back on track I would have endorsed a change in OC, but the offense had a good enough year to justify keeping McCall.
First, wholesale is not necessary. *A* change, though, might have been welcome at what have been annually weak-performing positions.
Second, "good by Northwestern standards" is not a great justification. Looking at wins in a vacuum also doesn't work.
So recruits would rather play for a former NFL head coach in Saban rather than a former NFL QB that only got the job because of who his dad in Shula? Saban also had a ton of experience as a head coach before he got to Alabama, developed solid recruiting pitches and understood the climate. Yes, a coaches recruiting ability matters.
We're switching sports here, but Bill Carmody in my opinion is a better coach than Chris Collins... but Collins gets better players so his record will be better
Absolutely. Recruiting is a huge part of coaching at the college level. To try and separate recruiting from the total package that makes a coach makes no sense. That being said... Harbaugh improved Michigan immediately with Hoke's recruits. So motivation and Xs & Os also factor into it. Along with being able to woo boosters to boost more. And being the face of the program. Getting along with the non-sports parts of the school.
All of those things are part of what makes the coach critical to the success of the team. The fact that Saban could recruit better than Shula because he had a higher profile is part of the package as well.
The coach is very, very important.
Do you think he really would say "I'm not shocked we haven't had a couple get plucked as head coaches, they really aren't that great but are loyal and willing to work for peanuts in Evanston"? Not everything a head ball coach says is the literal truth......
This is an interesting thread. I wonder how many of you have coached?
Easy to talk (I know, that's what we do). But very different when you are the leader and have to make the decisions - often many variables that few others know.
We have a saying in my line of work that you've seen one place in our field of work, and you've seen one place. Can't compare directly with other places.
Easy to talk (I know, that's what we do). But very different when you are the leader and have to make the decisions - often many variables that few others know.
We have a saying in my line of work that you've seen one place in our field of work, and you've seen one place. Can't compare directly with other places.
Then we can read bitching at our failure to retain our best coaches.
If the team ever loses, it's always the coaches' fault. Urban Meyer is probably being ripped to shreds right now.
If a Saban or a Harbaugh and their staffs had been coaching Illinois or Purdue at the beginning of last offseason, those two teams would have won 5-6 games each this past season. Put Saban or Harbaugh and their staffs in charge of NU at the beginning of last offseason and NU would have won 8-9 regular season games this season. I firmly believe that. Coaching is very important.
I hope he stays at least 4 more years. He is without a doubt the best defensive coordinator in the B1G. I would be very upset if he left. This coaching staff is special, you don't realize it till you actually see all the things they do right.
If this staff didn't care about doing anything it needed to do to win. Didn't care about ethics or mistreating players and recruits , they could win more too. All things considered, there is no better coaching staff for Northwestern than what we have. This staff wins without shady or dishonest practices.
Only if they ran off half the players on those teams and replaced them with jaycees. Lovie had a bunch of NFL coaches on his staff so I don't think that was the problem and Purdue's talent, especially on defense, was paper thin.
Interesting thought. But maybe it could be. For some reason, successful college coaches do not tend to do well in the NFL and successful NFL coaches who move to college coaching (smaller statistical pool) don't seem to do well.
This is a statement with no real knowledge to back it up but something does not seem to translate between the two.
Yes and no. If you only get openings because you lose the best guys and keep the poor performers, where is that gonna get you?
I agree that some movement would be healthier and an indication of health..
Preferably we are getting guys who are wanted at other schools, which I'm not sure is the case today. It says we are recognized for being amongst the best in the country. That happened back in the day when we had some of the most prolific defenses and offenses in the country (assistants under Barnett particularly on defense e.g. Vandy and assistants under Walker e.g. Wilson). Hopefuly, we can retain them despite the interest, but if some go for clear promotions (e.g. OC to HC or assistant to OC), that's understandable and frankly would be a good thing.
And then, preferably, we cut the dead weight at the bottom who aren't performing.
Unfortunately, I don't think either is happening these days, particularly on offense, and that should be a cause of concern. Defense, I think we are actually protected by the fact that guys like Brown and Hank are old and not going anywhere.
This is one of the reasons that I am glad that I am not a football coach. There is a magical balance between keeping your player's edge and risking unnecessary injuries. Even with everything that the coach does and plans and all of the experience in the world, bad things happen.
So, when injuries or losses happen, the coaches did everything wrong.
When victories happen, the coaches did everything right.
All judgments are in hindsight.
I have been an NU fan for over 30 years and one of the reasons why is because I believe the program does things the right way and tries to develop true student athletes. No one on this board has been more critical of guys like Harbaugh and how they manage their rosters and handle recruiting. I think the practices those guys employ are unethical and disgusting and have no place in college football. That being said, I also recognize that Harbaugh and Saban are great coaches. They know how to develop football players, mold a team so the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and are great/gutsy in game coaches. Part of how they accomplish this is to hire the best position coaches they can possibly find. I believe these capabilities they have are independent of the talent on their roster. Sure, they are great competitors who aspire to win national championships and in order to do that they want to accumulate and start with the most talented rosters they possibly can. That being said, if Harbaugh and his staff were given a roster such as Illinois roster last year and given one off season to coach and develop that roster, I am confident that they could get 2-3 more wins out of that roster than Lovie and his staff did. Lovie's staff is not composed mostly of NFL coaches. It was composed of one former NFL star player (Hardy Nickerson) as DC who had very limited coaching experience overall, a couple of position coaches (Luke Butkus and Mike Phair) who had some tenure in the NFL but very poor success while there, a couple of intern level NFL assistants with no experience actually coaching a position, and some experienced college position coaches with some track record of success (Garrick McGee). Overall the staff outside of the head coach had very little actual coaching experience and it showed. I have no doubt if you put a staff like Saban's at work with the roster over one off season and you would get 2-3 more wins out of it.
Getting back to the original gist of the thread, let me say that I love Pat Fitzgerald as our coach. I was a huge fan when he was a player, I rooted for his success when he took over the program under unfortunate circumstances and I admire how much he has developed and improved as a head coach over the 11 seasons he has had at the helm of the program. I also have been largely very supportive of his staff. I believe the entire staff is composed of good people who agree with NU's and Fitz's philosophy of how to run a program and develop true student athletes. I have also have been very hesitant to criticize. Over the last several years when many have been critical of the offense overall and have clamored for McCall to get canned, I have consistently said that McCall is not the problem. In fact, I think McCall is one of the best OC's in college football. However, after several years of seeing the same problems manifest themselves on the field over and over, I do think the OL and WR position coaches should be receiving scrutiny over how they are developing their players. Particularly when you look at the track record of success their predecessors had with equal or lesser caliber talent (I have outlined why I feel this is the case in many past posts so I won't get into it here). Fitz has said his goal is to win chmpionships. I truly believe you can run a clean and ethical program while achieving championship level success. You may not be able to maintain that level of success year in and year out but I think you can get there without screwing your players over like Harbaugh does or without running your program like aminor league professional franchise. It's harder and it may take a while to get to that level but I believe NU is on that path. I do not think we can get there if there is a lack of accountability in the program. Running a clean & ethical program is not enough. You have to demand excellence/accountability out of the players as students & athletes and you have to demand that the coaches behave in the most ethical fashion while also being excellent as coaches. Right now I don't believe we are getting that. If we can do better, we should and right now I don't think we are.
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Integrity and excellence are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to run a P5 program with integrity AND deliver consistently good results, but this requires excellence throughout the organization, most importantly with the entire coaching and S+C staff. One of Fitz's great strengths is his commitment to individuals under his wing, both players and coaches. However, this loyalty can ultimately retard excellence. He eventually realized that he had to play the best players rather than those with the most tenure. If he is serious about winning the B1G West, a similar change of philosophy vis-a-vis his coaching staff will be needed, IMO.
I've managed others since 1992, both as a small business owner and more recently, as a director level leader for large public companies. If people fail to perform, with measurable goals and milestones, they are given remedial actions and, if failing to meet them, eventually fired
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