Lots of back and forth about what we need to emphasize in our search for a coach and how Key (or any number of candidates) meet certain criteria.
In my mind, the staff collectively has four major areas of focus:
- Game Plan: some may downplay this or say it is part of 2 below, but since we only score points and get wins and losses on game day, I think this is a primary point of emphasis. How are we going to Maximize our guys and our strengths against theirs? Game management is a part .... How do we counter and adjust? This is all fundamental to competitive sports, and the culmination of everything else below...
- Preparation: how you go about your business, DAILY. This is intensity, focus, efficiency, pride in what you do, and attention to detail. The best game plan in the world is garbage without preparation. How you prepare is how you play, plain and simple.
- Development: this is always a focus. You always have to be improving. Fundamentals, agility, strength, stamina, knowledge and repetition. The better your development, the better your preparation and game planning becomes.
- Recruiting: their is little substitute for size, speed and ability. Aside from size, you can improve everything with your development program, but when you start with better recruits, you can develop them faster and to a higher ceiling.
Putting these in perspective in terms of a game, a season, multiple seasons, or in the context of building a perennially successful program:
Game week - importance is exactly the order listed above. The emphasis has to be on game plan. You are what you are at this point and now you have to deploy it. Game plan is 1A and how you prepare will largely determine if your plan is successful. Your development and recruiting are a distant memory at this point.
Season - in the context of a season, preparation is first and foremost. Development is next. Every bit of improvement opens up more possibility for your future game plan, but the game plan changes weekly. In the context of a season, your approach to preparation, followed by development / improvement will be the biggest factors in determining whether you are successful more often than not.
Multiple Seasons - I’m thinking this is the 3-5 year timeframe. To be successful at this point, the development aspect of your program is most important. The guys you have between years 3-5 ought to be better suited to what you want to accomplish than anyone else available. If you haven’t developed them, you’re living and dying by game plan / prep. This is the point where you will become a consistent winner or a flash in the pan. After development, preparation is next, with recruiting a close third. Game planning is fluid and becomes largely irrelevant to overall success in this timeframe.
Perennial Success - you’ve won, you’ve developed, you have a system. The biggest mover at this stage, (assuming you don’t forsake what got you here) is starting out with better recruits. This is where a lot of craziness ensues with fans because “better recruits” is all relative. Who are the best guys for what YOU do? Who are the best candidates to develop into what YOU need? Regardless of how you quantify it, better recruits make the biggest impact here. That’s followed by development and preparation... and I call preparation “2B” because I think the way you go about things on a daily basis is ALWAYS a top priority, and Game plan is a distant 4th.
our current staff is living on game plan and preparation right now. With a sample size of two, they look to be doing it pretty successfully. It’s too soon to know how this all translates to “development,” but since their is continuity in terms of personnel, it seems that development is trending well... and it likely was all along even though it didn’t translate to the field because of planning and preparation issues. All of this bodes well for Key and the current staff. We have to see if it continues this season (or beyond), but It’s indisputable that our game plan and preparation have vastly improved. If we relax, our preparation will suffer and we’ll see the results of that quickly, I suspect.
Looking at recent pervious staffs / coaches;
Collins- he failed somewhere between game day and preparation... maybe both. I think there are some signs that development was happening behind the scenes but the fruits of it never made it to game day. He had some recruiting successes, but game day and prep undermined that too.
Johnson - he probably checked three of the four boxes and did a nice job of developing players to his system (which is really all that matters), but he leaned so heavy on development, prep and game day that we left some success on the table due to recruiting.
Gailey- hard call here. I think he was good game day, average prep, avg development and good recruiting. His recruiting showed through better than Collins just because he was good on game day and didn’t shoot himself in the foot anywhere else. I’m not sure we prepped and developed as hard as we should in college (more NFL mentality / approach).
All of that said, I believe the head coach is able to influence game planning and preparation (especially preparation) far more than anyone else. I also believe those aspects are fundamental to successfully recruiting and developing players long term. I think the staff can be far more instrumental in affecting development and recruiting if the head coach is capable on game day and unwavering in preparation / approach. For those reasons, I’m looking for a head coach who has plenty of game day experience and a rigorous approach to preparation. I’m less interested with who he developed or who he recruited... his position coaches and coordinators were probably responsible for that anyway.
We have several pages throwing out names, and I’m not doing that. I don’t know who this guy is, but he’s the one I want.
