With college football at a fever pitch and head coaches losing jobs left and right, I thought it was time to explain the difference between recruiters and head coaches.
There are very few head coaches who can do it all. They recruit well and coach even better. There isn’t too many Bob Stoops, Nick Saban’s, Urban Meyer’s, Pete Carroll’s, Mack Brown’s or Jim Tressel’s.
They get the best players in the nation out of high school and make them great in college. These guys are rarity’s. This is also the reason why all these guys have national championships on their mantles.
These guys are also great recruiters because they also coach in areas where football talent comes in a truck load. They hold down the fort though and make sure none of the talent in their state’s leaves for other schools. It’s the Howard Schnellenberger theory.
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When Howard Schnellenberger arrived at the University of Miami in 1979, the school was thinking about shutting down the program.
Schnellenberger realized that the best talent in the country was right there in South Florida. He built the proverbial “fence around Miami” and recruiting only the “State of South Florida”. His eye for talent lead the nation in recognizing south Florida as a talent rich area.
By 1983, Schnellenberger had Miami in the national championship game, which they beat Nebraska. Schnellenberger built Miami from the ground up and laid down the foundation that both Jimmy Johnson and Dennis Erickson used to also win national championships at Miami.
This was the point when coaches A) realized the amount of talent in Florida B) that if you are going to be successful in college football you have to recruit your state well and the states around you well.
Phil Fulmer is stepping down from Tennessee because of this. Fulmer at one time was one of the best recruiters in the nation. He could find talent all around the country during the late 90’s.
But when the likes of Carroll, Brown, Stoops, Meyer came to the threshold, they shut down their borders. And with very few talented football players coming out of the state of Tennessee.
Fulmer was not able to keep up with the likes of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, LSU, and Auburn, Tennessee started to fall of the national power radar. And this is why the Volunteers are looking for a new coach.
Head coaches though can’t recruit all by themselves though.
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Great coaches surround themselves with great assistants. Bill Walsh and Bill Billichick didn’t win three Super Bowls all by themselves. They had great assistants.
College football coaches are no exception. They have to surround themselves with great assistants to keep the ship above water.
With the recruiting regulations, head coaches can only visit a recruit a few times before signing day. This is where assistants come in.
The assistants go all across their area or the nation and try and find the best players that fit their teams philosophy and chemistry. Then they have to sell themselves and their programs. While doing this they have to make sure another recruiter from a different school doesn’t come in and steel their recruit away.
They are the backbone of the programs. They have to make sure to replenish the talent and others leave. That is why some programs continue to win each year. They may have a down year, but that is because they had to play a lot of that talent right away.
A lot of these recruiters go on to become head coaches because of their success as recruiters. A program looks at what these guys were able to accomplish and say “Why can’t we do, what they are doing.”
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Ole Miss took a chance on Ed Orgeron because he was one of the best recruiters in the nation.
In 2001, Pete Carroll named Orgeron the recruiting coordinator at USC. The Trojans went on to share a national championship and win one outright in back to back years.
Orgeron was the one who found Matt Leinhart, Reggie Bush, Mike Patterson, LenDale White and the other players who were key in the Trojans success.
In 2005, Orgeron moved on to Ole Miss because they thought his success as a recruiter would translate into success as a head coach. They were wrong.
While Orgeron did bring in a lot of talent into Ole Miss, he wasn’t a very good coach. His overall record at Ole Miss was 10-25 with no wins SEC play last year. He was fired after last season.
Orgeron’s problem at Ole Miss was that he didn’t know how to make decisions on the field like his mentor Pete Carroll. This plagues a lot of great recruiters who try their luck at head coaching.
They become decisive and often second guess their own decisions. Last year Orgeron didn’t know what quarterback to start, and by the time he made the right decision, it was too late.
Orgeron’s failures go right up there with the Greg Robinsons, Chuck Amato’s, and other failed recruiters turned head coaches.
Then there are the coaches you hear about who cannot recruit.
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Tyrone Willingham is stepping down from his job in Washington after this season. The Huskies are one of the worst teams in FBS this season, and a lot of critics are pointing to Willingham’s lack of great recruiting classes. Willingham has never been a great recruiter and many point to this as the reason why Willingham was fired at Norte Dame and now Washington.
Look not every coach in America is going to have a great recruiting class every year. Especially coaching in Washington. But a sup par recruiting class over a three year span can hinder the growth of a program. Washington’s growth has been stunted and many Willingham critics say Norte Dame is still recovering.
Some coaches are just not good recruiters. They don’t supply themselves with great assistants who weave a network, that supplies a program with top notch recruits. Carroll wouldn’t have two national championships on his mantle without Oregeron.
Willingham’s unbelievable loyalty to his assistants going back to his Stanford days, were Willingham’s downfall. Good for Tyrone for being loyal to people who helped him recruit Stanford players, but they had no clue, and tried to recruit Stanford players at Norte Dame then at Washington and now look at them. All of them are now looking for a job at the end of the season.
Other coaches just don’t have the charisma to close a deal. Nick Saban is definitely a surly unlikable guy, but he oozes charisma to close the deal on a recruit. Phil Fulmer just didn’t have it, in this department.
In the end recruiters vs. head coaches is a fine line. Fail in one department and the next thing you know you are out of work and working as an assistant at another school. Recruiting makes or breaks guys(Willingham, Fulmer) and making the right decisions on the field makes or breaks guys(Orgeron, Robinson). There are plenty of assistants on national championship contending teams out there and it is there turn to fail or succeed as head coaches.
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