Quality of SEC head coaches

[UKUGA]

It wasn't that long ago that fans of the SEC, and many national pundits, were arguing that the talent level in the SEC was so great, that the Big 10 might never catch back up.

Now, we see a top 10, with only 1 SEC school, and 4 Big 10 schools.

So, what has a changed?

10 years ago, the SEC had the following head coaches:

Nick Saban
Les Miles
Urban Meyer
Phil Fulmer
Mark Richt
Steve Spurrier

and that was just at the very top.

Even in the next tier, you had coaches like Rich Brooks and Gary Johnson

Now, only Saban is left from that group, and it's difficult to argue that the replacements for those guys are even close to as good as the guys they replaced (and some of those schools are on their second coach since those guys left).

Now, I look at the Big 10, and I see Urban Meyer, Jim Harbaugh, and even James Franklin, and it's not hard to see how and why the Big 10 is having so much success. Meanwhile, the SEC appears to have a bunch of guys who are either A) still getting their feet under them, B) bumbling around, or C) on their last leg. While not in the Big 10, Bobby Petrino is another former SEC coach, who is currently having success outside of the SEC.

It's interesting to me, and I'm curious how this happened. One theory is that the dominance of Nick Saban at Alabama may have made too many SEC schools and their fan bases trigger happy, leading them to run off good coaches.
Also, some coaches may have decided they didn't want to compete against Saban in the SEC, and thought the path to a national title might be smoother in a "lesser" conference.
Or, some guys just got old, and the SEC is in a cycle of trying to find the next tier of top coaches, and it's sort of a game of hunt and peck until someone emerges.

 

[Mojocat_rivals48469]

Agree that all of that revolves around coaching. SEC will be back. First, unrelated to poaching, there are more players, more good players, more speed, in the south. Just a built in advantage. Second, as important as success is to college football programs and fans around the nation, it's just differently so in the south. It's cultural, it's in the blood. It's life or death important. SEC schools have no shortage of money to spend, and no compunction about spending it. The conference will "be back." I don't know if it will ever win a national title 8 of 10 years, or whatever it was. But this group of schools will have the best bunching of coaches, simply because it will be demanded.....

 

[WildCard]

Agree that all of that revolves around coaching. SEC will be back. First, unrelated to poaching, there are more players, more good players, more speed, in the south. Just a built in advantage. Second, as important as success is to college football programs and fans around the nation, it's just differently so in the south. It's cultural, it's in the blood. It's life or death important. SEC schools have no shortage of money to spend, and no compunction about spending it. The conference will "be back." I don't know if it will ever win a national title 8 of 10 years, or whatever it was. But this group of schools will have the best bunching of coaches, simply because it will be demanded.....

IRT the OP, I pretty much agree with this. AL has clearly risen above the rest and there is not much doubt that the other "elites" have fallen off, especially in the SECE. But I agree that the near unhealthy fan interest in the game will demand "improvement" at those "underperforming" elites. And cost won't be an issue. JMO

Peace

 

[STUCKNBIG10]

Coaching is a huge issue in the SEC right now. Butch Jones is a joke (monster on the recruiting trail, but terrible in game management). Kirby Smart is unproven but unimpressive. McElwain looks to be a good game strategist, but is not killing it on the recruiting trail.

Muschamp? Lord.
Derek Mason? Joke.
Odom? Horrible debut season.

The SEC West is stronger, but Sumlin and Malzahn are both on the hot seat. LSU is a wild card. Mullen and Bielema have both been strong. Hugh Freeze recruiting his *** off, but is under a cloud of scrutiny for his (ahem) recruiting tactics.

Overall, quality of coaching is getting better in the BIG and in the ACC and it's going down in the SEC.

 

[Grumpyolddawg]

It wasn't that long ago that fans of the SEC, and many national pundits, were arguing that the talent level in the SEC was so great, that the Big 10 might never catch back up.

Now, we see a top 10, with only 1 SEC school, and 4 Big 10 schools.

So, what has a changed?

10 years ago, the SEC had the following head coaches:

Nick Saban
Les Miles
Urban Meyer
Phil Fulmer
Mark Richt
Steve Spurrier

and that was just at the very top.

Even in the next tier, you had coaches like Rich Brooks and Gary Johnson

Now, only Saban is left from that group, and it's difficult to argue that the replacements for those guys are even close to as good as the guys they replaced (and some of those schools are on their second coach since those guys left).

Now, I look at the Big 10, and I see Urban Meyer, Jim Harbaugh, and even James Franklin, and it's not hard to see how and why the Big 10 is having so much success. Meanwhile, the SEC appears to have a bunch of guys who are either A) still getting their feet under them, B) bumbling around, or C) on their last leg. While not in the Big 10, Bobby Petrino is another former SEC coach, who is currently having success outside of the SEC.

It's interesting to me, and I'm curious how this happened. One theory is that the dominance of Nick Saban at Alabama may have made too many SEC schools and their fan bases trigger happy, leading them to run off good coaches.
Also, some coaches may have decided they didn't want to compete against Saban in the SEC, and thought the path to a national title might be smoother in a "lesser" conference.
Or, some guys just got old, and the SEC is in a cycle of trying to find the next tier of top coaches, and it's sort of a game of hunt and peck until someone emerges.

Michigan and tOSU have started recruiting the south extremely hard. Until Urban went to tOSU a kid in Georgia went to tOSU about once every 4-5 years. Now 2-3 every year are heading that way, and they are top 10 type kids in state. Michigan hasn't had the success yet, but they have a RB committed and lead for the top DT in Georgia this year. So the kids looking to leave the state are not heading to Carolina, Bama, Au or LSU like before, they are looking north to the Big10. ACC has always recruited the state harder. If its happening in Georgia, has to be happening in Florida and Texas too. So diluting the talent, especially the defensive talent, is one big issue. Like you mentioned, a ton of new coaches in the SEC now, many with no head coaching experience compared to the new hires in the Big 10. Franklin was successful at Bama, Meyer was very successful at UF, so 2 of the East's successful coaches are now in the Big10 and coaching top 10 team, and Harbaugh was very successful at Stanford and the NFL, he is just a nut case and no telling how long he will last. But the coaching is certainly a part of it, especially on the experience side of it.

I think it will swing back our way some, I am excited about Kirby, our defense is getting better every week and if we can come up with a couple OT for next fall the offense will be much improved, top 10 good, who knows, but the defense will be good enough to be there. But beating tOSU, Michigan, or even Wisconsin will be a tall order, PSU doesn't scare me, think we can play with and beat them this year.

But the Big10 has 2-3 teams at or near Bama level and 8-10 about like the SEC East, Nebraska staying undfeated for 6-7 weeks shows that.

 

[truebluewildcat_rivals34254]

Colin Cowherd has discussed this a couple of times on his show. He had an SEC and Big10 coaching draft. 7 of the 10 drafted were Big 10. I can't say I disagree. He Makes very good points.

I couldn't find the entire clip of him discussing it, but these links do enough to sum it up.

http://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/sec-football/colin-cowherd-says-big-ten-better-coaches-sec/

http://www.foxsports.com/college-fo...ssed-the-sec-thanks-to-better-coaching-101316

Meyer and Harbaugh are the new show in town and will have OSU and Michigan in the playoff picture every year.

Right now SEC is really getting by on talent more than coaching. There is a steep drop off after Saban.

Big 10 has hired HCs with HC experience. Urban, Harbaugh, Franklin, Riley, Chryst all had p5 hc gigs prior to their b10 gig.

SEC has hired Stoops, Mason, Smart, Odom, Muschamp (at florida)...all coordinators...no real wonder why the east is weak.

Nobody gets a whole lot of time to build a program either.

 

[JasonS.]

Urban Meyer and James Franklin loom large, but look at the ACC. SEC to ACC moves of Bobby Petrino, Jimbo Fisher, David Cutcliffe and Mark Richt is a pretty staggering export of coaching talent.

 

[Tennessee Jones]

Coaching is a huge issue in the SEC right now. Butch Jones is a joke (monster on the recruiting trail, but terrible in game management). Kirby Smart is unproven but unimpressive. McElwain looks to be a good game strategist, but is not killing it on the recruiting trail.

Muschamp? Lord.
Derek Mason? Joke.
Odom? Horrible debut season.

The SEC West is stronger, but Sumlin and Malzahn are both on the hot seat. LSU is a wild card. Mullen and Bielema have both been strong. Hugh Freeze recruiting his *** off, but is under a cloud of scrutiny for his (ahem) recruiting tactics.

Overall, quality of coaching is getting better in the BIG and in the ACC and it's going down in the SEC.

Can you list specific blunders he's made this year?

ps: you can't. Butch has done a much better job in this area compared to last year.

 

[CondorCat]

Coaching is particularly bad in the SEC East -- no current coach has ever won an SEC title. Yet from 1990 - 2006 the SEC East won 12 titles.

 

[STUCKNBIG10]

Can you list specific blunders he's made this year?

ps: you can't. Butch has done a much better job in this area compared to last year.

I post on the Tennessee scout board and I see your fanbase CONSTANTLY ripping Butch for game planning, in-game decision making, and staff blunders. They all seem to hate Debord and even Shoop is under fire for how inept your defense has been. My comments were not controversial.