Article interviews John Robinson and Barry Switzer, who both succeeded very successful head coaches with no head coaching experience of their own.
"When you take over, you just keep your head low," Robinson, 79, said. It's a quality he has seen and really admires in Helfrich. He visited his alma mater during spring practice and, at Helfrich's invitation, spoke to the team.
Hiring the assistant rarely works well. It's not being a doog to poont that out.
OTOH, just like with @ApostleofGrief's insistence that hiring the alum never works, there can of course be exceptions.
There are reasons to think Helfrich won't work out, and reasons to think he will.
If I have to bet on it, I'm betting against him, but not with any real confidence. All we can do is LIFPO.
Nothing doogy about this. Generalizations are great until you apply them to individual cases. The article mentions that Switzer started with a 1-year contract. He had to earn the confidence of the AD, which he proceeded to do. I'd Helfrich has done the same this year. For good or ill, he's the guy going forward. I think that the team is taking to his coaching, and he certainly has shepherded the team through some adversity, so I think he's earned it.
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OTOH, just like with @ApostleofGrief's insistence that hiring the alum never works, there can of course be exceptions.
There are reasons to think Helfrich won't work out, and reasons to think he will.
If I have to bet on it, I'm betting against him, but not with any real confidence. All we can do is LIFPO.
Statistically most coaches are mediocre and get fired. Why is Helfrich different? He has a thin resume pre-oregon and he inherited a great situation.
Plus his first year featured two epic quit-job meltdowns.
I'm betting Helfrich is not a great coach and the program regresses out of the top 5. Statistically that's probably the safer bet.