Attributes of a good head coach that a good coordinator doesn't necessairly have.

SFGbob

I think most everyone would agree that Sark is a good offensive coordinator. Maybe he isn't but that seems to be a consenus belief in the college football world. There was a fairly uniform consensus that Lake would be good HC because he was thought to be a good coordinator. But obviously being a good coordinator doesn't translate into being a good head coach.

So what are the attributes that are needed to be a good head coach that Lake and Sark and hundreds of other good coordinator lack? It can't just be leadership, I would think that being a good O coordinator would take a fairly high level of leadership skills. Sark and Lake both are obvious failures as head coaches. Why are they able to have success as coordinators but fail so spectacularly as head coaches?

Bonedog

Best attributes are don’t lose to Montana

SFGbob

Bonedog said:

Best attributes are don’t lose to Montana

I would say that's the key attribute of any Power-5 headcoach.

Blayen

They need to be an innovator and not an imitator.

They need to view systems and playbooks as tools that can be modified or discarded as necessary instead of believing that the system is what generates long term success.

They need to have a plan about how players they recruit will work with what they are trying to do instead of recruiting stars or thinking that that they can simply coach up anyone so talent doesn't matter.

LawDawg1

HB dive into a stacked 8 man box. And don’t be so fucking stubborn or confused by that won’t work.

PostGameOrangeSlices

Not all Directors or other C levels make good CEOs

Fishpo31

A true leader / head coach has got to have the ability to turn knowledge / scheme / culture into an identity worthy of commitment. There are tons of people who have knowledge, but can you teach it? Can you sell it? Do you have conviction? Will everyone buy into it? Can you take it forward and create something bigger than the parts?

A creative vision of what you want it to be, the conviction that "THIS is the way", unwavering determination to see it through, with flexibility to adjust when needed. Oversight and cultivation of subordinates (DJ, Saban), creating trust, delegating, holding them accountable while having their backs publicly, but always involved, in every detail, on and off the field.

Above all, for me, is that it must be within the leader's personality. If you are a good cop, be the best good cop you can be, and hire some bad cops to kick ass. Same for bad cops...if you are a ball-buster, you'd better have subordinates that can really communicate, smooth it over, reinforce the message, without the spittle.

Saban, Carroll and Bellichick all have the "IT" factor, while having completely different public faces. They do what they do, and do it very well, over time. Others flash and fade. Most never flash...It is well documented that many of "us" wanted DJ canned a few times over a HOF career. He built the foundation, and was prepared when the bottle of lightning appeared. Few can sustain it, those that can are legends.

For me, Jimmy coat-tailed Pete, tried to use his schtick (which regardless of the ending, was very successful over his career), half-assed it, his short-comings were exposed, and the kids saw through it...they always do. Successful people surround themselves with successful people...Jimmy came to Montlake as a successful position coach, and, well, you know the rest of the story...TL/DR my 2 cents.

SFGbob

Fishpo31 said:

A true leader / head coach has got to have the ability to turn knowledge / scheme / culture into an identity worthy of commitment. There are tons of people who have knowledge, but can you teach it? Can you sell it? Do you have conviction? Will everyone buy into it? Can you take it forward and create something bigger than the parts?

A creative vision of what you want it to be, the conviction that "THIS is the way", unwavering determination to see it through, with flexibility to adjust when needed. Oversight and cultivation of subordinates (DJ, Saban), creating trust, delegating, holding them accountable while having their backs publicly, but always involved, in every detail, on and off the field.

Above all, for me, is that it must be within the leader's personality. If you are a good cop, be the best good cop you can be, and hire some bad cops to kick ass. Same for bad cops...if you are a ball-buster, you'd better have subordinates that can really communicate, smooth it over, reinforce the message, without the spittle.

Saban, Carroll and Bellichick all have the "IT" factor, while having completely different public faces. They do what they do, and do it very well, over time. Others flash and fade. Most never flash...It is well documented that many of "us" wanted DJ canned a few times over a HOF career. He built the foundation, and was prepared when the bottle of lightning appeared. Few can sustain it, those that can are legends.

For me, Jimmy coat-tailed Pete, tried to use his schtick (which regardless of the ending, was very successful over his career), half-assed it, his short-comings were exposed, and the kids saw through it...they always do. Successful people surround themselves with successful people...Jimmy came to Montlake as a successful position coach, and, well, you know the rest of the story...TL/DR my 2 cents.

No, not too long. Good take.

RatherBeBrewing

Leadership. The same as in most businesses. It is never just one thing, but some people have it and some don’t.

It’s being credible, respected, motivated and able to motivate others, secure enough to hire people smarter than you and to let them work, finding the right people, showmanship/charisma. I can’t forget to mention luck, a lot of it is luck. You can have shit skills but then a golden goose can stumble into your path.

There’s no any one perfect way, and many different styles of leadership that can work. Unfortunately, no matter how many nerds research it there’s no way to predict who will have it and who won’t until they get a chance to fail.

creepycoug

Funny - I was going to post something along these lines. Mine was, "what are the most important traits, assuming you can't have all of them?".

To me, the game changes too frequently to focus on whether the HC is some fucking genius at this or that. Look at Chip. He can't do shit at UCLA now. What he brought to the table is over. The game adjusted. Now he has to rely on the rest of his attributes, of which he has a few.

For me, recruiting is huge. It's too hard to do it without the Jimmys and Joes. An ace recruiter who can build a staff of ace recruiters, so when one leaves they don't miss a beat. Being good at it is a gift IMO. And it takes a willingness to work your ass off. Being lazy in this department, wherever you are, is just an eliminating factor for me.

Organized, proactive and willing to change. Stubborn people eventually crash and burn in this business.

Lastly, has that thing that makes the kids want to play for them w/o being a pushover. It's a fine line. But getting them motivated to play is IMO a severely underrated quality. I say underrated not because anyone thinks it's not important. I just think most people think most coaches can do it, like duh no shit. But I don't think all coaches are good at it. I think some really excel at it.

theknowledge

Sark was a good coordinator under Pete Carrol and Nick Saban. How would his offense look at Kansas? How would it look if he was the OC at South Carolina this year? How was Sark at Atlanta? Jimmy was DC under Petersen with Kwat right there to answer questions. How’s the UW defense this year? How would his shitty scheme look at any university outside Alabama and Georgia? It’s been said here over and over. Success starts at the top. Petersen made his staff better than the sum of their parts. Pete raised the level of Bonerpopper and Bob Gregory. Under Jimmy they’ve been exposed. Don James did this as well. Jim Mora sr and Gary Pinkle are the only guys who coached under DJ who were worth a shit after leaving UW. What are Sark and Lake missing that Dabo, Smart or Mel Tucker have? I don’t know. If I knew then I’d have a hell of a coaching search firm.

CFetters_Nacho_Lover

creepycoug said:

Funny - I was going to post something along these lines. Mine was, "what are the most important traits, assuming you can't have all of them?".

To me, the game changes too frequently to focus on whether the HC is some fucking genius at this or that. Look at Chip. He can't do shit at UCLA now. What he brought to the table is over. The game adjusted. Now he has to rely on the rest of his attributes, of which he has a few.

For me, recruiting is huge. It's too hard to do it without the Jimmys and Joes. An ace recruiter who can build a staff of ace recruiters, so when one leaves they don't miss a beat. Being good at it is a gift IMO. And it takes a willingness to work your ass off. Being lazy in this department, wherever you are, is just an eliminating factor for me.

Organized, proactive and willing to change. Stubborn people eventually crash and burn in this business.

Lastly, has that thing that makes the kids want to play for them w/o being a pushover. It's a fine line. But getting them motivated to play is IMO a severely underrated quality. I say underrated not because anyone thinks it's not important. I just think most people think most coaches can do it, like duh no shit. But I don't think all coaches are good at it. I think some really excel at it.

It may have been mentioned but there’s setting a standard and holding your coaches to that standard especially in recruiting. The standards are more important than friendships and when the assistant is meeting the standards, you help them. If they continue to fail, you let them go.

I think Jimmy was missing this part. Look at all the recruiting dead weight on his staff that continued to fail and he kept them around.

TXDawg

A coordinator still has deep involvement in the fundamentals and direct skills coaching, which is less important for the HC. A good, modern HC should be all about the systems. Hearing how Lake tried to do everything himself and let all the systems Pete installed just waste away should have been enough for Cohen to jump in early an manage him a bit more. They have to be a top notch coaching evaluator/recruiter. For the HC this is more important than player evaluation. If your position coaches and coordinators are top notch, they'll guide recruiting in the right direction.

PurpleThrobber

RatherBeBrewing said:

Leadership. The same as in most businesses. It is never just one thing, but some people have it and some don’t.

It’s being credible, respected, motivated and able to motivate others, secure enough to hire people smarter than you and to let them work, finding the right people, showmanship/charisma. I can’t forget to mention luck, a lot of it is luck. You can have shit skills but then a golden goose can stumble into your path.

There’s no any one perfect way, and many different styles of leadership that can work. Unfortunately, no matter how many nerds research it there’s no way to predict who will have it and who won’t until they get a chance to fail.

The basic tenant of leadership is very, very simple - Don't ask your people to do something you wouldn't do yourself. It's the very foundation of trust and respect. You can't hold people accountable without that. Jimmy was all hat and no cattle in that regard.

He liked the attention of being the screaming lunatic but without the basic deposits having been made for those in his charge to listen. if the go-to is yelling and screaming, that gets exposed real fast.

thechatch

It all comes down to organization and culture. Period

GreenRiverGatorz

creepycoug said:

Funny - I was going to post something along these lines. Mine was, "what are the most important traits, assuming you can't have all of them?".

To me, the game changes too frequently to focus on whether the HC is some fucking genius at this or that. Look at Chip. He can't do shit at UCLA now. What he brought to the table is over. The game adjusted. Now he has to rely on the rest of his attributes, of which he has a few.

For me, recruiting is huge. It's too hard to do it without the Jimmys and Joes. An ace recruiter who can build a staff of ace recruiters, so when one leaves they don't miss a beat. Being good at it is a gift IMO. And it takes a willingness to work your ass off. Being lazy in this department, wherever you are, is just an eliminating factor for me.

Organized, proactive and willing to change. Stubborn people eventually crash and burn in this business.

Lastly, has that thing that makes the kids want to play for them w/o being a pushover. It's a fine line. But getting them motivated to play is IMO a severely underrated quality. I say underrated not because anyone thinks it's not important. I just think most people think most coaches can do it, like duh no shit. But I don't think all coaches are good at it. I think some really excel at it.

I think you nailed it. Being good at something specific in this business is often a static attribute. More than just about any other sport - CFB changes head-spinningly fast. The conversational topics used in phone calls to recruits five years ago are obsolete today. Have an innovative idea for an offense? Great, coordinators will have it figured out in 18 months, so better get working on the next one. The feckless NCAA just gave essentially blanket permission for free agency and NIL deals, so you better get to work on fluffing local business owners while simultaneously expanding your recruiting footprint to somehow include players already entrenched at existing programs.

I've said it a lot around here, but covid, the team's slow response, and falling prey to the protocols was a signal of Jimmy and Jen being flat flooted to a fast changing landscape. That kind of hesitation was pervasive everywhere else in the program. Like Pete said, winning is fucking hard. 95% of coaches end up being dogshit at the job.

Fishpo31

Pete was (is) very organized, has vision of what he wants and how he wants it, built a strong foundation for the program, made questionable assistant hires (perhaps to keep control), and was too resistant / stubborn to adjust / change. His separator was (is?) that there is no question that he cares about the kids, and they feed off of that. It was enough to overcome his deficiencies, for a while.

I never got the feeling that Jimmy had a true vision (Run the damn ball, LOL), was happy to use Pete's model, had weak assistants, and when it started to crack, everyone looked to him, and he was like, "Huh?". Self-promoter, hype man, "everything is fine" smiles as the ship is sinking. At the end of the day, I don't think he cared about the kids anywhere near enough to lead them through this. Kids know bullshit when they see it. The perception was it was all about Jimmy, for me. If you love them hard, you can coach them hard. I have worked with coaches that could (and did) bring players to tears ripping them, and five minutes later they are joking around, because the kids trusted that the coach cared about them.

The covid thing was a head scratcher...I learned very early on to bring my "fire extinguisher" to work. Something unexpected comes up every day (got some interesting stories with this one), big things and small, treated with he same urgency, and if you aren't "expecting the unexpected", you can get buried in a hurry. Gotta have conviction to sell it, and if you are making it up on the fly, without a strong foundation, it's D.O.A....

creepycoug

That irony in our? mishandling of COVID is that UW is a leader in epidemiology and biostatistics. We have some of the smartest people in the world on disease spread and mutation literally within a couple of miles of the stadium. Talk about your academis prowess.

RatherBeBrewing

creepycoug said:

That irony in our? mishandling of COVID is that UW is a leader in epidemiology and biostatistics. We have some of the smartest people in the world on disease spread and mutation literally within a couple of miles of the stadium. Talk about your academis prowess.

Those same people also couldn’t name a single player on the football team, and no matter how good their electron microscopes are they still couldn’t find Jimmy’s balls. There’s really no strategic advantage in high level epidemiological research for college football, as shocking as it may be.

Here are the type of nerds who could have helped:

* Logistics. Give the Pac-12 a list of players with enough guys being two way or multi-position, create pods that could help evade quarantine. The result is you don’t have to honorably forfeit. It’s like those LSAT questions where Johnny can’t sit next to Suzy on the bus and Suzy can’t sit next to Bobby so where do they sit so the bus can fucking go already?

* Media/tech/marketing. Can’t have official visits? Learn how to show off on Zoom or whatever. Make some more impressive graphics, deepfake a recruits face on an existing player video, do a POV of a recruiting visit complete with blow and blowies. Jimmy didn’t do shit. Fucking Rolo did it the hobo way with a strapped on GoPro and rode a bike around shitsville. Oregon had 4-stars committed to other schools show up on campus and get a real time FaceTime tour with the entire coaching staff.

Fishpo31

creepycoug said:

That irony in our? mishandling of COVID is that UW is a leader in epidemiology and biostatistics. We have some of the smartest people in the world on disease spread and mutation literally within a couple of miles of the stadium. Talk about your academis prowess.

A complete failure of the AD and Jen...Leaders who have vision connect to entities, any and ALL entities, who could potentially assist them, before the fact, going forward. Blowing them off, then showing up pleading "HELP!" does not work, obviously. Aggressive with a plan gets you through the rough times...aggressive without a plan gets you the steaming pile before us, in all facets...

RatherBeBrewing

Fishpo31 said:

Pete was (is) very organized, has vision of what he wants and how he wants it, built a strong foundation for the program, made questionable assistant hires (perhaps to keep control), and was too resistant / stubborn to adjust / change. His separator was (is?) that there is no question that he cares about the kids, and they feed off of that. It was enough to overcome his deficiencies, for a while.

This is good. Organization and vision are super important.

I’d bet ~90-95% of high achievers are extremely organized and the outliers are so charismatic/intelligent/sociopathic that they can make it work. Structure seems to be a very common thread for successful coaches.

Vision isn’t limited to powerpoint presentations along with synergy and other shit words companies love to tout. When I was younger I thought that was all made up by the company bigwigs to make it seem like they were doing something other than just expensing nice lunches and corporate retreats. It gets buy-in, which you need for results whether you have a team of teen boys or a doomsday cult. Chip, Peterman, USC Pete, Harbaugh and previous Shaw, Aw Shucks - all those guys had a vision.

As much as people mocked Cristobal’s West Coast SEC shit and physicality pipe dream he went into Columbus and pushed around their 5-star DL with an OL consisting of JuCos, walk-ons, and fat kids with bad haircuts from the Portland suburbs. I’m not sure what Jimmy’s vision was. If I had to guess it would be a combination of caricatures of successful coaches he knew of, but only a superficial version of them. He thought that if you sounded and acted like you knew what you were doing it would be good enough.