Coach shuffle now the norm
THE ANNUAL RITES of spring are occurring across the country this month, and it has nothing to do with baseball. These rites are happening on college football practice fields where assistant coaches are introducing themselves to one another and to their players
Twenty-five programs will send new head coaches on the practice field this spring. That is 21 percent of the 120 Football Bowl Subdivision programs.
The turnover among college football assistant coaches likely is even greater, although no numbers are available because it probably would mean having the NCAA hire an army of folks to keep up. While it appears annually to be a carousel among head coaches, it is more like a shuffling of cards for assistants.
South Carolina enjoyed, arguably, its most successful season in 2011, one no doubt linked to Steve Spurrier assembling what he called last August his all-time best coaching staff.
Yet within five months, and weeks after an 11-win season, Spurrier was working to replace half of his 10-man staff that includes a strength coordinator.
“There’s a little bit of turnover,” Spurrier said recently. “Anytime you have success, some people try to hire some of your guys. Sometimes guys leave because they think it’s a better opportunity. It’s a free country.”
Such turnover might be alarming if it was not the norm in college football.
“It’s a very difficult thing to deal with as a head coach when you have to make a change on your staff. It’s not easy,” Clemson’s Dabo Swinney said. “It’s not different than any other leader of any business. There are preachers who have to let people go at the church. There are bankers who let people go at their bank, or whatever.”
Swinney probably has had less turnover than most staffs in his three full seasons at the helm. He did not make a staff change following the 2009 season, then brought in four new coaches for the 2011 season and made one change this offseason.
Swinney’s changes have been more high-profile because he replaced offensive coordinator Billy Napier following the 2010 season and did the same with defensive coordinator Kevin Steele after this past season.
Firing Napier and replacing him with Chad Morris proved difficult for Swinney because he and Napier were close friends. Steele, one of the more respected defensive coordinators in the country, was an easier call after Clemson surrendered 70 points in an Orange Bowl loss to West Virginia.
“I guess it could be easy if you’re dealing with a bad situation, or you’re dealing with a bad person, or somebody like that,” Swinney said. “But when you’ve got good people and you’ve got to have a change, it’s not quite working out the way you want, it’s not really a personal thing.”
Neither Spurrier nor Swinney was fired as an assistant coach at the college level. Spurrier was not retained as an assistant coach at both Florida and Georgia Tech when head coaching changes were made. The same scenario cost Swinney his job as an Alabama assistant when Mike DuBose was fired as head coach following the 2000 season.
“I had been there 13 years. That was kind of my identity. That’s what I did,” Swinney said of leaving Alabama. “That was my structure of life. But looking back on it, it was the best thing that happened to me. It really was. ... It kind of forced me to go be successful somewhere else and keep growing.”
The same could probably be said for Spurrier. He was let go from Doug Dickey’s staff when Charley Pell was hired at Florida following the 1978 season. A year later, Bill Curry did not retain Spurrier when Pepper Rodgers left Georgia Tech.
The latter move stuck with Spurrier for years.
“I like Bill Curry, but still I wasn’t good enough to work for him back in 1980,” Spurrier wrote in a 1991 book co-authored with Norm Carlson, the former Florida sports information director.
As offensive coordinator at Duke and head coach at Florida, Spurrier never lost in 10 meetings against Curry-coached teams. Spurrier’s Florida teams ran up 73-7 and 65-0 victories against Curry’s Kentucky teams in 1994 and 1996, respectively.
With as many changes as there are on assistant coaching staffs these days, those kinds of grudges probably are not likely to exist anymore. Heck, coaches might not even remember all the coaches who come and go on their staffs. Fans, meanwhile, need a scorecard to keep up with all the coaching changes.
Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/03/08/2182632/morris-coach-shuffle-now-the-norm.html#storylink=cpy
THE ANNUAL RITES of spring are occurring across the country this month, and it has nothing to do with baseball. These rites are happening on college football practice fields where assistant coaches are introducing themselves to one another and to their players
Twenty-five programs will send new head coaches on the practice field this spring. That is 21 percent of the 120 Football Bowl Subdivision programs.
The turnover among college football assistant coaches likely is even greater, although no numbers are available because it probably would mean having the NCAA hire an army of folks to keep up. While it appears annually to be a carousel among head coaches, it is more like a shuffling of cards for assistants.
South Carolina enjoyed, arguably, its most successful season in 2011, one no doubt linked to Steve Spurrier assembling what he called last August his all-time best coaching staff.
Yet within five months, and weeks after an 11-win season, Spurrier was working to replace half of his 10-man staff that includes a strength coordinator.
“There’s a little bit of turnover,” Spurrier said recently. “Anytime you have success, some people try to hire some of your guys. Sometimes guys leave because they think it’s a better opportunity. It’s a free country.”
Such turnover might be alarming if it was not the norm in college football.
“It’s a very difficult thing to deal with as a head coach when you have to make a change on your staff. It’s not easy,” Clemson’s Dabo Swinney said. “It’s not different than any other leader of any business. There are preachers who have to let people go at the church. There are bankers who let people go at their bank, or whatever.”
Swinney probably has had less turnover than most staffs in his three full seasons at the helm. He did not make a staff change following the 2009 season, then brought in four new coaches for the 2011 season and made one change this offseason.
Swinney’s changes have been more high-profile because he replaced offensive coordinator Billy Napier following the 2010 season and did the same with defensive coordinator Kevin Steele after this past season.
Firing Napier and replacing him with Chad Morris proved difficult for Swinney because he and Napier were close friends. Steele, one of the more respected defensive coordinators in the country, was an easier call after Clemson surrendered 70 points in an Orange Bowl loss to West Virginia.
“I guess it could be easy if you’re dealing with a bad situation, or you’re dealing with a bad person, or somebody like that,” Swinney said. “But when you’ve got good people and you’ve got to have a change, it’s not quite working out the way you want, it’s not really a personal thing.”
Neither Spurrier nor Swinney was fired as an assistant coach at the college level. Spurrier was not retained as an assistant coach at both Florida and Georgia Tech when head coaching changes were made. The same scenario cost Swinney his job as an Alabama assistant when Mike DuBose was fired as head coach following the 2000 season.
“I had been there 13 years. That was kind of my identity. That’s what I did,” Swinney said of leaving Alabama. “That was my structure of life. But looking back on it, it was the best thing that happened to me. It really was. ... It kind of forced me to go be successful somewhere else and keep growing.”
The same could probably be said for Spurrier. He was let go from Doug Dickey’s staff when Charley Pell was hired at Florida following the 1978 season. A year later, Bill Curry did not retain Spurrier when Pepper Rodgers left Georgia Tech.
The latter move stuck with Spurrier for years.
“I like Bill Curry, but still I wasn’t good enough to work for him back in 1980,” Spurrier wrote in a 1991 book co-authored with Norm Carlson, the former Florida sports information director.
As offensive coordinator at Duke and head coach at Florida, Spurrier never lost in 10 meetings against Curry-coached teams. Spurrier’s Florida teams ran up 73-7 and 65-0 victories against Curry’s Kentucky teams in 1994 and 1996, respectively.
With as many changes as there are on assistant coaching staffs these days, those kinds of grudges probably are not likely to exist anymore. Heck, coaches might not even remember all the coaches who come and go on their staffs. Fans, meanwhile, need a scorecard to keep up with all the coaching changes.
Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2012/03/08/2182632/morris-coach-shuffle-now-the-norm.html#storylink=cpy