Why would Jack Del Rio make a good college coach? Really?

-Pedigree
-Personality

Because I thought it deserved its own thread. I really wanted to hear concrete reasons why people would hire him.

And the ones replying in the other thread were not using logic in their arguments.

ok........I think he could be ok. If he surrounds himself with the right peeps he could do it. Will he be able to up with PC, no but I think he could keep the ship from sinking.

Mike Riley was fired as the chargers coach and was an assistant after that and has done well at osu and was sc's first choice btw.....

I am neither an advocate nor a detractor, but I do believe he is a high risk candidate with both a very high ceiling and low floor. As I've posted before:

quote:

---

While Del Rio has the potential to be great at recruiting and booster relations, the issue is because he has never coached in college in any capacity, he doesn't know himself whether or not he would like and want to do it. Yes, he is a high rewards guy, but he is also a high risk guy who could do some serious unintentional damage to the program if it turns out he doesn't like it and bolts early. Kind of like Saban and the pros in reverse, but he can do more damage with high school relations and booster cohesion. I wouldn't object to his hiring some day, but it should be done with eyes open.

---

Why would Jack Del Rio not make a good college coach? Really?

quote:

---

Pete Carroll is the only coach to come from the NFL and experience any success at a BCS school.

---

I think people are going to point to Wandy at Pitt - there may be others that don't come to mind (lou holtz kinda counts but not really)

But I completely agree that college experience is very important... if you come from the pros you have to employ a different skill set in recruiting and managing 18-23 year olds than you do when you are dealing with professional football players

I would be worried about hiring a guy without that experience at some level. (Carroll for example had some college experience before going to the pros, as did wandy at pitt and ok state before going to teh pros)

quote:

---

7 years

---

Do you Del Rio detractors not understand that to be a coach for one franchise for seven years is an accomplishment in and of itself?

You can point to his win-loss record all you would like, but an NFL coach's win-loss record will rarely be 58-11. With the salary cap and draft order, it is almost impossible to maintain a pristine NFL record.

A 58-57 record over seven years at a franchise that is renowned for its inability to support a team is an accomplishment.

The NFL is in a totally different league X's and O's wise, and if he can successfully gameplan against the Bellicheck's, Gruden's, and Cowher's of the NFL, I'd be willing to be that he can gameplan successfully against the Mullen's, Nutt's, and Petrino's of the SEC.

As for recruiting, it's not everything you make it out to be. If you have a moderately charismatic personality and you win, you will recruit successfully. Also, recruiting is as much contingent on the staff in place as anything else. If Del Rio had a Frank Wilson on staff, he'd be fine.

quote:

---

Just for the record, Carroll was a GA/assistant coach for a half dozen or so years before going pro. Same is true for Wandstadt, and Holtz was a college head coach before going pro.

---

Yes, all of those things are true

There are no real examples I can recall of a "pro-only, no college experience" coach that went to college and succeeded in a major way

Yes. Remaining as coach of one NFL teams for 7 years is remarkable.

However, his teams have been only occasionally above average. More often than not, his teams were not one of the best teams in the league. Perhaps it speaks more to the franchise and their urgency to succeed? I can't really say, because I do not follow the NFL nearly as closely.

There is so way very much more that goes into being a college coach than X's and O's! I would submit that Charlie Weiss is a fantastic X's and O's guy. But he was Notre Dame's worst coach in a half-century, if not longer.

Recruiting is the very lifeblood of the sport. "It's not the X's and the O's, it's the Jimmys and the Joes." There's a reason why that is said over and over.

Look. He might be a good college football coach. But to say that he is undoubtedly the best "candidate" or would guarantee success at the collegiate level is not a conclusion at which can be reasonably arrived.

quote:

---

There are no real examples I can recall of a "pro-only, no college experience" coach that went to college and succeeded in a major way

---

how big of a pool of 7+ year nfl head coaches from the pro only genre is there?