re: Why would any coach go from the nfl to ncaa?

Chip Kelly is doing pretty dang good... Ask Jerry Jones...

Somebody with a better memory than me may can answer but I can never remember a great or even good NFL coach jumping from the NFL to college. No offense to Saban, don't think he gave the NFL long enough to see if he really could be successful. Pretty good his first year and average his second year so I just don't remember a good NFL coach going to coach in college.

quote:

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Absolutely sucked

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might be a tad harsh, but I don't think there's any doubt he saw the ship was sinking so he jumped off while he could


To answer the OP:
-money. High end college jobs are willing to pay as much or more than the NFL
-temperment. Harbaugh, like saban, has a very taxing personality. It's hard to deal with over long stretches. But in college, everyone stays for max 5 years, and new kids come in, by the time they're sick to death of harbaugh, they're moving on the the league.
-competitive advantage. In college, you recruit your players, good teams get better recruits. In the NFL, the better you are, you lose free agents, worse draft picks,limited in free agency. Everything is about keeping things equal. In college, you can dominate and overwhelm other programs bc the system is setup for success. In the NFL, you play 16 games, 13 are pretty close where you gotta bring it. In college, you play 12 games and 2 are big in the B10, 4 are big in the SECw. There's just less games to lose, making keeping your job easier when you are a big time coach, like jimbo (Harbaugh) is.


I don't harbaugh is coming back to college, but these are potential reasons.

Nick Saban- the 33rd best coach in the country!

College football isn't nearly as competitive as the NFL is. It truly is the best of the best up there and rarely do you get a cupcake game where you can win by 30 just based off of talent. The big college football schools get at least 3 of those games a year. There is no such thing as a cupcake game in the NFL. You have to be on top of your game each and every week. The margin for error in the NFL is so small compared to college football.

Plus, you have the whole draft vs recruiting deal. If you can recruit, you can go get the top players across the entire country and put them on your team. You can turn a school around in just 1 or 2 seasons. In the NFL, you gotta draft the talent, work the salary cap, free agency, waivers, etc. to get just some decent players. It's a completely different ball game.

And the salary is pretty similar. Average NFL head coach salary is like $4.5m. Average SEC head coach salary is like $3.8m. And if you are just a decent coach, you will have better job security in college than in the NFL. Some coaches get 1 year in the NFL then get fired. Some get 2. Most college coaches finish up their 1st contract at least.

And the corporate structure is in favor of college football. Most college football coaches are their own boss and don't really have to include anyone else other than the assistant coaches and maybe the AD from time to time. In the NFL you have GMs and Owners all up in your shite, some more controlling than others. But I would rather have to deal with a college AD than a greedy / power hungry owner and GM.

It all comes down to personal preference though. Some coaches are college coaches, others are NFL coaches. And if you think about it, it's rare to have a coach be really successful as both a college and NFL coach for some reason. There are some, Pete Carroll comes to mind (so does Harbaugh and he's been great in the NFL and still about to get fired because the team / front owners hate him), but for the most part you are either an NFL guy or NCAA guy.

Because the nfl sux a bag of bbc.

When I hear college coaches talk about some of the non-football parts, one of the common themes is making a difference in the lives of their players. Listen to them speak of loving their team, their players, and the staff - like it's a family. The NFL is a business. It's just different.