re: Coaching "fit" discussion

Winning makes you a fit. Also, a coach has to be able to adapt to this version of college football. The portal makes things very fast paced and shifting. Look at Florida State and the last 3 years. If you can’t adapt you probably need to retire. Saban was smart to leave when he did. It’s much more difficult to do what he did previously.

Depends on if the place has an established culture and style.

And that’s the problem with portal and nil, there’s going to be too many unrealistic expectations on too many programs

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And part of the reason you aren’t winning can be you aren’t a good fit.

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Nick Saban is from West Virginia. Les was from Ohio. Ryan Day is from New Hampshire. Jay Johnson is from California. Skip Bertman was a Jewish guy from Miami. There may not have been a more perfect "fit" for LSU than Ed Orgeron. Yet, until he found an OC from Virginia and a QB from Ohio, he was just an average (at best) coach...then he quickly fell off.

Good coaches win anywhere and the FIT anywhere.

If Kelly loses it's not because he's from Mass. and doesn't "fit" LSU.

Fit is relative. Some coaches have fit issues with the culture and some don't.

Kelly's issue is that he is an awkward recruiter and leader with the type of players he was and is getting at LSU.

The type of assistants he hires are also going to be different at LSU vs ND/Big Ten type schools.

Everyone uses Saban as an example, but Saban was young and a relentless recruiter. He simply knew how to recruit the best talent and was a defensive mastermind. Meyer was similar in that he was young, energetic, and schematically innovative.

Kirby is a fit at UGA and in a southern school, and I think would play out poorly in a Northern school. He would not relate to those players as well.

Kelly is not a great or innovative scheme guy, and is not great at recruiting the types of players he needs at LSU. The culture is entirely different, and unlike Saban, he's unable to adapt to fit in. He stays his awkward self no matter what.

In the end, BK is what he is and doesn't change. It's why LSU is exactly where it is right now. He isn't the kind of guy that can pull off recruits he needs like Underwood without promising some unqualified and undeserving QB coach a promotion to OC.

Saban, Meyer, and others in that echelon were never promoting an unqualified person to OC/DC just to land one recruit. I am sorry, but even in the NIL era it was destined to fail. Those two could at least cover if it was on defense or offense respectively, but Kelly is not innovative in either and so you get the mess LSU is in now.

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Mike Archer - Pennsylvania

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Had coached at LSU prior as a DC and was an utter disaster, so I am not sure how this helps your point.

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Gerry Dinardo - New York

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Cut his teeth at Colorado and then in the South at Vandy before coming to LSU.

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Nick Saban - West Virginia

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West Virginia is basically a Southern state and on top of that Saban was a unique cat when it came to recruiting. He knew how to adjust and adapt, which guys like Kelly do not. Also, he was young when he started at LSU.

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Les Miles - Ohio

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Is a weird character and while yes he was from Ohio and played at Michigan, he coached many seasons as an assistant and then head coach at Okie State. He didn't spend his entire coaching career in the Midwest and then as an old and fading coach come to the South. Miles was also a goofball, and never really did fit in, but he was our goofball dammit.

It’s not the complicated to me, there’s no archetype of who you MUST be to be a cultural fit, but there is an archetype to who you CANT be.

And BK is a lot closer to the latter than the former

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fit is ESPN wanting to a feel good story of some retard coaching LSU and how he’s a character just like all of us.

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fricking this.

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West Virginia is basically a Southern state and on top of that Saban was a unique cat when it came to recruiting. He knew how to adjust and adapt, which guys like Kelly do not. Also, he was young when he started at LSU.

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WV is not basically the south. in fact, it’s the least diverse state (whitest) statistically in the country. and he spent his entire coaching career in the Midwest or NFL before coming to LSU. He had no ties at all to Louisiana or even the general region. He also wasn’t that young. He was 49 when he took the job. He’d been coaching for over 2 decades.

And to your other post, no Oklahoma is not the south either. Seems like you want to include damn near a third of the country as being the south. There are blue collar, low income families in every state if you want to talk about cultural identity.

And guys like Sark having a couple years in the south doesn’t just make them into a cultural fit. Same with Kiffin. He’s comes from nothing like the homes he’s walking into.

Fit is just an arbitrary word people use when they can’t actually describe why someone should go or shouldn’t be hired. A good football coach is a good football coach. They can “fit” anywhere. I’m not saying Kelly is doing the job he was hired to do but this “fit” argument is dumb.

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WV is not basically the south. in fact, it’s the least diverse state (whitest) statistically in the country. and he spent his entire coaching career in the Midwest or NFL before coming to LSU. He had no ties at all to Louisiana or even the general region. He also wasn’t that young. He was 49 when he took the job. He’d been coaching for over 2 decades.

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Imagine using the greatest coach in the history of your sport as your support. He’s the definition of an outlier

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And guys like Sark having a couple years in the south doesn’t just make them into a cultural fit.

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Austin is a different animal

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Same with Kiffin.

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Joey Freshwater has been in the southeast for nearing 2 decades now

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A good football coach is a good football coach. They can “fit” anywhere

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There’s hundreds of examples proving this untrue

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I’m not saying Kelly is doing the job he was hired to do but this “fit” argument is dumb.

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He doesn’t align with the culture of the school, the fan base, or the players in his geographic area that are the easiest to recruit. As I’ve already said, there isn’t a certain archetype you have to be, theres some you can be, and in Baton Rouge a prick coastal elite is one of them. And that’s how he’s perceived