This all sounds good to me.
Or you know, there is still always the possibility that Fleck isn't dreaming about offers from places like USC and feels like he has a pretty damn good situation here....I know, crazy right?
I would be more worried about Penn State taking Fleck than USC.
He is a Midwest guy. He grew up idolizing Joe Pa
www.si.com
I don't get the obsession with reporting Fleck's record minus his best year. His record without his best year is worse than with it. His record without his worst year is better than with it. At the end of the day, Fleck's complete record gives him credit for the best one, blame for the worst one, and factors in all the other ones.Per Forde: USC might not end up alone among high-profile programs looking for a coach, but are enough desirable candidates emerging?
P.J. Fleck (13), Minnesota. You lose to Bowling Green—winner of 13 of its last 56 games before waltzing into Minneapolis on Sept. 25—you pay the marketability price. Taking nothing away from the 11–2 season of 2019, but Fleck’s Minnesota record other than that annus mirabilis is 18–19.
The Coaching Market May Already Be Thinning
USC might not end up alone among big programs looking for a coach, but are enough desirable candidates emerging?
Agree 100%. However in the statistical world, there is a process that eliminates both the best and the worst which in their world I guess gives the best "statistical significance" answer.... I dunno....
Right. IF you think his 2019 was just an outlier. That being the big if, that we're all waiting to understand ...
I don't disagree, and I don't pretend to know why Forde wrote that summary as he did, but it could be an underlying question about whether 2019 was an outlier for PJ as a coach, or if that's a ceiling he could regularly approach. If I'm an AD at USC or another high profile school looking to make a coaching change, I'm curious about that as well. At this point in Year 5, I'm not sure we know either way.
100%
That's how I see it too. They are saying is his move to P5 successful at this point in time...
If they are really good seasons, I actually think the "outliers" should count more than the other seasons. If we start periodically hanging banners (west division and B1G champs), I'd give a lot more slack on how bad the bad seasons are and what the overall record is. Its why, over on the hockey board, I was giving a lot more slack to Lucia than most others (it was not any great love of his recruiting or tactical style, that's for sure). He was the guy who gave us back to back national championships, so I both felt he earned the slack, and was willing to trust that the guy who had done it twice before had as good a chance as anyone at doing it again.
I’ll bet people who bought Apple at $4, Amazon at $10, count it in their average annualized returns.
Tom Kelly, too.Murray Warmath was 87-78 at Minnesota. Take away his top 3 seasons, he was 65-73. He sucked.
This basically sums up my thoughts. For me, it's not about "we have to win 8 games this year or 2019 was a fluke, etc." It's about what's being built for the long term. I get it, we all got a taste of success in 2019 and we want more of that, but it doesn't happen overnight, and it doesn't even always happen over a few years.
I could maybe buy the idea that 2019 was an outlier, if PJ didn't also win 13 games at a low level MAC program.
AD's are not hiring guys based on their record compared to previous coaches at that school. They are considering whether a guy can win games there, recruit, get along well with boosters and the AD, and a million other factors. I don't think they're saying "well PJ has to go 8-4 to get this job offer", they are looking at the big picture.
Hindsight, we know that season wasn't an outlier. But looking back from only year five, they didn't know that at that time.
That's not how that works.
Fair argument. But it's tough for me to look past the actual Big Ten data to go backwards in time at a MAC program that only had to play 2-3 Big Ten games per year.
Fleck’s first 3 years certainly were quite a bit better than the predecessors you’ve listed. I think Fleck is definitely a better coach than the predecessors you have listed here.
