Recipe for new head coach extending honeymoon

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Ole

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I'm going to assume we strike out on so called tier 1 top candidates like Peterson/Patterson/Harbaugh and we end up with a Sumlin/Golden/Hoke/Mullen type.

IMO The honeymoon starts at the hiring conference and can be as short as a few weeks or as long as 2-3 years. It will be shortened/extended by several things.

-Hire any "name coordinators"
-Steal any top recruits, fill out a quality class with solid recruits
-If you can't get the recruiting going right away, you sign some local kids to fill out the class.
-Hit the media hard, interview well, spread goodwill and cheer with rock solid and sober analysis.
-Excite a bit at the spring game, simply designating Gray as the starting QB will do wonders. No overdoing the vanilla stuff.

As far as the season goes,
-You better try to blow the F out of NDSU, I'm talking 70-0 if possible. Cue Bison troll, the fact is this fanbase cannot take another FCS nailbiter or loss.
-You should be expected to win against Miami-OH and New Mexico St., two really bad teams. -Blowouts would bring more goodwill and cheer.
-After the NC season, assuming you didn't upset USC(not likely, but who knows)
I think the Big Ten record needs to include 1 upset and some surprisingly close games against big time programs.
-The rivalry games better be good showings, a win and your sitting pretty.
-Go for 3 against fatneck drunken sconnie coach and you are our hero forever.
-Bring in some impact recruits and if you've done the majority of these things you will on a path for rallying the fanbase around you in year 2.
 

Ole said:
I'm going to assume we strike out on so called tier 1 top candidates like Peterson/Patterson/Harbaugh and we end up with a Sumlin/Golden/Hoke/Mullen type.

IMO The honeymoon starts at the hiring conference and can be as short as a few weeks or as long as 2-3 years. It will be shortened/extended by several things.

-Hire any "name coordinators"
-Steal any top recruits, fill out a quality class with solid recruits
-If you can't get the recruiting going right away, you sign some local kids to fill out the class.
-Hit the media hard, interview well, spread goodwill and cheer with rock solid and sober analysis.
-Excite a bit at the spring game, simply designating Gray as the starting QB will do wonders. No overdoing the vanilla stuff.

As far as the season goes,
-You better try to blow the F out of NDSU, I'm talking 70-0 if possible. Cue Bison troll, the fact is this fanbase cannot take another FCS nailbiter or loss.
-You should be expected to win against Miami-OH and New Mexico St., two really bad teams. -Blowouts would bring more goodwill and cheer.
-After the NC season, assuming you didn't upset USC(not likely, but who knows)
I think the Big Ten record needs to include 1 upset and some surprisingly close games against big time programs.
-The rivalry games better be good showings, a win and your sitting pretty.
-Go for 3 against fatneck drunken sconnie coach and you are our hero forever.
-Bring in some impact recruits and if you've done the majority of these things you will on a path for rallying the fanbase around you in year 2.
Click to expand...

Don't disagree with much of your post, but I think you could bring in Knute Rockne and we'd be lucky to win more than 3 or 4 games next year. You make a really good point that the first presser is critical. The old adage of "never get a 2nd chance to make a first impression" was never better proven than by Brewster pizzing off all the jackwagon local media when he was introduced.

I think that assuming we hire a guy with some credibility, charisma, and reputation, he gets a pass for 2011. Noone expected much out of Tubby his first year, and arguably the football team is a bigger mess now than the basketball program was after we kicked Monson to the curb. And it will take longer to fix. You recruit a couple of AA kids in hoops and you can turn around a program in a hurry. In football, not so much.

I do agree with your point that losing to NDSU will burn a lot of the credibility and patience the new coach will come in with. And he should take advantage of the games he should win, like Miami-OH. He'd better win this one, as it's my wife's Alma Mater. I'll never hear the end of it if we lose. I also concur that we need to be competitive right away in our trophy games. And by year two the new coach better upset somebody, and better not wait until year 3+ to bring home Floyd or the axe.
 

Some good thoughts.

I am not sure what will make me happy in all honesty bringing in new coaches and yet another new system is tough to do. Its hard to get a ton done on the field as far as wins and losses when you spend so much time teaching the basics of an offense and defense especially with the youth we will have.

Here are a few things that are musts.
#1. Get the current players to play at or above their talent level. We have to many players who are not playing up the level of their athletic ability than needs to change and it shouldnt have to take much time.

#2. You have to win more than 1 game in your first year. We have to act like a Big Ten team. Beating the teams at or below your talent level is a must. Losing to non bcs schools can not happen.

#3. I think being excited and energetic is great and is a must but being realistic is very important. Lets not start talking about Rose Bowls from day 1 lets start with how we are going to become a Bowl Contender every year first. Once we have made some bowls we can then start pumping a Rose Bowl Bid.
 

Too Long in the Wasteland said:
Don't disagree with much of your post, but I think you could bring in Knute Rockne and we'd be lucky to win more than 3 or 4 games next year. You make a really good point that the first presser is critical. The old adage of "never get a 2nd chance to make a first impression" was never better proven than by Brewster pizzing off all the jackwagon local media when he was introduced.

I think that assuming we hire a guy with some credibility, charisma, and reputation, he gets a pass for 2011. Noone expected much out of Tubby his first year, and arguably the football team is a bigger mess now than the basketball program was after we kicked Monson to the curb. And it will take longer to fix. You recruit a couple of AA kids in hoops and you can turn around a program in a hurry. In football, not so much.

I do agree with your point that losing to NDSU will burn a lot of the credibility and patience the new coach will come in with. And he should take advantage of the games he should win, like Miami-OH. He'd better win this one, as it's my wife's Alma Mater. I'll never hear the end of it if we lose. I also concur that we need to be competitive right away in our trophy games. And by year two the new coach better upset somebody, and better not wait until year 3+ to bring home Floyd or the axe.
Click to expand...

I think bringing in Knute Rockne would fail for 2 reasons:
1) His style of play would be far too outdated to win today. Same could be said for Bernie Bierman. Would take a few years to even adjust to today's game and all the stuff that goes with it (recruiting, travel, media, etc).
2) He's dead.

Joking aside - I think a really killshot hire COULD win more than 3-4 games next year. The talent isn't there to win against OSU. But heck, with our talent and crummy coaching we have played Wisconsin extremely close 3 of 4 years under Brewster, played NW to a 1 point game this year, beat an IL team with Juice on the road, and lost by 12 to Iowa last year. There's no reason to think we couldn't win 5, 6, 7 games next year with a coach like Belotti, Saban, or any other top-tier coach. Heck, even Golden, Calhoun, etc could win that many.

I do think the OP's analysis of how to make a splash past his name alone and continue the good times is pretty spot on. Ultimately, the recipe is: WIN. People will be excited for about 2-3 NC games (assuming we win) and 1-2 B10 game before they throw in the supportive towel. If you win, they'll continue to follow and grow.
 

You could just do what Tim Brewster did and set the bar extremely low the first year by winning one game. It worked for him as there were many that used that season to show "progress" in subsequent seasons in defense of him. If you win 1 game the first year, 3 the next, and keep progressing slowly, many will still point to "progress".
 


One more thought - what is everyone's deal with predicting or stating Rose Bowls are our goal? Winning Big Ten games, being a bowl contender - not only are those vague and lacking clear definition/vision, they are weak goals. Even though Brewster didn't work out and he oversold himself, his players, coaches, and the team sometimes, saying he was going to take us to the Rose Bowl and that is our goal is EXACTLY what we need. That means the goal is to WIN THE BIG TEN. Not just win B10 games or go to bowls. He made his goal very clear and that should be everyone in the fanbase's goal as well. As far as I'm concerned the next coach should say the same (...and deliver).
 

WolfontheProwl said:
I think being excited and energetic is great and is a must but being realistic is very important. Lets not start talking about Rose Bowls from day 1 lets start with how we are going to become a Bowl Contender every year first. Once we have made some bowls we can then start pumping a Rose Bowl Bid.
Click to expand...

We have been to 9 bowls since 1999, if whoever we hire states being a 'bowl contender' as a goal I will vomit.
 

ruralgopher said:
We have been to 9 bowls since 1999, if whoever we hire states being a 'bowl contender' as a goal I will vomit.
Click to expand...

I have to agree, although some down to earth coachspeak would do some good I think.
A Rose Bowl victory should be the goal of any Big Ten program. Period.

A few other thoughts:
I really can't overemphasize how far winning big in the NC games and upsetting someone would go for the fanbase. IMO this is one of the mortal sins Brewster committed in year 1 and it cost him alot in credibility. Thou shalt not lose NC games to cupcakes.
This, along with the complete lack of any sort of upset(maybe Illinois in 08, but man what a lukewarm upset) were critical in undermining his strategy of selling an up and coming program to the recruits and fans.
If we roll through our NC schedule next season with even a close loss to USC and come into Big Ten play 3-1 and bring home the jug from a mediocre Michigan team in Ann Arbor, that right there is a successful year 1 for our next coach. A nice preseason and one big "look at me moment". Think Iowa St. last year, although that Nebraska upset was HUGE.
Year 2 will bring more expectations, but something like that right there should be the bar for year 1.
 

I think any new coach will get an extended honeymoon as long as he's not completely full of B.S. like Brewster AND he doesn't go 1-11 next year. After the first year, his honeymoon last as long as he show progress every season.
 



The problem with this football team is not just coaching. It is talent level as well. No coach will come in and go 4-4 in the Big Ten and win 3 of 4 NC games. Realistically, we need to get competetive against all Big Ten tyeams except the top 2 teams....so most likely Ohio State (who we don't play) and either Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, or Penn State. The rest we need to be competetive to show strong progress from this year. When you are competetive and execute and get a break or two,you win close games. Unfortuantely we need to look at next year as a 4-5 win season is great progress. The key is to have a coach that can actually coach up the kids and make them better (assitants too).
 

We don't yet know how much of the problem is talent. I can hope for 3-1, 2-2 will be OK. But the NDSU game may be the most important of the NC schedule, even though they might be better than New Mexico State. Losing to another I-AA/FCS team will shorten that honeymoon.
 

hey

Just this past summer and after MT the majority opinion on here was that this year would be ok but next year would be our best year in recent history. So, we win one game this year with idiotic coaching but someone with a clue has no chance next year?

We have athletes. We haven't had anyone to coach them. We can be just fine next year.
That is totally dependent on the coach.
 

60's Guy said:
Just this past summer and after MT the majority opinion on here was that this year would be ok but next year would be our best year in recent history. So, we win one game this year with idiotic coaching but someone with a clue has no chance next year?

We have athletes. We haven't had anyone to coach them. We can be just fine next year.
That is totally dependent on the coach.
Click to expand...

I agree with this assessment 100 percent. Given the total ineptitude of the current coaching staff there is no reason to believe that a first rate staff cannot produce substantial improvement next year with the same players plus a decent recruiting class.
 



I don't think kicking field goals all day against Wisconsin is going to make anyone happy with the new coach.

I would think he would want to try and score touchdowns.
 

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