BleedGopher
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per SI's Q&A:
From Paul: Will the new early signing period make schools more likely to fire coaches in season?
Athletic directors already routinely fire coaches in season. The operative question here is whether the new mid-December signing period for high school players will cause ADs to fire coaches earlier in the season than usual. Will they go the other direction, waiting to pull the trigger until the last possible moment?
I explored this in a column about the choice Tennessee athletic director John Currie faces with Butch Jones, but this circumstance is not unique to Tennessee. Every program that might change coaches this year is a guinea pig. There is no consensus among the athletic directors I’ve spoken to about the best way to handle this situation, but I can make a case for two different philosophies.
Fire Him Earlier
If the entire world already knows you’re going to make a coaching change and your recruiting for the class of 2018 is average to poor, fire the current coach as early as possible and get your ducks in a row so that you can bring the new guy aboard the morning after his last game and get him recruiting that afternoon. The AD will have more than a month to vet candidates and assess interest. That way, when the season ends, the AD can conduct an in-person interview with the top choice and—if all works out—the deal is done with more than two weeks before the signing period begins.
Chances are the new coach isn’t going to want some of the recruits the old coach had committed. This gives the new coach a chance to do the right thing by those high schoolers and give them two months to find a new school. (Remember, players can still sign in February as well.) This feels like the tack most struggling programs looking to make a change will take.
Fire Him At The Last Possible Moment
For programs with good recruiting classes—and this is where Tennessee falls—it might make more sense to keep the window between the firing of the current coach and the hiring of the new coach as tight as possible. Though Texas didn’t have a great recruiting class last November, the Longhorns did keep that window tight. The time elapsed between the official firing of Charlie Strong and the official hiring of Tom Herman was less than seven hours. That doesn’t give rival coaches much time to raid the class.
Of course, if a team just lost by—let’s just throw out a number here—41 points to a division rival in a must-win game, then rival coaches are already smelling blood and tugging at those committed recruits. If that good class is the reason the AD is waiting and that good class starts falling apart, then there is no sense in waiting.
https://www.si.com/college-football/2017/10/04/butch-jones-ed-orgeron-early-signing-period
Go Gophers!!
From Paul: Will the new early signing period make schools more likely to fire coaches in season?
Athletic directors already routinely fire coaches in season. The operative question here is whether the new mid-December signing period for high school players will cause ADs to fire coaches earlier in the season than usual. Will they go the other direction, waiting to pull the trigger until the last possible moment?
I explored this in a column about the choice Tennessee athletic director John Currie faces with Butch Jones, but this circumstance is not unique to Tennessee. Every program that might change coaches this year is a guinea pig. There is no consensus among the athletic directors I’ve spoken to about the best way to handle this situation, but I can make a case for two different philosophies.
Fire Him Earlier
If the entire world already knows you’re going to make a coaching change and your recruiting for the class of 2018 is average to poor, fire the current coach as early as possible and get your ducks in a row so that you can bring the new guy aboard the morning after his last game and get him recruiting that afternoon. The AD will have more than a month to vet candidates and assess interest. That way, when the season ends, the AD can conduct an in-person interview with the top choice and—if all works out—the deal is done with more than two weeks before the signing period begins.
Chances are the new coach isn’t going to want some of the recruits the old coach had committed. This gives the new coach a chance to do the right thing by those high schoolers and give them two months to find a new school. (Remember, players can still sign in February as well.) This feels like the tack most struggling programs looking to make a change will take.
Fire Him At The Last Possible Moment
For programs with good recruiting classes—and this is where Tennessee falls—it might make more sense to keep the window between the firing of the current coach and the hiring of the new coach as tight as possible. Though Texas didn’t have a great recruiting class last November, the Longhorns did keep that window tight. The time elapsed between the official firing of Charlie Strong and the official hiring of Tom Herman was less than seven hours. That doesn’t give rival coaches much time to raid the class.
Of course, if a team just lost by—let’s just throw out a number here—41 points to a division rival in a must-win game, then rival coaches are already smelling blood and tugging at those committed recruits. If that good class is the reason the AD is waiting and that good class starts falling apart, then there is no sense in waiting.
https://www.si.com/college-football/2017/10/04/butch-jones-ed-orgeron-early-signing-period
Go Gophers!!
