PD’s Postulations: Coaching Search Pt 1 – Criteria

Well race fans, the green flag has dropped on this sprint to the press conference to announce the next head coach of the Florida Gators. The last one of these we had was filled with intrigue and excitement about the possibilities, but the excitement was guarded because the new head coach had never been a head coach before so everything in front of us was a complete mystery. Chock full of endearing Gainesville back story and caviar dreams of greatness to come. But it was all speculative. However, the next man to be announced as the Gators’ new head coach will have to be much more than that. He will have to be a known quantity who will thrill Gator fans, not just be another resume of things that that make you go “Hmmm.”

To that end, I have outlined the criteria I believe must be met to hire the next sideline face of Gator football. Given how far the program has fallen since they swaggered into Atlanta’s Georgia Dome in December 2009 as the #1 team in the nation, defending national champions marching their way to their second-consecutive title in the SEC and the BCS – or so we all thought – and given how long it has been since Gator fans had reason to feel confident about their football program from week to week…and given how badly the last two head coaching hires have gone when the candidates only met half the criteria and the other half was taken on faith and hope…I believe it is 100% necessary that 100% of these criteria be met by the new hire or else the Gator program will be 100% headed for another coaching tenure like the one that is now ending.

So without further ado…

Criterion 1: Driving Philosophy

This is one of the highest arching coaching philosophies to consider. And by ‘coaching philosophy’, I don’t mean the offensive or defensive schematic philosophy or the personality of the team or program or any of the other usual stuff. I mean that every coach has a philosophy on what drives the boat. Or if you are averse to maritime jargon, what drives the car. Or if you are Les Miles or Mike Leach, what drives the space ship. A coach’s driving philosophy is a seldom used term primarily because I just made it up. But it is nonetheless one of the most critical criteria we must consider. Had Will Muschamp had a different driving philosophy, he would likely still be the Florida head coach and might have a title or two in his pocket already.

Simply put, a coach’s driving philosophy is what governs the direction of adaptation. All coaches have their own schemes. They may tweak them to fit personnel or maximize production given their personnel, but the schemes and offensive and defensive philosophies don’t change. When coaches start a job at a new program, they will have different personnel tools with which to work than at their previous jobs. Some coaches adapt their new personnel to their philosophy and some adapt their philosophy to their new personnel.

Of Florida’s last four head coaches, two of them have adapted the personnel to their schemes. Sure they tweaked the schemes here and there to try to maximize the results, but you still saw duck-footed, slug-speed pocket passer Chris Leak running the read option for Urban Meyer and you still saw Shane Matthews chunking the ball all over the field for Steve Spurrier to guys like Harrison Houston and Willie Jackson who had never even been on the field before. Matthews may seem off the mark here because he was such an ace, but this is what I mean: Spurrier brought in the Fun & Gun, and he was going to run it to its full capabilities from Day One, no matter what. The first string quarterback couldn’t do it. So Spurs sat him down and went to the second stringer. He couldn’t run it either, so he went to the third guy. He kept going down the bench that first spring in Gainesville until he go to the 5^th string guy, a skinny, un-athletic kid coming off a gambling suspension who probably had the weakest arm on the depth chart. But Steve was going to run his offense the way he wanted it run, throwing the ball all over the field on timing routes even if he had to go pull Rolf Benirschke’s grandson off the Gator chess team to do it.

Contrast that to Ron Zook and Will Muschamp, both of whom are defensive-minded guys who came into the job somewhat afraid of the forward pass. Both of them set it in stone that because they did not inherit a clone of Peyton Manning that they were afraid of throwing the ball anywhere but within a foot of the sidelines, and would be perfectly happy if all passes were thrown behind the line of scrimmage, preferably backwards. Between Zook and Muschamp, they brought in Ed Zaunbrecher, Larry Fedora, Charlie Weis, Brent Pease and Kurt Roper, all of whom had or have since reputations for running wide-open high-scoring offenses and more than half of them were recognized as being offensive geniuses before accepting the OC post at Florida. And all of them were shackled by the conservatism of their defensive-minded head coach; the Muschamp coordinators far more than those of the Zook era. The reasoning was always the same: we want to run more wide-open, but personnel prevent it. Zook had a mismatched running quarterback usurped by a true freshman who wasn’t experienced enough to let it fly all over the field, even the next year as a sophomore. I forget what the excuse was in his first year when he inherited the best quarterback in the nation, a first-round draft pick with the strongest arm and most accurate deep ball probably in UF history. But there was Rex Grossman being told to keep handing the ball off and pick low-percentage passes, struggling to put up point totals of 16, 14, 7, 20, 21 and 14 against foes like Miami, Mississippi, LSU, Georgia, Vanderbilt and FSU. The level of the opponent did not seem to matter – the score was always run down. No need to recount the way Muschamp ran down the score – it is still fresh in our memory – first the lack of personnel was cited, then the injuries, then this year the inability of the first quarterback and the inexperience of the second.

But the constant was they did not trust or allow their players to try to make big plays on offense. They did not put them in position to make plays because they feared negative results. Spurrier and Meyer refused to be held back by personnel and instead put them in position to make big plays and presto – they usually did.

Spurrier’s and Meyer’s driving philosophy accounted for 22 titles and three Heisman Trophies in 18 combined seasons of letting the schemes drive the ship (17 if you consider that Steve Addazio was really the head coach in 2010). Zook’s and Muschamp’s combined seven years of letting the personnel drive the ship amassed exactly zero championships or major player awards of any kind. So no matter what other criteria are met by the next head coach of Florida, it is an absolute MUST that he take the players he has and facilitate their successful operation of their systems, and NOT change their offensive philosophy and shrink the playbook to fit onto a microscope slide because of any real or perceived limitations in personnel.

Criterion 2: Head Coaching Experience

I would go so far as to say that the new coach not only needs to have been a head coach, but has to be an employed head coach right now. Not a former head coach working as a coordinator or in the broadcast booth somewhere. But the bottom line is that nothing short of head coaching experience is acceptable for this hire. The past results have not only proven that necessity, but it has made it virtually impossible for Jeremy Foley to even consider ignoring this criterion.

Criterion 3: Offensive-Minded Coach

Great defense will always “happen” at Florida. Spurrier and Meyer – two offensive-minded coaches – almost always had stellar and dominating defenses. The only times they did not were during major personnel transition years when they were forced to play a lot of young guys. Both times were in Year 3 of their tenure when the normal coaching transition recruiting bubble hits the depth chart. Our last two defensive-minded head coaches have proven that focusing on defense only will get you a line of mediocrity and a place in the unemployment line. Offensive-minded coaches seem to have a much easier time handing the defense over to a good coordinator and staying out of his kitchen than the other way around. Defensive-minded coaches tend to force conservatism onto their offenses to protect their defense, owning the time of possession to keep the defense fresh. Offensive-minded coaches don’t seem to worry that quick scoring drives will get their defenses tired out by the end of the game because if they are scoring quickly, the starting defense should already be giving way to the backups and doing victory dances by the time the fourth quarter is winding down. And like the head coaching experience criterion, the Zook-Muschamp/Spurrier-Meyer historical contrast makes this an absolute must. If Jeremy Foley hires a defensive-minded coach again, he will be met outside the football offices by torches and pitchforks. And probably with good reason.

Criterion 4: Put on a Show!

This criterion could have been named, “Good Fit with Florida Fans,” but why not cut to the chase? Gator Nation are like the fans in Gladiator; they do not want to sit through a snore-fest 7-6 win and have their head coach shout at the crowd, “Are you not ENTERTAINED?!” Gator fans need some action. A lot of action. They need to see the ball thrown down the field. They need to see the passing game utilize the entire field. They need to see a running game that has multiple wrinkles, not just the same two or three plays over and over again. They need end-arounds, wheel routes, shovel passes, reverses, quick slants, crossing patterns, double moves, rolling pockets, creative play mix, naked bootlegs, exotic formations that force defenses to take a time-out; they need the dang fade route!

The offense needs to score, sure, but it needs to be entertaining as well. Very entertaining. Florida football needs to be fun again. And the football players who grow up in Florida and most of the south want to play a fun brand of offense. And defense. The defense has to stay aggressive and exotic and attack and dictate all day long. When players have fun, they tend to play better; when they play better, they win more; when they win more, the fans and boosters are very, very happy.

Criterion 5: Rock Star Cachet

This encompasses the necessity of being an extremely successful head coach, but more than that it is an absolute must that the new coach be a real head-turner. Someone with so much coaching charisma and heat around him, he could have been the subject of Carly Simon’s song, “You’re So Vain.” As the song goes, “You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht… And all the girls dreamed that they’d be your partner, they’d be your partner, and…” Only without the vanity – that is the response he must get when he walks into a room, when his name comes up in conversation, when recruits are asked what coach they’d like to play for.

The flash is nice, but the importance here is that the new coach has instant and marquee credibility with the current players and with the recruits this year and well into the future. The announcement of his name as the next head Gator has to send shock waves across the program, the SEC, the national talk shows and the entire recruiting frontier. His hiring needs to make the players and recruits say, “Oh yeah!,” make the pundits say, “Oh wow!,” and make rival fans say, “Oh (bleep)!” The Gator program does not improve its station by hiring a good coach or a very good coach; it does not benefit at all from just getting a marginal upgrade form Muschamp. And the program does not hasten its ascent back to football royalty by hiring a great coach who will eventually get the program back to the top, and then who knows how long it takes after that to actually start winning titles. No, the Gator program MUST have one thing and one thing only: a legitimate paparazzi magnet, teenage girls fainting in the streets, call-the-cops rock star with glamour and style and personality by the mile. The new Gator head coach has to go to eleven.

Criterion 6: Recruit Lights Out

This is somewhat tied to the previous criterion because it is only the rock star coach who can save the elite status of a top-5/10 recruiting class for 2015, and it is only a rock star coach who can keep signing elite talent that will allow Florida to compete with Alabama and the other elites. However it bears a separate category because you can be a rock star head coach and still not recruit overly well or consistently (Spurrier could be considered in this category, since he seemed to only pour on the recruiting gas every three to four years, then slack off the efforts a bit for a few years), just as you can be a rock star recruiter yet not be a great coach (might apply to Muschamp, and definitely applies to someone like Lane Kiffin or Mack Brown).

Simply put, the state of Florida has become such a raiding ground for every program in the country from the elites to the back markers, the UF coach has to be a lights out recruiter to keep pace, let alone be the top dog in its own state. The south Florida talent treasure chest remains only cracked open to the Gators, and the new coach needs to be able to pry it open even more. And regardless of where the recruiting grounds are, the SEC is currently not only the most dominant league in the history of the sport, but it dominates in recruiting even more than it does on the playing field. In no other league in the country is it as important to be a slam dunk recruiting demigod as it is in the SEC right now.

Criterion 7: Full-Program Sheppard

For all the ills on the field UF has suffered the last two years, there is no price you can put on the job that Will Muschamp did in totally cleaning up the immoral, undisciplined and unlawful disaster that Urban Meyer had created off the field. When Meyer called the Florida program broken (and boy has he called it that many, many times since taking the job at OSU), he was not primarily talking about on the field, but off of it. The endless list of arrests; the young/veteran class warfare; the NFL prima donna attitudes; the unfair inequitable treatment of star players; the lunatics running the asylum culture; the perpetual cover-ups of failed drug tests, fighting and other rules violations that were dishonestly hidden under the guise of “injuries” in the weekly pressers; all of that unseemly trash is GONE now because of Will Muschamp. Not only that, but the Florida program is a big, happy family of players who absolutely love each other and their coaching staff. It is the closest knit locker room I have seen since the 1996 national title team under the saintly leadership of Danny Wuerffel and L-Dog Lawrence Wright. This culture will be as integral to forging an elite dynastic run as anything the new coach will do on the field. It is essential that we hire a man of impeccable moral fiber and a track record of building a harmonious locker room and handling controversy perfectly above board.

So there they are: the lucky seven coaching criteria for the next Gators head man. I am of the opinion that whoever the next hire is, he not only must fit each criterion, but he will also have to knock it out of the park on each and every benchmark. If he falls short of any of these, certainly on multiples ones, then I fear we will be back at square one talking about our next head coach in another three to four years from now.

In Part 2, I will look at the multitude of serious and not-so-serious candidates for the Gator head coaching job and assess how they stack up to the necessary criteria and against each other. Until then, remember that every day is a gift; that’s why they call it the present.