Interesting talk with John McClain, local football writer, and pretty sharp guy in my opinion. The discussion was about why Texas Longhorns don't get the job done. McClain said, consider Bob Stoopes, Nick Saban, and Mack Brown. There are two great football coaches and two really nice guys. Think about it. It is apparent with 4 slots and 3 guys, one is both a nice guy and great coach. According to McClain, its Stoopes. He says Stoopes can really recruit and really coach. Saban is a great coach, but you wouldn't necessarily go out of your way to invite him over for Christmas dinner. Brown was real nice, but McClain felt he was too nice to properly coach the team. Seems when Brown is recruiting, he promises each player that he will play. He signs plenty of top recruits that way. Then during the games, he says, 'well, we gotta play Bob some' and 'we gotta play Tommy some', and he ends up not doing the best thing for the team because he is trying to be nice to everyone. Opinions?
you would go out of your way to invite Nick if he was close to you. He just doesn't go out of his way wasting his time to stroke your ego. He is always working yet he does go out of his way for the fans continuously signing autographs and being mr. nice guy that many elsewhere don't see. He has adapted quite well and is someone he wasn't at Michigan State. Its very good to see up close. Stoops showed his true character in New Orleans.
One thing that hasn't been talked about openly but you do see in bits and pieces is the huge pressure Nick was under at Michigan State. He was burdened by probation and scholarship reductions and there was talk and he was worried about getting fired after his third and fourth season after a bowl game blowout and no bowl game respectively. The thing is that Michigan State is one of the toughest jobs in the country, yes you have Michigan instate and ND just across the border and the expectations are as high considering the two national championships at MSU. The MSU job is not for a young coach which Nick and Bobby Williams were. When you're younger you have a young family and you have to worry about other things. One reason you see John L. Smith have some success at MSU is that he's a veteran. I think Nick learned a lot from his MSU job and Bobby Williams did too. A good veteran coach there can win a national championship there. I think the reason why Archer, Hallman, and Dinardo didn't do well at LSU was that LSU requires a veteran coach with big time experience. Dinardo was at Vandy, so the expectations were never as high there. None of the previous three had head coaching experience at a big time program. I think in the future LSU will only hire coaches who have experience at places with similar expectations.
What have you learned about Bobby Williams that makes you think that he "learned a lot" from Michigan State? What is he doing differently down here that he was or was not doing down there? I'm just curious...
From what I've gathered team discipline was a problem there. He was too much a players coach and there were some players who were favored over others. At MSU Bobby was sort of the assistant players turned to if they needed some encouragement after being disciplined or yelled at. At most programs there are one or two assistants who are more the buddy type vs. the more boss-like head coach. That was sort of Bobby's niche at MSU. He was pretty good at it. I figure that may be his role at LSU--just a hunch, since that was part of his niche at MSU. Every good coaching staff has one or two coaches who are there for the players to get some lovin' after being yelled at or having a bad day on the field. I think if you've read the articles about Bobby he's learned that when you're head coach you're not the buddy--you have an assistant coach do that role. With college kids a player's coach doesn't work since you're still dealing with young men.
Ralph, I agree that their should be a certain level of fear in the players towards a head coach and that there is usually one or 2 coaches that the players no they can lean on also. Saban has the respect of his players but we can also see how he jumps them when they screw up. Williams just may be the perfect foil for Kick.
