[NU Sports] Football experiment

[Tom Maycock]

> Some on this list would predict that each of these institutions will 
> fall into deep recruiting and rebuilding holes and will ultimately
> fall further behind than they would have been if they had just
allowed
> their current coaches to continue to make incremental improvements. 
> 
> If, on the other hand, each of these institutions ends up making 
> significant progress over the next three or four years (ND getting a
> BCS bid, Stanford contending for the PC-10 championship, Indiana
going > to a  bowl game), what sort of conclusion could be drawn? 
> 
> First, that a lot of people may owe the governing bodies of these 
> institutions an apology.

Jeff:

I think I get your point, and it's a case that could certainly be
argued, but I don't entirely agree. I would argue that just because a
decision produces the desired results doesn't necessarily mean that it
was the right decision. 

Suppose ND or Indiana do find significant success within the next 2 or
3 years (or even next year) under their new coach. You can't be sure
that the previous coaches might not have achieved the same (or even
greater) success had they been allowed to say. The success of new
coaches is college sports is always linked to some degree to the level
of talent and the personalities of the players they inherit. 

But there's more to it then that. I have no problem with a pro football
coach being judged purely on the basis of on-field results. But college
athletics should be about more than that (I know, they almost never are
in reality...). 

If all that matters to ND is winning, then they may very well be better
of with Meyer--maybe MUCH better off. And on that basis it may be a
very bold, and wise decision. The problem is that ND likes to pretend
that it's about more than that. And this decision deeply undermines
that stance IMO.

And I just think the DiNardo thing was wrong with a capital W (again,
unless there are factors going on we don't know about). His successor
will almost *certainly* have a better record than DiNardo, because
DiNardo was stuck rebuilt possibly the most broken college football
team in the country. Now someone else will benefit from his hard work. 

Tom