[NU Sports] Sad

[Jonathan Hodges]

The advantage of firing head coaches mid-season is showing recruits that the
school is committed to a positive change during a key recruiting period
(since the vast majority of recruits have made their decisions by December)
and also to get a head start on the coaching search (don't want someone else
grabbing your future coach).  And it doesn't exactly help having a lame duck
coach around for the rest of a lost season.

On the assistant coaching front, it is less typical to can someone mid
season because that is one less recruiting hand and one less coach overall
to help during the year - and it's difficult to find an assistant who can
just drop in and fit the current system (or find anyone who is unoccupied at
this point since those without jobs have likely found something else like a
lower division job or non-football work).  Just the reduction in recruiters
is a big disadvantage.  And trying to change schemes/systems mid season with
NCAA limits on practice time is a recipe for disaster.  What you usually see
is plenty of changes after the season when teams swap or bring in new
assistants (note that NU and Indiana swapped WR coaches prior to this past
season).  This is the main reason that calling for assistants' heads
mid-year is silly (just clarify and say they should be run off after the
year).

Personally, I am against midseason coaching changes.  There's plenty of time
if one just waits until the end of the regular season (presuming no bowl)
and then makes the move - there are relatively few hires before then and
usually the guys without jobs know they are better off waiting for more
opportunities and therefore competition for their services.  I can see some
advantage on the recruiting front, but not enough to justify running someone
off quickly - if anything their players (who they likely recruited) deserve
to try and send them off in a better fashion.

Jonathan

--
Jonathan Hodges
Contributor, HailToPurple
Web: http://www.hailtopurple.com/jhodges/
Twitter: @hailtopurple
Email: j-hodges at alumni.northwestern.edu



On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 10:20 AM, Joe Thiegs <thiegs at umn.edu> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Mike Nolan <nolan at tssi.com> wrote:
>
>
> > I would be surprised if people could cite examples of college teams
> > that fired assistant coaches mid-season and saw ANY improvement during
> > that season.
> >
> > I doubt it happens with head coaches, either.  I wonder if anyone has
> > stats on how often interim head coaches gets promoted to full-time head
> > coach (either mid-season or afterwards), and how successful they are?
> >
>
> Well, I'm not advocating for a mid-season change here, but last year when
> Tim Brewster got fired after starting 1-8, interim Minnesota head coach
> Jeff
> Horton went 2-1, first losing at Michigan State but then posting improbable
> wins at Illinois and at home against Iowa to win back Floyd of Rosedale for
> the first time in four years to close out the season.  (The Gophers lost to
> the Hawkeyes 0-55 and 0-12 the two prior seasons under Brewster.)
>
> -Joe
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