With Stanford still on winter break and the returning players on the football
team not back on campus until next week, the work done by Jim Harbaugh of late
has centered upon recruiting and hiring his coaching staff. The former is
a subject we cover thoroughly around here, but we would like to take a look at
the latter today.
It is hard to overstate the importance of assistant coaches in college
football. In almost all NCAA sports, the head coach is only as good as his
or her staff, but football is a unique case. No other sport comes close to
the 100-plus players on a roster and the recruiting classes that frequently
number 20-plus. There is less ability for a head coach to directly impact
the development of individual players, due to these numbers. There is also
less opportunity for a head coach to be personally involved in individual
recruitments. Assistants carry much of the responsibility in both of these
duties, which makes each assistant coaching hire a decision that can make or
break important chunks of your roster. There are nine full-time assistant
coaches allowed for a program currently in college football
This explains why there is more attention paid to the transactions (hiring,
firing and departures) of football assistant coaches than any other college
sport. Football is the biggest bread-winner in college athletics, and
those nine assistants carry a good deal of the load on their shoulder for its
success.
Football also has the shortest lifespan of assistant coaches among college
sports. Head coaches are given short leashes by their athletic directors
because of the big bucks at stake, and a fired head coach typically spells the
death for most/all of his assistants. Moreover, the amount of
responsibility laid upon football assistants makes them more visible and more
accountable for successes and failures. Thus, the best assistants can be
quickly hired away by other college programs or the NFL, while poorly performing
assistants can be fired or without hesitation.
Why delve into this dissertation on assistant football coaches? Because
the hiring of a brand new staff by a first-year head coach presents the most
attractive opportunity for assistant coaches of perhaps his entire tenure.
Assistants are paid well, relative to their brethren in other college sports,
but they live a nomadic life that bounces their families from town to town often
every two or three years. The volatility described above bounces
assistants from one job to the next with alarming regularity. Only one
assistant coach on Stanford's 2006 staff had more than two years of running
continuity on The Farm. Granted, the Cardinal head coaching volatility in
recent years has been higher than that of many Division I-A programs, but you
will be hard pressed to find many coaches in the Pac-10 with more than five
consecutive years at that school.
Assistants recognize that when they join a staff that has a standing head
coach, there is not only the risk of his own success/failure in the next one to
two years, but the likelihood of his head coach staying in that job beyond the
next two or three years is slim. If that head coach has success, he could
jump to the next best opportunity and pay raise. If that head coach has
difficulty, he could be canned. Seven current Pac-10 head coaches have
been tenured for four years or less.
The best bet for stability when an assistant coach is searching for a job is
when a new head coach has just been hired. Most new head coach hires can
expect rope for at least three or four years, and one rousing season of success
in a rebuilding situation can earn a contract extension. Just as with
recruits, assistant coaches seeking stability relish the chance to come in on
the ground floor of a new program. It takes more than money, facilities
and good kids to attract a coach. The reasonable probability of being able
to grow roots in a town, particularly for his wife and kids, is a great lure.
For all of his failures and despite his poor previous record as a head coach,
Buddy Teevens attracted a pretty good staff when he started his first year at
Stanford. Including: Mike Sanford, now the head coach at UNLV; Mark Banker, successful as defensive coordinator at Oregon State the past four season; Tom Quinn,
now coaching with the New York Giants; Wayne Moses, now with the St. Louis Rams;
David Kelly, a nationally coveted recruiter; and Tom Williams, a well-regarded
young coach lured away from Washington and considered a candidate last month for
the Stanford head job. Walt Harris' hires were so well-regarded that he
lost two to the NFL within weeks of their arrival and then lost three
coordinators (defensive, special teams and recruiting) to the NFL after his
first year - plus two other assistants were poached.
This is all to say that Jim Harbaugh has today probably his best chance at
hiring his best assistant coaches while at Stanford. This is the time to
leverage his rolodex and bring in the biggest and best guns he can.
Recognizing the opportunity and importance with these hires, Harbaugh is
understandably taking his time. Hurrying a hire by a week or two may
immediately gratify public perception or a particular recruiting need, but that
decision may marginalize the program for years to follow. There are
currently five full-time assistant coaches working with Harbaugh in the Football
Office...
Up next: Part II
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