The bye-week coaching conversation entry

NCS Football49

As a follow-up to this interesting entry from earlier in the week, I think that the Wolfpack’s off-week provides us a perfect time to discuss some interesting coaching developments across the country.

It isn’t as if there aren’t any interesting match-ups this weekend; the college football schedule is full of great games. Of particular interest in the ACC Atlantic is the match-up, coaching stability vs coaching instability with Jim Grobe’s Wake Forest Demon Deacons (3-1) battle Tommy Bowden’s Clemson Tigers (3-2) at 7:45 p.m. tonight night on ESPN.

If Tommy Bowden is to keep his job safe, a win over Wake Forest is in order. But which Wake Forest team will show up, the one that forced seven turnovers and five interceptions at Florida State or the one that lost to Navy at home? Sad sidebar: Clemson IT nazis caught Bowden posting his resume on Craig’s List this week. Winner: Tigers.

The heat on Bowden is legitimate and is growing. The folks at “Coachesonthehotseat.com” rank Bowden’s seat as the 7th hottest in the country but I think that they are being a tad conservative.

Ranked one spot ahead of Bowden on the site is Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville. From an outsider’s perspective any pressure on Tuberville appears absurd but I admit that I haven’t researched the situation enough to be educated enough to comment.

Regardless, Tuberville’s dismissal this week of his second offensive coordinator in the last six games stretching back to last year is absolutely fascinating. The Tony Franklin firing is all over the place with videos as well as commentary like this from Tony Barnhardt of the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

The Auburn fans are frustrated because the Tigers began the season as a Top 10 team and were excited by the new offense based on what they had seen in the win over Clemson in the Chick-fil-A Bowl. But for Tuberville to say that he was staying the course on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday only to fire Franklin on Wednesday left a lot of Auburn fans angry. They want some answers. They want to know if Tuberville simply made a bad decision to bring in the spread offense or was the bad decision to hire Franklin as the guy to implement it. The spread was a pretty radical departure from Auburn’s football philosophy under Tuberville and it’s clear that every phase of the offense—not just quarterback—was having adjustment problems. The offensive line, which was young last season but showed a lot of promise for 2008, kept making mistakes. Hugh Nall is one of the best offensive line coaches in the country but this offense asked the big guys to do a lot of new things. It clearly wasn’t working for anybody.

If you are REALLY interested in diving into this topic then you HAVE to read this blog entry from ‘Smart Football’.

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49 Responses to The bye-week coaching conversation entry

  1. SEAT.5.F.2 10/10/2008 at 9:19 AM #

    Wait until NFL draft day for the insults for pile on the injuries CU’s status is taking. It was embarrassing 3 drafts ago when Pack players where popping up early in the draft.. “wait, what was their win/loss record this year?” was all you heard from analyst.

    Bowden’s players on O (Ford, Kelly, Spiller, Davis, Harper) will go the first day, and don’t be surprised if Sapp and a few DB’s go as well. Draft day goes so quick that they won’t beat the drum of young OL to help solve the mystery of this massive under achievement.

    Whether or not Bowden stays or goes is not related to this perspective at all, but it will be funny as hell to have CU replace us in this dubius honor on draft day.

  2. Wolf Dog 10/10/2008 at 9:23 AM #

    Valvano was a great coach. Master of the “junk defenses” Most of his teams got better as the season progressed. national championship, acc championships, two final eights, and sweet sixteen. That’s not peaking at the right time. That is consistency!

    yea bradley, That looked like a poke to me, but probably not the first person he’s poked.

  3. PAJ 10/10/2008 at 9:25 AM #

    I just hope that we don’t end up having adjustment problems like Auburn in the future when the spread offense is not being used. Russell Wilson has been a godsend, but the long range plan is to build around our drop back passer, Mike Glennon.

  4. Classof89 10/10/2008 at 9:27 AM #

    ^
    but it is simply a fact that Valvano didn’t particularly stress regular season winning beyond that required to get to the ACC (in contrast to, for example, Dean Smith)…he only won the regular season once, and in his unfamiliar role as No. 1 seed, proceeded to become the first # 1 seed ever to lose in the first round of the ACC tournament (since equalled by Sendek’s upset of Duke in his first year).

  5. SEAT.5.F.2 10/10/2008 at 9:34 AM #

    I understand Noah’s point about comparing HC’s; basketball/football. But looking at it in a looser interpretation, I thing Grobe = Mark Few of Gonzaga.

    There is never going to be any outside interference, no external pressure, it’s as easy street as a job that entails so much hours of work gets.

    The only thing stopping him from leaving is if he has some notion that he is bored and he wants to become an icon of modern coaching by leading a high profile team to top.

    He does not strike me as a person that is driven by the perception of his fame, and he sounds like a very grounded individual whose roots from West Virginia show as being proud and humble. The compensation he pockets now is probably put more in perspective then say a Butch Davis (Gosh, that is the most obvious statement I’ve made in awhile).

    Summing it all up is that my thought is that he as at WFU till he times up. Sorry ACC Atlantic.

  6. bradleyb123 10/10/2008 at 9:45 AM #

    “Sorry ACC Atlantic.”

    No need to apologize. I’m not worried about Wake once Skinner is gone. My Wolfpack is getting there. The rebuilding is going well, not counting the injury bug.

    Wake will soon be out beeyotch once again and the universe will be back in order. 😉

  7. Pack92 10/10/2008 at 9:49 AM #

    “Wake will be an afterthought”? Dude, you need to sell the stuff you smoke. If that beat-down last night didn’t show you how good Wake is (and their system of player development will keep it that way) then you’re just free to disagree with the obvious. Points don’t always tell the story of a game.

  8. bradleyb123 10/10/2008 at 10:17 AM #

    7-3 in the fourth quarter is no beatdown. Wake had to convert a 3rd and 24 deep in their own territory or we’re not even having this conversation. Wake had the better first half, Clemson evened things out in the second half. Thanks to a lucky play that went for 28 yards, Wake kept a drive alive that ended up winning the game.

    Clemson ain’t great. Wake ain’t great. It was an ugly game. It just took Clemson a while to get going.

    Wake WILL be an afterthought as soon as next year, and definitely the year after. They better win the ACC this year. It will be their last chance for a long time.

  9. bradleyb123 10/10/2008 at 10:20 AM #

    Wake is a decent team. DECENT. They’re just decent at a time when the rest of the ACC is down. Think back to the dominant FSU teams of the past. And when Georgia Tech was pretty dominant. Wake is only having this much success because everybody else took a step backwards.

    Wake is better than ever before, but that isn’t saying much. They’ve never been much of anything in football. They’re at the top of THEIR world, and look a lot better than they really are because the rest of the ACC is just spinning their wheels right now.

    Give them a year or two and they’re done.

  10. Daily Update 10/10/2008 at 10:27 AM #

    How did Jim Grobe recruit the most athletic defense in the ACC? They have numerous NFL players on that team. Grobe isn’t necessarily the best coach in the ACC, but he is the best at identifying really good athletes that flourish in his system.

    TOB and Grobe recruit similar types of players IMO.

  11. wufpup76 10/10/2008 at 10:36 AM #

    “Is Schiano still at Rutgers?”

    Yes, he is – and it is most defintely a reload year after losing a pretty good QB the other year and Ray Rice from last season’s team … Schiano should still be in good shape to be a major contender for the PSU job should it open up in the next couple of seasons (though he has the perfect New Jersey name) … Chapel Hill happened to catch this particular Rutgers team this season – go figure

    As for Wake, I have a healthy dislike for the Demon Deacons but I wouldn’t necessarily call them lucky … There’s something to be said for making your own luck … I certainly hope we can get back above Wake like bradley is saying 😉

  12. McPete 10/10/2008 at 11:10 AM #

    http://www.wralsportsfan.com/ncsu/story/3712100/

    speaking of coaches, Amato was interviewed about coming back to nc state next thursday.

    “Had we won that Wake Forest game, we might have been able to represent the division in the conference championship game”

    uh, no.

  13. WolftownVA81 10/10/2008 at 11:40 AM #

    ^McP, I liked this quote “Amato said he felt like he left the program in strong shape when he was fired after the 2006 season.” He’s still in denial. Also seems he hasn’t lost any of his cockiness though he did show good restraint when asked to comment on TOB. FL State needs this win more than we do but I hope we want it more. Go Pack.

  14. McPete 10/10/2008 at 11:45 AM #

    Wolftown,
    i also like how he name-dropped Bill Parcells and then attributed to him a comment that he probably made 100 times into the mirror.

  15. Pack92 10/10/2008 at 12:25 PM #

    You make your own luck in football and learn how to win within your game- not letting other teams dictate how you play.
    People also said Wake going to the Orange Bowl was a fluke and that would be the end of Wake. That type of genius needs to be predicting what is going to happen to the stock market. Wait, they were the ones doing the predicting…

  16. Noah 10/10/2008 at 1:35 PM #

    Did Noah actually take a poke at Jim Valvano???

    I wasn’t taking a poke at anyone. I was simply pointing out the difference in perspectives that timely wins will produce.

    Valvano went through the 1980s fairly consistently with starting lineups featuring plenty of NBA talent. In fact, when he was fired, there weren’t many schools in the country that had more active NBA alums than we did.

    And that’s to his credit…since recruiting good players is a big part of his job.

    But his teams were often a mess for much of the season. In 1985 and in 1986, despite having three guys on the roster who would start at point guard in the NBA, we were totally disfuctional in the early parts of the year at point.

    A typical Valvano team would not only drop games they shouldn’t, but drop them in spectacular fashion.

    Rice, getting the hell kicked out of us by UCSB, (barely getting past both Furman and The Citadel in the 83 N/S doubleheader) VPI, Loyola-Chicago, Tampa…

    That same team would always win some games they shouldn’t, and then go .500 in the ACC…but manage to pick things up when post-season rolled around.

    I mentioned Ray Meyer earlier. Meyer would lead Depaul to a spectacular 28-3 record every year. He’d get anyone out of Chicago that he wanted. He’d crank out NBA talent. He’d play…maybe two games all year that were nationally televised EVENTS. Huge games.

    And then he’d get to the NCAA tournament and get knocked out in the second round. Why? Because they hadn’t played anyone all year and the minute they faced a good opponent, they collapsed.

    In basketball, if you have a losing record…but manage to win your conference and then win the national championship, most people would probably consider that a great year. (that’s a bit of a strawman since it’s never happened)

    In football, if you have a .500 record and get into some scrub bowl game and win…most people wouldn’t consider that anything noteworthy (unless you’re the head coach at Temple).

    That’s not a shot at anyone and I don’t know why anyone would interpret it as such.

  17. Wolf Dog 10/10/2008 at 4:15 PM #

    Noah. You first post and now your explanation both just give off bad karma about Valvano. Appears you trying to knock the great job he did do. All coaches lose to some teams they shouldn’t some time or another. But I don’t see Valvano’s tenure at State in the same way you do. Seems you always got something bad to say about every coach that we have or ever have had. Do you get this stuff from your Carolina Blue subscription?

  18. choppack1 10/10/2008 at 6:19 PM #

    I will give Noah some credit and criticize him here:

    First off, to compare Bowden to Valvano is an absolutely horrid comparison. Bowden is saving his season by beating the best teams on the planet and winning championships. Bowden isn’t winning anything. He’s right to a point, that in college football, you don’t have playoffs and a chance to turn things around if you stumble out of the gates. Still, there is no evidence that Bowden’s team EVER play at an elite level against elite competition. Heck, in the ACC the last 8 years, you simply don’t face elite competition. OTOH, V when V won tournaments and regular season titles and national championships, he was beating the elites of the conference and the country.

    Regarding Valvano, I agree w/ Noah’s hidden message, that he didn’t really realize his potential. There was no one – I repeat – no one, who could manage a game like V. The problem w/ V was that he didn’t build what both Smith and Coach K built because he didn’t pay the same time and attention that those guys did to the day to day operations of their program. In a game, V could coach circles around those guys – but in terms of building a program, they ran circles around him.

  19. Wolf Dog 10/10/2008 at 6:39 PM #

    V didn’t have to build a program it was already built, UNC and DUke didn’t go undefeated or win a national championship in the 70s. NCSU did!!! V didn’t destroy the program either I would say he elevated it. Wow he had fire and ice already when he left imagine what he could have added to it. V had elevated our program to national attention and I think if he could have stayed on for the lenght of time that K and Smith did. The best rivalry in college B-Ball might just be State-Carolina instead of Duke-UNC, cause in the 80s State-UNC was a much bigger game than Duke-UNC.

    V left State and did so as a class act. Now that the minutes from his meeting with the UNC Board of Govs. has finally been released we can easily see how big a stink he could have made if he had wished. They say he didn’t graduate his players, yet his Black players graduated twice as often as the average black student at NCSU while he was the coach. He could have had Jesse Jackson, the media, Al Sharpton, and lots of others all over the university for covering up such numbers. Instead he left with his head held high and his love for college basketball and went to work for ESPN. He never bad mouthed NCSU as he realized it was the UNC Board and a UNC biased media that attacked him never the fans and the alumni of the university. We all realized he nothing wrong, never left us high and dry for the UCLAs, sent his kids to our school, and loved us as much as we loved him. The UNC Board of Govenors destroyed our program!

    Yes that was a poke at a man you never knew and clearly still don’t.

  20. choppack1 10/10/2008 at 6:41 PM #

    Just to put some perspective on V’s record.

    He got here in 81 – in 10 sesasons, he had 4 regular season in conference losing records. He won 2 ACC titles. He had winning ACC seasons 4 years, he went .500 twice. Of course, as State fans we have to wonder what could have been if our administation had shown some courage and patience w/ V. The last 2 years we were eligible for the post season, we went 10-4. I’ll always believe that V had us pointed in the right direction and would have righted the ship if he was allowed sto stay.

  21. Dr. BadgerPack 10/10/2008 at 6:51 PM #

    Comparing two things/people/etc. does not imply they are similar.

    I could compare a banana and a rock if I wanted to.

    The broad spectrum picture is in basketball, you CAN piddle in the regular season and peak at the right time and be successfull. 30-freaking-games. (See, not to ruffle feathers I didn’t name any specific coaches.)

    Piddle in football, you have 1 loss and are in trouble for the national title. Piddle more, you have 3 losses and won’t win your conference. Screw the pooch and lose 7 times, you’re under .500. Lose 7 times in basketball, they want to give you an extension.

    The nature of the games themselves (length, how the title is decided, etc.) establish what a coach needs to do to be successful. Basketball gives you a feeling out period. If you are good evaluator, good at adjustments, etc. you can almost make your team peak at the right time.

  22. Noah 10/11/2008 at 10:36 AM #

    I could compare a banana and a rock if I wanted to.

    Yes, but you would be wasting your time if you tried to convince me they were both food.

    Choppack, I wasn’t trying to say that Valvano didn’t realize his potential. I think Valvano HAS to be seen as one of the great coaches in ACC history. And since the ACC during his tenure was the pinnacle of college basketball (during what I believe to be the zenith of that sport’s particular orbit), that says a great deal about his accomplishments.

    IMO, he usually started out with a complete mess of incompatible parts and then by the end of the season, he had molded and hammered and cobbled together a pretty formidable team.

    And my point was that in college basketball, you can afford to do that. In college football, you can’t. Thus…the comparison of college football and college basketball coaches is a poor one. To me. That’s all I was saying. I think Tommy Bowden *sucks* as a coach. I think his offensive gameplanning is idiotic. I was not saying that V and Bowden were comparable coaches and I apologize if I was unclear on that.

    Wolf Dog, you have done nothing but pop up occassionaly in threads and weakly attempt to shame me as some sort of Carolina fan. Let’s be clear: I don’t give a shit. You have my permission to put a web cam in your house and sell subscriptions to a video-feed of you eating your own excrement, if that’s what you want to do.

    But I am curious about one thing – do you remember the event in your life that robbed you of any sort of self-awareness or shame or sense of personal embarrassment? Or was it simply a slow, gradual process?

  23. Dr. BadgerPack 10/11/2008 at 11:16 AM #

    “Yes, but you would be wasting your time if you tried to convince me they were both food.”

    Well, certain bacteria feed off of mineral ores… and there is this food chain thing… 🙂

  24. Wolf Dog 10/12/2008 at 2:22 PM #

    Noah. I don’t know why I get so much attention from you, but you don’t need me to feel ashamed or look foolish. You doing a fine job yourself.

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