Most Difficult Job of All
2 comments so far
February 15, 2009 by
The magnifying glass that is the Nebraska media and fan nation must feel to Bo Pelini like the ants some kid burns on a hot summer day. Being a college football coach is one of the most stressful positions a person can take in American sports. It's not like pro football where a head coach gets a director of player personnel or a general manager to scout the players they need.
Many coaches in the NFL do like to be their own GM or be supremely in charge (see Bill Belichick), but that rarely works out (see Mike Shanahan). In college, a guy like Bill Snyder is more akin to the GM of the NFL instilling in assistants the authority and drive to get out there to do as much legwork as possible. But for the most part, college football coaches have to be that GM/coach/president of football operations all in one.
While doing all my research on this year's crop of football recruits, I realized I wasn't going to get through all of them in a reasonable amount of time to put together the quality of article that BRN deserves in time for this Monday article. It was through this process of wading through the data available to me on the internet that I came to grow a new respect for the coaching staff at Nebraska.
I am spending the time to look at the recruits that they have already picked out, and the amount of data that I have is limited compared to them. It's still so much to go through that I barely can find the time, and I spend A LOT of time on the computer. There are probably people on Bo Pelini's staff that have spent countless hours pouring over stats and video of young men playing high school football all over this country.
Pelini and company probably looked at highlights of game film for every recruit. Say there was a 5 minute clip for each game they were in the last few years. That could mean 8-10 games for each of the 21 recruits in one year. They probably looked at junior and senior seasons, too. And they did it for the walk-ons and junior college players, as well. Not to mention all of the other players they looked at that they did not offer. We're talking about a minimum of 100 players, at up to 100 minutes of footage each – that's over 160 hours. And I'm sure someone didn't just watch that stuff once.
Thinking about the time and effort put into recruiting by a guy like Pelini, I wondered what he does specifically in terms of recruiting. Does he delegate film watching to certain staff members? Does he expect highlights or basic reports from his assistants? Well, really, it depends on what category of coach he falls into. First I had to ask, what styles of college coaching are there? I came up with these categories: big time recruiters, player developers, game managers, general managers, crowd pleasers, booster pleasers, on-field leaders, off-field leaders, and losers (shout out to our old friend Billy C).
So far, we've seen a lot of passion from Bo, and some convincing recruiting grabs, but I think his area that we will see excellence is in player development and leadership. He's a guy that's going to take what kids he can, and mold them into players that excel beyond even what they are expecting. The overwhelming consensus appears to be that this year's recruits are good, but just only good. Their greatness is yet to be determined. Will this staff be able to develop the type of guys who win championships? I'm sure they will.
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Greg Morrow Feb 18 09
Interesting perspective, Tom!
No doubt, it's a big job. The organizing of regions and contacts, to help with where top players are. Making sure time isn't wasted. Even in Texas, it's not like walking into an apple orchard. Plus the many suitability factors. Even Nebraska, not yet a top tier recruiter again, had a few they liked but didn't offer.
That was a concern, about Bo's recruiting. So far, his first two classes, because of the lack of obvious reaches, look better than Callahan's first two. However awesome the '05 class looked at the time, his last two have provided more players who can play well.
Pelini's classes appear to be already at that level.
But now, I'm guessing he's on the hunt for just a touch more of the top end speedsters (who are qualifiers) somewhere out there.
tom Feb 18 09
It's interesting that you bring up Texas, because I sort of had that state in mind. The problem there and in many big football areas is that they have high schools that develop some players better than many colleges. You could be picking up a player whose development is maxed out. There is no doubt that many of our recruits may not be as developed as a top 100 guy, but they appear to have a higher ceiling of potential than the average run of the mill high schooler. Bo will take them as close to that ceiling as they will go.