What are the critical items a football head coach must do?

[Brad]

I'm hearing everything from the obvious - like, recruiting, to sillier things like "how he talks", walks etc.  Seriously, tell me what makes a difference in any coach, anywhere.

I'd like to assess those qualities.  Please, those of you ready to rush in with "get a W", you can sit this one out. 

Please provide your list of critical ability/skill/experience that you think to be most important, listing them in order of priority.

Thanks.

[JTrue]

7 minutes ago, Brad said:

I'm hearing everything from the obvious - like, recruiting, to sillier things like "how he talks", walks etc.  Seriously, tell me what makes a difference in any coach, anywhere.

I'd like to assess those qualities.  Please, those of you ready to rush in with "get a W", you can sit this one out. 

Please provide your list of critical ability/skill/experience that you think to be most important, listing them in order of priority.

Thanks.

For a college coach:

1) recruit

2) X's and O's (or knowing what you don't know and hiring the right assistants, nothing wrong with being the CEO)

3) sell the program, fundraising

[El_Toro_86]

I agree with the above and I’ll add player development.  Taking 2 and 3 stars and turning them in to 4 stars.  Also, psychology and motivation plays a big role.  Being able to understand the psychology of your team and what motivates individual players and tapping in to that to get them to be their best.  CJL was fantastic at both of these qualities.

[thekidnapper]

I think the answer is mostly have good luck or the talent to convince people to play above their ability. It can't be personality because there have been coaches that have ranged from maniacs to gentlemen that have won. Places like Wake Forest have been successful and their recruiting class rankings are consistently paltry; you can't control it someone comes to your university anyway. Different offensive schemes have been successful from Air Raid to Triple Option. 

[Outlaw]

2 hours ago, Brad said:

I'm hearing everything from the obvious - like, recruiting, to sillier things like "how he talks", walks etc.  Seriously, tell me what makes a difference in any coach, anywhere.

I'd like to assess those qualities.  Please, those of you ready to rush in with "get a W", you can sit this one out. 

Please provide your list of critical ability/skill/experience that you think to be most important, listing them in order of priority.

Thanks.

Win but you need to do several things in order to win. 

1) Recruit

2) Develop talent

3) Run schemes that matches your players

4) Game planning

5) Game Management

6)Show significant progress in your deemed specialty like offense, quarterbacks, defense etc...

7) Improve the strength and athleticism of your players with good strength training and injury prevention program

8)Identify assistant coaches that can recruit and sell your vision

9)Build relationships and pipelines with top high school programs in your recruiting grounds.

10) Sell and fundraise for the program. If you are winning this will improve especially if you are winning big games or big bowls.

That is my top 10.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Outlaw

[Bull Matrix]

Wake up and realize what they have been doing has not been working. Taggart talked with everyone he knew when things were going bad. He even had his old high school football coach help.  I don’t see any direction right now to be honest. Just a hodgepodge of nothingness…

[puc86]

I’ve never hired a head football coach but the main thing I think is an issue which I have continued to harp on is I hire people to fill the needs as I define them in overall nature of the functional business we have in place. I have no issue with people accomplishing their goals by any number of proven or reasonable ways but they should be in tune with what they are here to do based of what has proven to work here. 

We do in fact hire people to be football coaches which is fine and dandy, but if I have a car dealership that sells Hondas and we are doing quite well at it but then you after months of not selling determine the issue is you can’t sell Hondas and we just need to liquidate all the Hondas start bringing In Bentleys but the only way you can get Bentleys is to build a new showroom and a new shop. But once you get those things it turns out you still can’t get Bentleys because it turns out that people prefer to get paid the most for their inventory more than they care about what you do with them at that point we have a problem. 
 

VPMK is right about continuity but continuity of the program and not the individual will pay off more than hoping someone that watched something somewhere else can hopefully reinvent that here in a few years starting with none of the necessary parts. Also if recruiting is where we see the biggest indicator of success vs failure we should cut out the middle man and start investing that money directly in recruits instead of all the ways we continue to demonstrate you can spend money while not getting them. 

I really don’t want or need the coach to be the all encompassing parts of the program but just one of the three parts of the people, processes and product. They would have weekly meetings with a committee where we review the improvements that can be made and if we need to reevaluate any of our approaches based on the results we are seeing in our current mix of opponents and ourselves. At the end of the season we would explore all parts of the department and if we need to pivot anything based on the trends we are seeing from that year. 

The coordinators will have been selected based on their fit into the systems we have selected and would be the hiring pool for when the coach inevitably leaves at which point that coordinator would be replaced with the next them. 

In short we want more from coaches than they can be reasonably expected to deliver when they do not have any of the components they think are necessary for them to be successful. They then are not able to control the factors of production they need to be successful in any timeframe anyone would find reasonable and they will either be successful and then leave or fail and then leave at which point we spin the giant wheel and hope we get lucky.

That is not a process that can repeatedly produce results and we need to make the components of success more independent and repeatable so that whoever steps in is ready to be successful on day one because they were hired to run a system these players are equipped to run and when they need more of them we will buy more of them instead of relying on boyish charms and powers of persuasion that seem to land flat more often than they land as hoped and imagined. 

[Brad]

28 minutes ago, Outlaw said:

Win but you need to do several things in order to win. 

1) Recruit

2) Develop talent

3) Run schemes that matches your players

4) Game planning

5) Game Management

6)Show significant progress in your deemed specialty like offense, quarterbacks, defense etc...

7) Improve the strength and athleticism of your players with good strength training and injury prevention program

8)Identify assistant coaches that can recruit and sell your vision

9)Build relationships and pipelines with top high school programs in your recruiting grounds.

10) Sell and fundraise for the program. If you are winning this will improve especially if you are winning big games or big bowls.

That is my top 10

Tinged.  Rent free in your melon. 

[Brad]

This is not an invite for the continued commitment and concern about making every topic a chance to provide the sane thoughts on Jeff Scott that you provide in multiple other threads.  

[Outlaw]

38 minutes ago, Brad said:

This is not an invite for the continued commitment and concern about making every topic a chance to provide the same thoughts on Jeff Scott that you provide in multiple other threads.  

You are the only person to mention him. I am telling you what I think it takes to be a successful  college coach.