Some Attitudes about USC Football are changing

What I’m curious to see is how much of a “program” usc then will have

Traditionally, the head coach has been the god of football at the school. He controlled the script, the practices, the recruiting what the press learned or knew. He controlled roster management, defensive, and offensive philosophies. He was the god of football.

Now we start to see athletic directors get involved in investing, large sums of money in offensive and defensive coordinators each of whom build their own staffs and in most cases look like head coaches and waiting. Either at that school or another. We have seen schools develop strength and conditioning and nutrition programs pretty much independent of the football team, but of course they served the football team. Now we see universities building personnel offices, which clearly can endure a coaching change.

So if you fast forward a couple of years you find that the head coach leaves. The massive commitment to facilities means they still have that to sell. If the entire personnel department works for the university and not the football coach, they are still in place. like the NFL I could see teams, switching head coaches and keeping the entire offensive or defensive staff in place because that side of the ball has been doing well. The NFL sometimes does that.

The strength and conditioning program and the facilities and the kitchen and the nutrition people all stay the same.

We are Devo. Devo believed, as we advanced in society we actually were victims of de evolution. Football coaches are soon going to be simply their title, which is head football coach no longer God of the program God of football, and if this guy leaves our entire program from recruiting to strength to fundraising to facilities fall apart.

if you want to see what this looks like. In the extreme? Look at the Los Angeles Dodgers that is an organization. Probably the finest in professional sports and they have everything covered. Obviously it’s a different sport but when it comes to international scouting player development, minor leagues, high school scouting, contracts, negotiations creativity, big money, sponsorships, free agents, they have at all, obviously.

What do the dodgers not need? A$10 million a year manager. I bet Dave Roberts makes about $1 million a year a happy talk to press to pretend that he’s deep and thought about things. To walk through the locker room and pack guys on the shoulders and give them the kind of advice you can find in a fortune cookie while every bit of roster management, every bit of development and frankly all of the situational and strategic decision decisions are made by other people, charted and scripted

Will it get that ridiculous for college football? Not right away, but I could absolutely see this being the end of stratospheric escalation of head football coaching salaries. I could see them staying about where they are and frankly they’ve kind of stayed fairly stagnant the last couple of years Lincoln Riley signed his $10 million a year deal 3 1/2 years ago and he still one of the top five or six highest paid coaches. That tells you that at the top of the game things are stagnating.

But we know the money keeps escalating. Where is it going? It’s going to players it’s going to GM’s. It’s going to coordinators.

And meanwhile, the head football coach is quickly being maneuvered and positioned into being merely the head football coach

Yeah, that is where it’s heading and it’s moving fast. The HC used to run the whole thing. I recall Pete saying how at USC he could pick all his players without a GM and others being involved. That is no more. I still think, for now, the HC is the last word but that will likely change in the future. To where the GM is involved in the HC hiring process. The next TV contract will be even bigger making the war chests larger. It’s an arms race the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Cold War. I just hope USC is America and Oregon/Notre Dame/ Ohio State, et al are Russia and its client states.

Some programs have been at this awhile.

Oklahoma had an AD for football and an AD for the rest of the sports.

Urban Meyer had football only staffers that had nothing to do with the athletic dept.

SC doesn’t like change, but they’ll figure it out. Having an AD like Jen makes a huge difference.