Congratulations,
North Carolina. You
managed to hire someone completely unqualified to be your next football coach. You did that thing so many schools do where they try to win the press conference instead of win football games. It rarely works.
I realize I may get excommunicated from the football world for daring to question the merits of a six-time Super Bowl champion coach. But let’s remove the name Bill Belichick and replace it with Coach X. Here is who North Carolina just hired:
• Coach X has never coached a day in college football. He has never recruited an athlete. He has never had to deal with the transfer portal or NIL collectives. His dad was a college coach, at Navy, but that was 35 years ago.
• Coach X is known for being grumpy and introverted, two traits that don’t often go hand in hand with wooing recruits, glad-handing donors and giving motivational talks to 18- to 22-year-olds.
• Coach X made his first post on Instagram — which he referred to as Instaface at the time — on Sept. 4 of this year. He has since posted eight more times. He may not realize that many college athletes, particularly recruits, communicate primarily via social media.
• And Coach X is 72 years old, just one year younger than the guy he’s replacing,
Mack Brown, as well as his buddy Nick Saban, who got out of coaching this year at least in part because, as he said at the time, “When you get to 72 years old, it gets harder and harder to promise people you’re gonna be there for four or five more years.”
But Coach X does have those Super Bowl rings. Which he’ll surely wear when he meets with recruits and potential transfers. Who will then say something to the effect of, “That’s great, but how much am I getting paid?”
Unless Belichick can magically restore eligibility for Tom Brady, I fail to see how this will end well. I’ve seen this movie so many times before: Big-name
NFL coach comes to town vowing to turn the program into an NFL organization in college.
Bill Callahan
and his master plan to scrap Nebraska’s famed triple-option offense for the West Coast offense.
Charlie Weis and his “decided schematic advantage” at
Notre Dame.
Herm Edwards and his vaunted “
new leadership model” at
Arizona State.
Lovie Smith, with no discernible plan of any kind at Illinois.
Inevitably, school and coach soon realize that what works in the NFL doesn’t necessarily work in college. (And vice versa.) And yet … they just keep falling for it.
www.nytimes.com
