Welcome to the first [annual? biennial?] coach's draft!
Just for fun, a few weeks ago I asked some of my fellow sports-obsessed friends if they’d be interested in participating in a fantasy-style draft of college football coaches, and subsequent writeup on a blog. I consider these guys to be insightful and funny, so I thought it would be an entertaining read as we come down the stretch of college football season.
I expected maybe 2-3 to agree and the rest to ridicule me for my dorkiness, but instead I got near unanimous participation. The only exception was from a friend who feared not being well versed enough about obscure college coaches to be competent. [first thought: wow, these friends really like me if they’re willing to put in the effort here! second thought: wow, i’m friends with a lot of opinionated dorks.]
Anyway, we conducted a draft, but we’ll unveil in reverse order. we’ll try to run through one a day, from 50 to 1. Here is the basic premise:
-You are an AD at a neutral location, big budget BCS school. You have average BCS-level players (say, 35th best recruiting classes annually)
-You can hire any coach for a 5 year span. That gives you a balance of recruiting vs scheming importance, without the career hypothetical that eliminates Paterno for being 800 years old.
-Limited it to active coaches. Otherwise you’ve got an infinite pool that deals with larger hypotheticals that make it a less interesting read [“i take bill belichick.” “oh yeah? well i take bear bryant in 1955” “oh yeah? well i take Shiva the Destroyer!”] that could quickly devolve. And trust me, with these guys (myself included), it would quickly devolve.
-Open-ended MVP type voting. Consider whatever factors you like…recruiting, training, preparation, discipline, halftime adjustments, likelihood to bolt for the NFL, likelihood to die of massive cardiac arrest at a Pizza Hut buffet (looking at you, Mark Mangino)…etc
-We used this spreadsheet as a guideline just to throw some names out there to get everyone thinking.
So without further ado, Sean, you’re on the clock.
-Vamsi
