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New USC Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - Printable Version

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Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - fullmetal - 12-03-2013

No way Saban leaves Bama for anything.  At least, that's my bet.  Malzahn to Texas is the latest rumor.  But I'm not even sure Mack Brown is really gone after the season--there's still a chance.  But with his buddy Deloss Dodds gone...and with the recent program decline, yeah.

Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - pincemob - 12-03-2013

Quote:I think that it's far too early to have any confidence in Oregon's decline. It's entirely possible that this will turn out to be a brief period of success after decades of mediocrity that they will sink back into, but I sort of doubt it.

I can't be sure, but I think mediocrity is statistically very likely.  Try to name programs to sustain success (through 3 coaches / 20 years) with the following traits:

- History that ranks in the lower half of their conference (i.e. national titles, bowl record, Voldemort winners, NFL HOFers)
- Not in a warm weather / destination location
- No local recruiting
- History of running afoul of the NCAA/law

If Helfrich is a prodigy who decides to stay long-term, then they could probably sustain some success.  Same if Kelly were to return (my Oregon friends are really hoping this is the case).  Short of maintaining a truly amazing coaching staff, they have few unique assets.  The facility/uniform edge they had is pretty much gone.  Nor will they (in my opinion) revert to the Bellotti recruiting strategy of taking a lot of bad actors who were fast. 

Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - stupac2 - 12-03-2013

(12-03-2013, 09:43 PM)norcalcard link Wrote:I can't be sure, but I think mediocrity is statistically very likely.  Try to name programs to sustain success with the following traits:

- History that ranks in the lower half of their conference (i.e. national titles, bowl record, Voldemort winners, NFL HOFers)
- Not in a warm weather / destination location
- No local recruiting
- History of running afoul of the NCAA/law

If Helfrich is a prodigy who decides to stay long-term, then they could probably sustain some success.  Same if Kelly were to return (my Oregon friends are really hoping this is the case).  Short of maintaining a truly amazing coaching staff, they have few unique assets.  The facility/uniform edge they had is pretty much gone.  Nor will they (in my opinion) revert to the Bellotti recruiting strategy of taking a lot of bad actors who were fast.

Well, can you really name a program that has sustained success indefinitely? They don't exist. Alabama was recently a laughing stock, Michigan has been an afterthought for several years now, so has Texas. USC has had periods of irrelevance. Even the bluest of college football blue-bloods have down spells, it's inevitable. So mediocrity isn't just statistically very likely, it's basically guaranteed.

The question that matters is When will they take that downward turn? After all, it's pretty trivial to make a prediction without a future date on it and eventually be "proved right". I'm quite confident that sometime during our lives Oregon will be a bottom-dweller, at least for a few seasons. But why do you think it's going to be in the next few years? Do you even?

What I meant with my comment is that I can't see any reason to expect Oregon to be a ~0.500 team in the next few years. If they're going to decline, I don't think it'll be soon, I think it'll take a while. But I'm not very confident about this, and can definitely be convinced otherwise.

Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - pincemob - 12-03-2013

Quote:The question that matters is When will they take that downward turn? After all, it's pretty trivial to make a prediction without a future date on it and eventually be "proved right". I'm quite confident that sometime during our lives Oregon will be a bottom-dweller, at least for a few seasons. But why do you think it's going to be in the next few years? Do you even?

If Helfrich is no prodigy and Kelly does not come back, then I predict Oregon will be a 7-5 type program in 3 years.  In 5 years they will be a 5-7 program with the occasional 3-9 season

I think sustained success is having a few dominant years in every decade (10+ wins, BCS bowl), and showing that dominance across more than one coach.  A place like Virginia Tech has had sustained success but all with one coach.  Same for a Penn State or BYU.  I would put Texas in the "sustained success" category, along with Alabama, SC, Ohio State, Wisconsin.  Florida State might be entering that category now.  Washington was there, but has blown it with the Tyrone/Sark era.    Miami may be losing it also.  I think it is more likely Oregon goes the way of UW than of those sustaining schools.  Will they go all the way to 0-12?  Maybe.  I definitely never thought UW would get there.   

Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - stupac2 - 12-03-2013

(12-03-2013, 10:18 PM)norcalcard link Wrote:If Helfrich is no prodigy and Kelly does not come back, then I predict Oregon will be a 7-5 type program in 3 years.  In 5 years they will be a 5-7 program with the occasional 3-9 season

Well, yes, if Oregon's coaching goes to hell in a handbasket then they'll regress significantly, we all know that. What I'm not sure about is if we can be confident at all that Helfrich is a bad coach. There are some signs that point that way, yes, but at the same time coaching transitions are rarely seamless (Shaw was fortunate to have Luck during his, I'm sure that covered some of the seams), and even coaches who turn out to be fantastic (like Kelly) tend to have poor first years. I think you're assigning a probability to Helfrich fizzling that isn't justified by this first year.

Though if they bomb their bowl game I may come around to your view.

Oregon's Floor - Farm93 - 12-03-2013

Sorry I am not buying the 3-5 win stories. Oregon can have a really bad coach and they still have at least 4 games where they will be heavy favorites each year.

Oregon sells out their venue and has megadonor resources, so they can buy 3 OOC cupcakes.  Also, unless things change a lot Oregon will be better than OSU.  So that gets them 4 pretty solid wins each year.  I would subscribe to the idea that they probably could win 50% of the other conference games over the long haul, given their crowd noise they probably can do better than 50/50.  So that likely puts their over/under each year at 8 with a mediocre coach or 9 or more with a good, but not great coach.
In order for Oregon to really fall apart they would need UW to start stealing their recruits.  That could happen, but I am not sure a team without a coach should be expected to outperform a team with a 10 win level coach and a Voldemort hopeful in 2014.

Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - ATLCard - 12-04-2013

I also don't buy the 3-5 win regression-to-the-mean stories.  I think people are completely missing the fact that Oregon is now a national brand, not the Oregon of my memories.  I live in SEC country, and kids wear Oregon paraphenalia and say Oregon is their favorite team at a rate never seen out here for a West Coast school.  Not at all for UW when they were so good, not for Stanford over the past four years when we have been at least as good as Oregon, not even for S.C. during their Pete Carroll run (although S.C. is the only analogy even close).

I don't know how much of this is the style of play (which may very well regress) and how much of it is the Nike influence (which is here to stay and is a major factor), but I think the net in terms of money/facilities/exposure/attractiveness to recruits (and coaches) is not going to evaporate quickly and therefore Oregon is likely to stay at least a very good team for a very long time.  Their only negative is location, but is it significantly worse than Tuscaloosa or Columbus for example?  And as a national brand they don't really compete with UW, Oregon State, etc. for recruits -- their key recruits are not from the Northwest.  They are not going to stay a 10 win team forever, and I won't be surprised by the occasional 7-5 seasons they are going to have, but they are not going away soon.

Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - OutsiderFan - 12-04-2013

It's hard to imagine Oregon falling too far.  Then again, who ever thought Tennessee, Texas, and Florida could ever hit the lows they have recently?  Not having a big recruiting base is a pretty significant risk to Oregon, that's why they have had to build as national brand.

It's pretty clear to me Helfrich doesn't have "it" as a coach.  He may be a great X and O guy, but I'm really not seeing the things in him that make me think he is going to be anything but a big drop-off from Kelly.  It just seems unlikely to me that Huff and DAT would have said the stuff they did about the Rose Bowl if Kelly was the coach, and I don't think Stanford leads Oregon 26-0 at the end of 3 quarters with Kelly as HC either.

Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - dabigv13 - 12-04-2013

I doubt that last bit OF...Oregon players did and said a lot of dumb things when Kelly was coach.

Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - washingtonismoney - 12-04-2013

(12-04-2013, 10:05 AM)dabigv link Wrote:I doubt that last bit OF...Oregon players did and said a lot of dumb things when Kelly was coach.

A lot of those were extracurriculars that didn't necessarily imply a boredom or entitlement with the game itself. Huff and DAT's comments suggested they didn't much care about winning, which is worrying regardless.

I used to wonder why mediocre talent kept getting rehired... - Mick - 12-04-2013

(12-03-2013, 05:24 PM)garvin link Wrote:An interesting Seattle Times column evaluating the job Sarkisian did at Washington.

http://www.yakimaherald.com/sports/1720911-8/withers-after-moderate-success-another-sarkisian-surprise

...I've been close to senior talent hires for a number of years now, and I'm never surprised any more when mediocre people get hired to very senior roles.  Once CEO of a very large bank told me -- not confidentially -- that doesn't hire the smartest people, he hires people he likes to work with, as long as they're "smart enough."

Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - FarmBoy - 12-04-2013

Quote:Once CEO of a very large bank told me -- not confidentially -- that doesn't hire the smartest people, he hires people he likes to work with, as long as they're "smart enough."

That doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, there's probably good justification for it. You don't need to be a genius to do well in business, but you do need to have good "people skills" along with being decisive and hard working. Being the smartest guy in the room doesn't mean you're going to get the promotion. And the CEO's benchmark for "smart enough" doesn't rule out people who are very smart.

Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - Mick - 12-04-2013

(12-04-2013, 11:05 AM)FarmBoy link Wrote:
Quote:Once CEO of a very large bank told me -- not confidentially -- that doesn't hire the smartest people, he hires people he likes to work with, as long as they're "smart enough."

That doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, there's probably good justification for it. You don't need to be a genius to do well in business, but you do need to have good "people skills" along with being decisive and hard working. Being the smartest guy in the room doesn't mean you're going to get the promotion. [glow=red,2,300]And the CEO's benchmark for "smart enough" doesn't rule out people who are very smart.[/glow]

My concern isn't that it rules out smart people, my concern is that it doesn't necessarily rule in smart people, particularly in disciplines with which the hiring person is unfamiliar.

So overall, I don't disagree, but in a very competitive business climate, I think you have to balance your talent mix very closely with the "likeability factor," particularly at CXO levels.  This specific CEO hired a real head scratcher for a CMO.  It's his second CMO hire, the first one did nothing for 18 months, then left for a much better job.  Be interesting to see where they stand in two years.

Re: New University of Spoiled Children Head Coach: Steve Sarkisian - fullmetal - 12-15-2013

An interesting article from the WSJ on "second-hand stress" in the workplace.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303497804579242203005473122