[BostonCard]

Mike McCarthy was fired today.  He won a Super Bowl. Joel Quenneville won three Stanley Cups and was fired a month ago. Coaches get replaced when teams don't perform. If terrible performance is accepted, where does it end?  Stanford should not be #9 in YPP allowed in the Pac-12 given who they have played.

Coaches get replaced all the time. It's partly why they are paid so much. I provided strong evidence for why Anderson needs to be questioned. And looking back on it, was his 2014 success a product of what Derek Mason put in place, so the further away from Mason Anderson is exposed?

Why do I blame coaches? Because they are paid to among other things:

1. Identify talent to fit what they want to do
2. Sell that talent on playing for them
3. Develop the skills necessary to play effectively
4. Install effective schemes
5. Get players to buy into and execute what they are told to do
6. Put players in positions to have success
7. Maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses
8. Properly scout opponents and attack their weaknesses
9. Win

The best head coaches and coordinators get more production than the sum of their individual parts.  Stanford's defense was strong under Fangio, Tarver, and Mason.  It hasn't been as good under Anderson outside his first season, and I would argue Stanford has had more talent by recruiting rankings under Anderson than the previous three mentioned had.

I think most studies about firing coaches shows roughly what you'd expect.  There is a slight improvement in subsequent seasons but it is mostly due to reversion to the mean (a coach is more likely to be fired after a sub-par season, so if that was just random fluctuation, you'd expect improvement the next year).  Over the long haul, coaching makes less of a difference than you would expect.  Remember, Bill Belichick was fired from the Browns, but that says more about the Browns than it does about Bill Belichick.  There are probably a handful of outlier coaches out there (Belichick is probably one), but for the vast majority of coaches who are minimally competent, you are just rearranging deck chairs by firing.

I don't have a definitive opinion about Anderson.  I'd argue that our defensive success has correlated most strongly to our defensive line strength.  At the height of our defense, we had one of the best DL's in Stanford history.  More recently, we have been dreadfully thin at DL, despite the presence of an occasional star (Thomas, Phillips).  I think we are finally at the point where we have the right combination of talent, depth, and experience to have a good to great DL, which is why I am sanguine about the defense next year and believe that next year, Anderson will be much more well-regarded.

BC

[BostonCard]

Mike McCarthy was fired today.  He won a Super Bowl. Joel Quenneville won three Stanley Cups and was fired a month ago. Coaches get replaced when teams don't perform. If terrible performance is accepted, where does it end?  Stanford should not be #9 in YPP allowed in the Pac-12 given who they have played.

Coaches get replaced all the time. It's partly why they are paid so much. I provided strong evidence for why Anderson needs to be questioned. And looking back on it, was his 2014 success a product of what Derek Mason put in place, so the further away from Mason Anderson is exposed?

Why do I blame coaches? Because they are paid to among other things:

1. Identify talent to fit what they want to do
2. Sell that talent on playing for them
3. Develop the skills necessary to play effectively
4. Install effective schemes
5. Get players to buy into and execute what they are told to do
6. Put players in positions to have success
7. Maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses
8. Properly scout opponents and attack their weaknesses
9. Win

The best head coaches and coordinators get more production than the sum of their individual parts.  Stanford's defense was strong under Fangio, Tarver, and Mason.  It hasn't been as good under Anderson outside his first season, and I would argue Stanford has had more talent by recruiting rankings under Anderson than the previous three mentioned had.

I think most studies about firing coaches shows roughly what you'd expect.  There is a slight improvement in subsequent seasons but it is mostly due to reversion to the mean (a coach is more likely to be fired after a sub-par season, so if that was just random fluctuation, you'd expect improvement the next year).  Over the long haul, coaching makes less of a difference than you would expect.  Remember, Bill Belichick was fired from the Browns, but that says more about the Browns than it does about Bill Belichick.  There are probably a handful of outlier coaches out there (Belichick is probably one), but for the vast majority of coaches who are minimally competent, you are just rearranging deck chairs by firing.

I don't have a definitive opinion about Anderson.  I'd argue that our defensive success has correlated most strongly to our defensive line strength.  At the height of our defense, we had one of the best DL's in Stanford history.  More recently, we have been dreadfully thin at DL, despite the presence of an occasional star (Thomas, Phillips).  I think we are finally at the point where we have the right combination of talent, depth, and experience to have a good to great DL, which is why I am sanguine about the defense next year and believe that next year, Anderson will be much more well-regarded.

BC