Imagination or Stagnation

 The title is perhaps a bit unfair to programs. Not having an imagination is largely a charge that is going to be heavily slanted toward subjective vs. objective.

Still, one only needs to read the headlines of the hiring carousel in the NFL right now to see the same names being cycled through. Yes, most coaches earn a second or third or more shots at sitting in the top chair, but time and again, we see the same names. 

Which means the same names typically get the top chair and don't keep it. 

Let it be said that coaching at the level where results begin to matter or only matter is difficult. There are 32 teams in the NFL and only 32 head coaching chairs. The typical support staff for the head coach has more slots than that. 

With that being said, a question does emerge. 

If X former head coach at X franchise with these resources did not get the job done, what is the difference when the same head coach moves to another franchise with similar resources? In some cases, it's growth or an evolution of schemes and management. An easy example would be Peter Carroll was seen as a failure after his stints with the Jets and Patriots, demolished the playing field at USC and then led Seahawks to unprecedented heights while running the show in Seattle. 

In other cases, a coordinator turned head coach stumbles and falls, rehabs their career as a coordinator to land another head coaching position only to stumble again. A lack of growth or perhaps they're better at the responsibilities of being an assistant rather than the mountain of tasks required to be a head coach.

One of my favorite head coaches at the NFL level is currently searching for a job and will likely land one of the open positions. Perhaps it's not a matter of resources and instead a reflection on stability and ownership. I am fairly certain 31 out of 32 NFL franchises are owned by billionaires who have the ability to build or recruit whatever they need in order to put their team in a position to do well and yet many of these billionaires may not be billionaires if the decisions they make as owner were reflected in their business decisions. Or perhaps they don't understand that building a business is quite different than building and running a professional sports franchise.

We can go on at length. 

What inspired this was an article on ESPN about Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti and how the Hoosiers, traditionally an awful football program, are one victory away from completing a 16-0 season and winning a national championship. While their opponent might be a tad surprising for this season, Miami is historically considered a blueblood or close to a blueblood in the sport. 

A non-trad is doing exceptionally well, so they must be doing something illegal. Afterall, it wasn't long ago that a blueblood of the sport was caught in a sign stealing scandal so the logic is that if that program was doing it, Indiana, the newest kid on the block experiencing this level of success - sustained from the previous year - must be doing more. 

But I go back to what I said about the same names cycling in the NFL and the title. Imagination. Coach Cignetti's career timeline is known thanks to Wiki and sites such as ESPN. What we don't know as a public is how many times he applied for jobs that turned him down. 

Reading into his history, the knock against him isn't his assistant career, but his head coaching trajectory. Victories, yes, but at Division II, and then the second tier of college football at the FCS level. And then another FCS program that transitioned to an FBS program. 

Based on what you can read, there are few athletic directors who would look at that resume and believe that it's one that could provided a needed jolt to their morbund football program. A sparkling win/loss record, but FCS. Power 5 or Group 5 (With the death of the Pac-12 conference) schools. Alabama sure, but Elon. JMU. 

It's my belief that the hiring cycle, regardless of level and regardless of sport is mostly the same. Call it my cynical nature, but I believe most hiring committees choose to look at the bluebloods and those who've come from "It" programs and think, "They'll bring that pedigree or instant credibility to our program." Perhaps as has been often discussed and dissected, we can build our version of the "Patriot Way," and experience that level of success. 

My belief is that the issue isn't that programs want to emulate the success they see at these programs. My issue and the issue that I believe results in them failing exponentially more than succeeding is that they look at the wrong end of the timeline. The shiny, exciting part that draws everyone's attention is the end result, the finished product, the mechanisms and formulas and approach and philosophy and culture that churns out trophies and high finishes. To me, that's buying a state-of-the-art (insert name of thing) and expecting that by doing so, you know how it works, what led to this version, know intimately how it works, and that the lessons learned along the ways - the almosts, the damn that sucked, etc. - come with it or are magically solved. 

And that's not the case. Sport talks often about how there aren't any shortcuts to sustained, consistent success, and yet every year we see individuals and programs trying to jump ahead several years, and falling short only to be in the cycle, again. 

Doomed to repeat.

I don't believe there is anything wrong with emulating a program culture or success so long as you understand it and work to make it yours. Not by slapping your name on it, but understanding the process front to back and then working to make it something that fits where you are. The Patriots are in Foxborough. Unless you're employed by the Patriots, you're not in Foxborough so perhaps acting like you're in their facility isn't the wisest choice. 

There was a story that came out after the 2004 Olympics where a coach of an unnamed collegiate program found all the numbers and data used by the US Men's 8 who won gold. This coach, allegedly, purchased the same boat, same oars, rigged exactly the same and...

And nothing. If you believe the story. I think it's less a true story and more to what I'm talking about. It didn't work because the coach didn't have the knowledge acquired in building that lineup. They didn't have the workouts, or metrics, or data, or athletes. They had the paint, they had the blueprints. They had no knowledge on how to build it. 

To wrap this up, because I could go on forever, I reference the article because one of the anecdotes I go to is that anyone could have hired Coach Cignetti but allowed a resume that didn't necessarily shine with the same brand names and blueblood to determine his value and worth. Great win percentage but...

I can say with much certainty, similar to what we saw in the NFL with Coach Shanahan and McVay in San Francisco and Los Angeles, that this hiring cycle and for the next two or three, programs who are looking to make a change or have changed head coaches will be looking to hire coaches from lower tier programs or the FCS, DII level. Sport is often reactive, rarely proactive. Again, that lack of imagination, it takes someone to go through the wall, and succeed before someone else will go through the wall.