I’m coming out of the wood work for this one. Probably won’t respond anymore either. I read the board but this is first time I’ve logged on in months maybe even a year or more I don’t know.
For the record, yes I resigned. My wife wasn’t happy and I wasn’t able to spend much time with my kids. Believe it or not, one of the reasons I resigned is one of the long time defensive coaches at VT and I had a big heart to heart. He informed me that he does have some regrets with how much family time he missed out on through coaching. Seeing his kids all grown up made him realize just how much he had missed. All I’ve ever wanted to be was a great husband and father. With that in mind I decided to resign and move back home to Wayne County to raise my kids in a rural setting surrounded by countless family members and cousins they see every day.
Now having all of that out of the way. I’m not here to bash any coaches. Wouldn’t do any good for me to do that. All I will say is there are plenty of people on this board who know just as much about football as ANY D1 coach. Honestly, it’s not rocket science. You might have different terminology but it’s the same stuff for the most part. Obviously there’s different styles/mindsets. They might know their offense/defense philosophies better but that doesn’t mean they know football better than anyone on this board.
IMO, the biggest difference between a good coach at this level and a bad to mediocre coach is the organization, attention to detail, ability to motivate, and the ability to TEACH. It doesn’t matter how much you know if you can’t effectively communicate that information. As for head coaches it’s all about assembling a good staff who does those things effectively. In game coaching the HC should be able to recognize momentum swings, properly call timeouts/manage the clock, know when to go for it on 4th/2point conversion (there’s actually a service who prepares a book before each game based on each team telling you to go for it in this situation based on weather, yard line, D&D, time left, and how you rate your kicker.)
Probably the most important of all are the drills within your scheme and effectively using practice time. Breaking down each portion of your offense/defense with drills is extremely important.
I will also say that the lack of full support staff honestly is a big concern of mine for Marshall. The more people you have to break down film/tendencies the better.
As for recruiting which is obviously important. Believe it or not when a new recruit is mentioned the staff will literally go to their 247 account to see who they have offers from. All recruiting starts on Twitter. You can probably tell every kid each coach is recruiting just by seeing who they follow on Twitter.
Y’all feel free to carry on. Just been reading a lot lately and saw my name mentioned. I have no regrets about resigning. Also for the record I was there on staff for around 8 months and worked directly with the QBs. I volunteered the first two months or so as that was part of the deal when the job was offered. It was never meant to be a full time volunteer position and I wasn’t a volunteer when I resigned. I go to the coaches convention almost every year and have multiple friends on D1 staffs right now including old college team mates on staff at Houston, Auburn, Toledo, and my old college room mate at Memphis. Have friends at multiple others now as well. This position kind of fell in to my lap so I wanted to give it a shot, I’m glad I did it as I now know 100% that I’m happier being a family man living in southern WV. Speaking of which, my little girls are ready to go out and gather eggs from the chickens so I’m going to go back to my quiet little life.
God Bless you all and Go Herd!