There are no absolutes in coaching approaches

When coaches take over a program, you hear two different messages
about the approach they should take between “win now” and “it will
take a couple of years.”

Though you could apply that approach to high school athletics, I’ll
mainly focus on college and professional sports. In my years of
covering sports as a reporter for 18 years and 37 or so of following
as a fan, I have heard everything from things to the effect of “We
don’t have time to wait, we want to win now” to “We are building
for the future” to “We don’t rebuild we reload,” It’s as if there were
no in between.

There are no absolutes except for the fact that whether you are
inheriting a team that has won at a high level for several years and
has the roster to continue that trend or a team that needs a rebuild,
you play and/or coach every game by trying to win every game that
is played. You play to win the game. I’m not trying to patronize
Herman Edwards, who coined that phrase, but you get the point.

However, you are naive if you think the scenario of every program
a coach takes over is a one size fits all argument. For openers,
every coach is going to want players that he believes fits his roster
for the scheme he wants to employ.

The objective is not just to win now but to win consistently. The
problem is that the pressure to win immediately is enormous that
oftentimes coaches are not given the time to truly establish a
bankable culture. Coaches like Bill Belichick, Gregg Popovich,
Tom Izzo, Mike Krzyzewski and Geno Auriemma to name a few
are the exception not the rule. Those coaches have been with
their current team for at least 20 years.  

The best analogy to apply that holds true across the board is that
a coach taking over a team is like buying a house. You can have
the best countertops and cabinets but if the foundation is faulty,
the home is not going to last through storms. The foundation of
the team are intangible things like leadership and strength and
conditioning. It’s not necessarily an advantage to have those
things because most if not all teams that win at a high level have
those qualities. It’s more of a disadvantage if you are deficient
than it is an advantage if you are proficient. From a leadership
standpoint, bad teams have little to no leadership, good teams
have coaches that are leaders but great teams have players
that are leaders. Ask any coach that has lead his team to high
level success and they will tell you how vital it is to have players
that are vocal leaders.

Thinking as a fan, I ask “What approach do you want your newly
hired coach to take?” I don’t worry about playing or coaching to
win because their job is tied to such results. I mainly want a coach
that is honest about the situation he is inheriting. If for example,
Nick Saban suddenly retires as Alabama’s football head coach.
For openers, that would be an unforgiving position for any
successor as Saban has led the Crimson Tide to six National
Titles in 12 seasons. For that person, the approach should be
something to the effect of “I know I have big shoes to fill but we
are committed to continuing the success that was established
under Coach Saban.”

If you are Nebraska’s Scott Frost, and I use him as an example
because I’m a 1997 NU graduate and diehard fan, you take a
different approach. Nebraska was once college football royalty
from 1962-2001. From 2002 to present, the Cornhuskers have
been good but not great with a few bad seasons. In a nutshell,
Nebraska has been maddeningly inconsistent under Bill Callahan,
Bo Pelini and Mike Riley. In 2017, Nebraska became a 4-8
laughingstock under Riley.

I speak from experience, Nebraska fans, even in their team’s
darkest times, expect high level success but while Frost said
provocative things like “We hope the Big Ten has to adjust to
us,” he emphasized that turning the Huskers into a winner
would not be an overnight process. In 2018, the Cornhuskers
went 4-8, just like the 2017 team under the aforementioned
Riley. The optics of 2018 were much better with the team
starting 0-6 but finishing 4-2. Next season, however, a more
competitive version of 4-8 won’t cut it. That 4-8 needs to at
least flip to 8-4.

Allegiances aside, teams that need to be rebuilt also need
deadweight to be flushed out of the program. Which means
attrition needs to happen. Any reasonable fan should
understand.

For a coach taking over a rebuild, the prudent message would
be to the effect of, “This team/program has fallen on hard times.
It’s going to take a lot of work to become a championship team
but we are committed to getting there.”

While that phrase may sound like coachspeak, the key is to
undersell but over-deliver.