New Coach - Trent Johnson

LSU appears to have hired Stanford's Trent Johnson as its new basketball coach.  At first blush, this hire does not have a "wow" factor to it.  I don't know much about Trent Johnson, and he wasn't really a guy talked up on the media circuit in the 2 months since John Brady was fired.  However, Les Miles didn't have a wow-factor in his hiring either, and he has turned out great.

When this announcement was made, it introduced more questions than answers.  Why is he leaving Stanford for LSU, a move most would consider a downgrade?  What does he bring to the table?  Is he a recruiter?  Is he a motivator?  Is he an X's and O's guy?  

Some of these questions began to be answered by reading former Stanford great Mark Madsen's blog.  Of course, I try to read Madsen's blog every day, if only to find out if he's going to be in any dance-offs soon.  

Madsen says of Trent Johnson:

"This man deserves the very best because he is a first class individual and one of the best basketball minds in the business."

"Trent Johnson is one of the best communicators in the basketball world."

"He's secured multiple Sweet 16 performaces, a huge recruiting pipeline into Los Angeles, Oakland and throughout the East Coast, as well as one of the best X's and O's coaches in the nation."

That's enough for me for now.

Out With a Whimper

Any positive momentum gained by the men's basketball program in the closing weeks of the season was dampened yesterday by its ignominious and unceremonious ousting from the SEC Tournament, which also ended the team's season. Let's hope it does not end Anthony Randolph's career.

What's worse, because of the early weekday start time, no one with a regular 9-5 job like myself got to actually see it.

Strangely, for the first time in a while, LSU actually had scoring balance. The swing shifters, the college students, and the unemployable all got to see a balanced scoring attack that saw five Tigers score in double figures, but saw no one take over the game for the Tigers. Randolph and Johnson got their points, but also committed turnovers, and couldn't keep the mediocre Gamecock frontcourt off the scoreboard. Thornton hit for 17, but shot well under 50% from the field, and missed a lot of 3-pointers. Garrett Temple wasn't his usual self, as he fouled out in just 26 minutes and was held scoreless. As a result, South Carolina's good guards ran roughshod over us at times.

So now it's time for the basketball team to regroup for next year, probably under a new coach. I like Butch Pierre, but I think his only real chance of keeping the job was if we made a serious run in the tournament. For all the talk of improved play, which is true, this team was still only barely above .500 with Butch as head coach. He'll catch on somewhere though, and we'll probably see him as a head coach somewhere at some point in his career. He did and admirable job, but I think the basketball team needs an experienced head coach who can bring excitement to the program.

Who is that? Well, the three I keep hearing are Tim Floyd, Anthony Grant, and Mike Davis. Tim Floyd is currently coaching USC, and he has major Louisiana ties. He's also reportedly been interested in coaching the Tigers in the past. I don't know if he'd leave USC at this point, as they seem to have something pretty good going on despite a mediocre season this year.

Anthony Grant is currently at Virginia Commonwealth, and you have to think he'd jump at a chance to coach in a major conference. I can think of no real downside to hiring Grant. His teams have had success at VCU, having gone to the second round of the tournament in his first year. He was a long time assistant under Billy Donovan at Florida, and you have to think he'd love to come back to the SEC as a head coach. There are no guarantees he'd be successful, but he's a legitimate candidate who would bring excitement to the program.

Mike Davis is currently at UAB. He has been a head coach somewhere every year since 2000, and he took his Indiana team to the NCAA tournament finals in his second year. He has had success at UAB, and according to many has made that school the best basketball program in the state, which is a pretty substantial compliment considering UAB is a C-USA school and there are two SEC schools in Alabama. Since his trip to the Finals, however, he has only been to the NCAAs twice and has not advanced past the second round. He has not taken UAB to the NCAAs yet, and may not be able to do so this year after losing early in the conference tournament. His team finished second in C-USA, but Memphis pretty much sucked all the air out of that conference this year.

Players love Mike Davis. When Davis was fired from Indiana to hire Kelvin Sampson (that worked out great for them, didn't it?), one of Indiana's best players, Robert Vaden, transferred to UAB to be with Davis and sat out a year. He's been UAB's best player, and has real pro potential. Instead of going to the NBA, he decided to sit out a year and follow Mike Davis. Davis also got a commitment from one of the best players in the 2009 recruiting class in DeMarcus Cousins, who made it clear he'd go wherever Davis was. Davis, then, is a package deal with a 5-star power forward.

Things to think about.

If I was the one making the decision, I don't know which of the three I would ask first. All have their plusses and minuses. Floyd may not want it, and isn't exactly a charismatic guy. Grant is inexperienced as a head man. Davis is pretty close to the dreaded label "retread". I think we need charisma and excitement, but we could also really use a Demarcus Cousins.

My Hero

I had no posts this weekend because I was off visiting in-laws in north Alabama. Plus, you know, there's not that much to say anymore. But the week is now fresh and much is happening.

Thank you Rich Rodriguez. Thank you for ending this farce and letting us all get back to the business at hand, which is trying to read the minds and analyze the psyches of 18-19 year old athletes picking a school.

I like Rich Rodriguez as a coach. His track record is beyond criticism at this point. This is a man who took Tulane to an undefeated record, and made West Virginia a football power. He is, at that level then, a miracle worker. But Michigan is a different kind of job. Unlike with places like Tulane and West Virginia, Michigan has a lot of people attached to the program who think they're just as qualified to run a team as anyone in the country.

And I'm not just talking about the coaches.

Michigan has Tradition with a capital T, which can be a good and a bad thing. It's a good thing because good players want to play for Michigan. Good assistants want to coach at Michigan. Good donors want to give money to Michigan.

It's a bad thing because a lot of those people don't want you to change the strategies that made Michigan the power it is and has been, even if it's not keeping up with the times. Think about how the Bama team has occasionally been held back by forces that did not want to change the 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust strategy that Bear Bryant rode to great success. I'm not a fly in the wall at Michigan booster meetings, but I'd sure like to be. Are they going to be excited about bringing a spread option game to the Midwest?

On the flip side, does Rich Rodriguez have the flexibility as a coach to adjust to the players that Michigan has? Michigan does not have a fleet-footed athletic quarterback at the ready. It has a tall, strong-armed Sasquatch of a sophomore quarterback returning next season in Ryan Mallett. This kid has all the makings of the next Jamarcus Russell, which is a very good thing, but Jamarcus could not have played like Pat White and should never be asked to. Can Rich Rodriguez achieve a level of comfort with a pocket passer while he waits for his recruiting classes to build his team the way he really wants it?

I'm not going to speculate out loud on the answer, but I will say that it is ALWAYS dangerous for a successful program to change coaches. A really good coach and a storied program don't always come together to make football magic. See Franchione, Dennis and Texas A&M. You just don't know how it's all going to work, and the biggest name is not always the best fit.

Also this week, LSU begins practice for the BCSNCG, and recruiting continues unabated. Today, 5-star Kansas linebacker Arthur Brown makes his decision known. LSU is in the final group, and Brown has been very closed-mouthed about where he's going. We haven't gotten the usual signals we get. Smart money is on... well, the smart money's sitting this one out. It would be something of a surprise if he picked LSU, but not a shock. Linebacker is a position where a young player could come in and compete for playing time right away at LSU, and then compete for championships. I don't know if it will happen, and I'm not making any kind of guesses, but Arthur-Brown-to-LSU makes a certain amount of sense.

If he commits to us, I'll certainly have more to say about it tomorrow.

Don't we have a game to play?

Amid all the distractions, we have a game to play. Let me tell you, I don't have a really good feeling about it. All the intangibles seem to be going against us. We're dealing with the imminent loss of our head coach, and our defensive coordinator is busy interviewing for other jobs. We're coming off an emotionally devastating loss in triple overtime. Even more key players are injured, including our starting QB, who may not be able to play.

Word around the campfire is that Les Miles has told the team he will be leaving. Pelini expects to get the Nebraska job and may take an assistant or two with him. Will there be anyone around to coach this team for a bowl game? Will Jacob Hester put on the headset and call the plays in January? The man does everything else, so why not?

We definitely have coaches for this coming game, but you have to wonder if their hearts are in it. Honestly, I'm not sure my heart is in it.

I'm sure the players' hearts are in it though, and that's the most important thing. They still have a lot to play for.

As for the new coach, the three most talked-about names remain Spurrier, Saban, and Del Rio. Between the 3, I like Del Rio the best, but I think I would prefer an experienced college coach currently coaching at a different level. Like, for example, Troy's current coach Larry Blakeney, who has made Troy into a consistent threat.

Poseur and I have talked a lot over the years about why NFL coaches don't necessarily translate to college and vice-versa. The reasons are myriad, but it comes down to the basic fact that the two jobs require different skill sets. A college head coach has to go into parents' homes to recruit. He has to deal with the fragile egos of 18 year olds who for the first time in their lives aren't the star players. He has to deal with the X's and O's of the college game, which is in some ways simpler and in some ways more complex than the pro game. It's simpler in that, because there's a lot less practice time than in the NFL, you can only make your own playbook complicated up to a point. It's more complex in that the teams you face will have a LOT more variation in their own playing styles than you will see in the NFL. There simply aren't two teams in the NFL who play offense more differently than do Florida and Bama. Or Kentucky and Arkansas. And let's not even get into Hawaii and Army.

A college coach also has to teach his players to play football, a task that generally is not needed in the NFL. In college, a coach will have many players who have simply never had competent instruction in their lives. You'll have a running back who, though talented, was never taught how to hold a football so as to avoid fumbling it. You may have a cornerback who has no idea what slide stepping or inside technique are. Or worse, you may have a cornerback who has never played cornerback. You just don't see this in the NFL nearly as often.

In college, the game is emotional, where in the NFL, it's a lot more analytical. A college coach is expected to "rah rah" his way to his players' hearts, whereas an NFL coach who tries that is generally laughed at.

I don't want to get completely sidetracked on this topic, so if you want to read more about why NFL coaches don't necessarily translate to college, read Stewart Mandel's column from earlier this month, about Charlie Weis. It also goes the other way. See Saban, Nick; Spurrier, Steve.

I would model the search on Ohio Stat's eventual hiring of Jim Tressel. They looked far and wide and eventually came up with a guy no one had ever heard of, but who ended up being a terrific coach who was absolutely perfect for their program.

There's reason not to do that, of course. Recruits like to see a splashy, sexy hire. It would definitely pay some immediate dividends to go out and steal away a Nick Saban from Bama or a Steve Spurrier from South Carolina, or any big-name coach from any program, really. It would provide a shot of excitement into any program, energizing fan basing and catching the attention of potential recruits out there.

In the long run, it could be a mistake though. Much more important than making a sexy hire for short term gain is to make a smart hire for long term gain. Hire someone with the management skills to handle a modern major college head coaching position, which is less about X's and O's and more about Human Resources Management, leaving X's and O's primarily to assistants.

Despite all that, I think Del Rio actually has the potential to be a good college football coach. He seems to have the fiery personality that serves college coaches well. He doesn't seem to be the detached analytical genius that excels in the NFL but fails in college (see Weis, Charlie). Further, he has a lot of ties to the area and it seems like he'd stay at LSU until LSU no longer wanted him, adding much-needed stability to a program that has lacked it for decades.

Plus, you know, recruits like to see coaches it NFL experience. Having a former NFL linebcker as our head coach may help with guys like Arthur Brown and Ryan Baker. (I know! I know!).