I think a variance of this is legit where the sport is heading. Look at TENN now with the "Talent Fee". The players are basically employees. Not sure if having a full corporate structure is what it takes, but I love the idea of some form of a "Football Governance" philosophy. Imagine a board of 15-20 CFB minds and former players who really care deeply about the program coming together a few times a year to evaluate the state of the program. A board like that could be involved in a hiring process, player interview process for feedback on the program, fundraising etc. Football is big enough to have its own administration IMO
Exactly. With NIL the conditions are right to take a totally new approach. Mitigate some of the coaching risk by running the club like an NFL franchise. Front office handles recruiting, brand management, etc. Spend most of the money acquiring players. Provide all NFL coaches to develop them for the pros. If they're not effective, replace immediately. Stop chasing the *we have to find the next Saban" model. Those days are gone. The business has changed and now is the time to evolve. If we don't, we'll be playing catch-up to the first program that figures it out.
Not anymore. Personally, I think the NFL has more integrity. At least it has a structure and rules. College Football is more like European Football where the guy with the most money gets all the best players and that gets stratified for decades.
For the most part, what he's suggesting is exactly what those "schools" have done and have been doing before NIL. Is it any surprise how quickly they were able to make the transition? Did you ever consider that Bama and Georgia have had "collectives" going for at least a decade?
You absolutely have to consider the idea of a recruitment team that focuses solely on that. At the very least you will need this going forward, which might be a plus for the actual football coaches. Raise a bunch of money, hire a bunch of sales clowns then just bring the coaches in when it's time to close. Let the coaches spend their time on coaching and game planning. . . and maybe even take some time off once in a while. Let the sales hacks deal with the recruiting garbage.
Well said. Much more efficient and probably better quality of life for all involved. Seems a bit silly to expect coaches to be good at both coaching and recruiting when it's not really necessary any longer.
Yeah, I shouldn’t have used "corporate" because of the negative connotations. I mean it could mirror current structure with a football board of trustees, FB AD, etc.
Disagree, Urban had won everyplace he coached in a big way. SOS too won in places no one else believe he could as in Duke. Also did very will with the TB bandits. There are always going to be some naysayers regardless who the pick is but Urban and SOS was a home run.
Innovate or die was it's own paragraph, separate from the other two because paragraph one is innovative and paragraph two is not. I know exactly what I'm talking about by the way. Does college football today look more like the NFL or more like it did in 1996? By innovating and structuring like an NFL franchise you can mitigate/eliminate a lot of the investment risk that goes along w/ hiring some superstar coach. Same is true if you spend a lot of money and hire a coach from the Sun Belt Conference. Build a front office to manage the players, brand, etc. Hire NFL coaches so you can sell NFL development to recruits. If they don't work out, replace them quickly.
I don't disagree in principle. The problem is, one agent pretty much represents all of the "upper tier" coaches, including ours. Hard to negotiate against that sort of leverage. It's a monopoly that creates value only for its own purposes and not college football fans.
Has to stop somewhere. Colleges like UF can't keeping paying out tens of millions to underachieving coaches all because they have an agent that demands top dollar. Someone has to say kick sand. There is only a small handful of coaches who could demand top dollar but coaches like Muschamp, Mac, Nap need to earn their money.