GatorNation
01-13-2005, 08:22 AM
New SEC coaches must win _ and in a major way
By BEN COOK
January 11, 2005
The Southeastern Conference has added three coaches since the close of the football season - Steve Spurrier for an encore performance and Urban Meyer and Les Miles for the first time. Replacing Lou Holtz, Ron Zook and Nick Saban with Spurrier, Meyer and Miles don't hurt the level of coaching in the SEC. In fact, on most scales it would be considered an upgrade.
Holtz' performance at South Carolina was good, but certainly not great. The Gamecocks never got to the heights expected when Holtz was hired. South Carolina never even cracked the Big Three (Florida, Georgia, Tennessee) in the SEC East.
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When you get right down to it, the Gamecock program seemed to be on a downward slide for the past couple of years. USC might actually have stuck with Holtz a year longer than it should have.
Spurrier is a definite upgrade, although how much magic Spurrier has left after his ego-bruising, mystique-busting time with the Washington Redskins remains to be seen. Spurrier won't have the resources available that he did at Florida, which means mostly a fertile home-state recruiting ground to harvest.
Even though Spurrier had to share the state with Miami, Florida State and a seemingly endless number of smaller Division 1-A programs, Florida usually produced great high school football players than oranges. At South Carolina, Spurrier will have to share the recruiting harvest with Clemson, a team that is leaps and bounds ahead of South Carolina when it comes to football tradition.
The interesting thing to watch will be the Spurrier fear factor. When he was at Florida, coaches did not look forward to facing Spurrier no matter how much they all tried to downplay those matchups. It was generally accepted that he would bring more talent and a brilliant attack into almost every game. It was not always the case, but it was more often than not.
The Fun 'N Gun attack was perceived as an unstoppable, complicated attack when it fact it really wasn't. Mostly it was an aggressive offense, more balanced than you realized between the run and the pass, which was run by an extremely talented group of athletes.
Will that be the case at South Carolina? I doubt it. Still, going from Holtz to Spurrier is an upgrade no matter how you look at it.
The change at Florida from Zook to Meyer is one that will be interesting to follow. Zook left Florida a hero by beating Florida State at Tallahassee in his final regular season game. But before the FSU win, you have to remember that Zook had been little more than an average coach. He was not very popular, still trying to work out of the Spurrier shadow.
Zook was a good guy that people liked, but the perception was that he never had the full backing of the Gator fans and not always the Gator players. After his midseason dumping, he improved his status in their eyes by remaining on to coach the Gators through the end of the season instead of just taking his money and playing golf somewhere
But Florida under Zook was not the SEC East beast that it had been under Spurrier. No matter what he did, it is likely that facing a Zook-led team would never make rival coaches break out in night sweats.
But what about Meyer? He arrives at Florida with a solid pedigree, although at smaller programs. But he is the hot coach of the year. The thought of Meyer bringing the same level of play to the Gators that he did to Utah the past couple of years can be a little scary when you consider how much more talent he will have to work with in Gainesville. He will be coaching against a higher level of coaches, but the chances are Meyer and hold his own and will not be out-coached or intimidated by coaching against the likes of Mark Richt, Phillip Fulmer or Spurrier.
So the bottom line at Florida is the Gators have upgraded their coaching situation.
The one change that will be the hardest to handicap is at LSU where Miles takes over for Saban, who was considered one of the best coaches in the nation.
Miles is regarded as a good coach, but he's not considered great. But Miles inherits a program loaded with tradition and talent after being at Oklahoma State, a program that had very little of either. The Cowboys had enjoyed only one winning season in the 12 years prior to Miles taking over. In four seasons, he went 28-21 and took the Cowboys to three bowl games. That's good production for a school that is a clear No. 2 in its own home state when it comes to tradition, talent and popularity.
There is also the nagging thought that Miles was not the No. 1 choice to replace Saban. He was at best No. 2, and possibly even lower, but he's the one who took the job and he is the one facing the burden of having to replace Saban, a terrific coach but not an overly popular man on campus.
The kindest rating on the LSU coaching change would be push, but that's not really the case. It may turn out to be the greatest coaching move since Bear Bryant left Texas A&M to take over Alabama, but for the moment there is no way to rate the LSU coaching change as a step down.
It's up to Miles to change that assessment and he needs to do it in a hurry. After enjoying the fruits of a national championship just a season ago and knowing there is plenty of talent on campus, the LSU fans will not be as patient with small successes as were the fans at Oklahoma State.
________________________________
Here's the link:
SEC coaching changes (http://reg.commercialappeal.com/mca/web/loginForm?from=www.commercialappeal.com/mca/football/article/0,1426,MCA_478_34)
By BEN COOK
January 11, 2005
The Southeastern Conference has added three coaches since the close of the football season - Steve Spurrier for an encore performance and Urban Meyer and Les Miles for the first time. Replacing Lou Holtz, Ron Zook and Nick Saban with Spurrier, Meyer and Miles don't hurt the level of coaching in the SEC. In fact, on most scales it would be considered an upgrade.
Holtz' performance at South Carolina was good, but certainly not great. The Gamecocks never got to the heights expected when Holtz was hired. South Carolina never even cracked the Big Three (Florida, Georgia, Tennessee) in the SEC East.
Advertisement
When you get right down to it, the Gamecock program seemed to be on a downward slide for the past couple of years. USC might actually have stuck with Holtz a year longer than it should have.
Spurrier is a definite upgrade, although how much magic Spurrier has left after his ego-bruising, mystique-busting time with the Washington Redskins remains to be seen. Spurrier won't have the resources available that he did at Florida, which means mostly a fertile home-state recruiting ground to harvest.
Even though Spurrier had to share the state with Miami, Florida State and a seemingly endless number of smaller Division 1-A programs, Florida usually produced great high school football players than oranges. At South Carolina, Spurrier will have to share the recruiting harvest with Clemson, a team that is leaps and bounds ahead of South Carolina when it comes to football tradition.
The interesting thing to watch will be the Spurrier fear factor. When he was at Florida, coaches did not look forward to facing Spurrier no matter how much they all tried to downplay those matchups. It was generally accepted that he would bring more talent and a brilliant attack into almost every game. It was not always the case, but it was more often than not.
The Fun 'N Gun attack was perceived as an unstoppable, complicated attack when it fact it really wasn't. Mostly it was an aggressive offense, more balanced than you realized between the run and the pass, which was run by an extremely talented group of athletes.
Will that be the case at South Carolina? I doubt it. Still, going from Holtz to Spurrier is an upgrade no matter how you look at it.
The change at Florida from Zook to Meyer is one that will be interesting to follow. Zook left Florida a hero by beating Florida State at Tallahassee in his final regular season game. But before the FSU win, you have to remember that Zook had been little more than an average coach. He was not very popular, still trying to work out of the Spurrier shadow.
Zook was a good guy that people liked, but the perception was that he never had the full backing of the Gator fans and not always the Gator players. After his midseason dumping, he improved his status in their eyes by remaining on to coach the Gators through the end of the season instead of just taking his money and playing golf somewhere
But Florida under Zook was not the SEC East beast that it had been under Spurrier. No matter what he did, it is likely that facing a Zook-led team would never make rival coaches break out in night sweats.
But what about Meyer? He arrives at Florida with a solid pedigree, although at smaller programs. But he is the hot coach of the year. The thought of Meyer bringing the same level of play to the Gators that he did to Utah the past couple of years can be a little scary when you consider how much more talent he will have to work with in Gainesville. He will be coaching against a higher level of coaches, but the chances are Meyer and hold his own and will not be out-coached or intimidated by coaching against the likes of Mark Richt, Phillip Fulmer or Spurrier.
So the bottom line at Florida is the Gators have upgraded their coaching situation.
The one change that will be the hardest to handicap is at LSU where Miles takes over for Saban, who was considered one of the best coaches in the nation.
Miles is regarded as a good coach, but he's not considered great. But Miles inherits a program loaded with tradition and talent after being at Oklahoma State, a program that had very little of either. The Cowboys had enjoyed only one winning season in the 12 years prior to Miles taking over. In four seasons, he went 28-21 and took the Cowboys to three bowl games. That's good production for a school that is a clear No. 2 in its own home state when it comes to tradition, talent and popularity.
There is also the nagging thought that Miles was not the No. 1 choice to replace Saban. He was at best No. 2, and possibly even lower, but he's the one who took the job and he is the one facing the burden of having to replace Saban, a terrific coach but not an overly popular man on campus.
The kindest rating on the LSU coaching change would be push, but that's not really the case. It may turn out to be the greatest coaching move since Bear Bryant left Texas A&M to take over Alabama, but for the moment there is no way to rate the LSU coaching change as a step down.
It's up to Miles to change that assessment and he needs to do it in a hurry. After enjoying the fruits of a national championship just a season ago and knowing there is plenty of talent on campus, the LSU fans will not be as patient with small successes as were the fans at Oklahoma State.
________________________________
Here's the link:
SEC coaching changes (http://reg.commercialappeal.com/mca/web/loginForm?from=www.commercialappeal.com/mca/football/article/0,1426,MCA_478_34)