I thought I would start a new topic on this as my post on the latest ND thread was a bit of a change of topic. You gentlemen have serious work to do analyzing the state of the Irish and reporting your findings to the appropriate authorities! So I pick up where Terry left off: 1. Do NFL teams spend more hours per week in practice? My hero Bill Callahan *SNARK* cut Husker practices back to three per week with catastrophic results. I assumed that was based on his NFL habit. 2. Really? I've seen NFL teams play with lots of emotion at times. Even if it is less intense than the college game, all pro coaches have coached or played college ball at some point. You would think they would understand at least the importance of emotion when they came back to the college game. 3. Maybe. I would think that scholarship players at D-I schools have been taught the basics in competent high-school programs, which is not to say that they always use what they know. Only rarely do you see a college player who didn't play at all in high school, they have to know quite a little about the basics to make the team. That said, players continue to develop in college and may have to master a much more complex system then they had in high school. 4. I doubt it. If the pro coaches are guilty of groupthink in their strategy and college coaches are not, a creative college coach (such as the freaky Mike Leach) should be able to go to the pros and demolish the conformists. We don't have many examples of this happening. Doubtless the style of play is different but you have to admit the rules differences are pretty trivial. I'll get to my own theory after while. . . ~Matt
1. I think recruiting is one major factor. If the asst coaches can cultivate the individual relationships with the recruits and the HC can come in a clinch, then he will have the talent he needs. 2. Asst coaches that can coach technique and recruit. 3. RahRah stuff. These are not adults. They are kids from all sorts of backgrounds and they need to learn how to play ball and they need to be motivated emotionally. The X's and O's are the same at college or pro level, and the game day stuff is pretty much the same also.
I think the problem is the distribution of talent. Everyone in the NFL was selected from a huge talent pool, they are all the best of the best athletes. There are not enough elite athletes to fill all the college positions so even the best college teams have weak spots. The best college game plans are built to exploit opponent's weak spots. That is why I think the running game in particular is relatively unimportant and boring in the pros. The best college coaches get extraordinary contributions from average athletes. This is where emotion might come into play. One of Callahan's (numerous) mistakes at Nebraska was to focus all his time and attention on his best skill players and neglect the supporting cast that it takes to win in college. By contrast, Osborne made a career of getting ferociously motivated but athletically limited Nebraska farmboys and building them up as much as possible in the weight room and on the practice field. Nebraska knew how to get passable talent from places nobody else even looked. A side benefit was that the walk-ons worked so hard that they shamed the stars into better effort. I think college game plans also exploit the uneven distribution of talent. Callahan's West Coast Offense absolutely requires a very skilled and educated quarterback. Unfortunately, Cally couldn't come up with NFL-level talent at QB. Keller and Taylor may have been above average but they aren't NFL talent and Cally pretended to be a great recruiter because he could send kids to the NFL in his offensive system. Callahan got rolled by teams like Kansas that have lesser talent but get far more contribution out of every player. I'm interested in other peoples' theories on the question. ~Matt
Sharp Electronics is a major sponsor in virtually every major professional sports venue. I own a company that markets Sharp's office equipment exclusively. Sharp is frequently invited to travel with either the Jets or Giants in this area to games. I get invited to go every year. Last year I went with the Jets to Cleveland. I was in and among the players for an entire weekend. Rode with them, sat amongst them, slept in the same hotel on the same floors, ate meals with them, rode the buses, on the field for the entire pre-game and in the owners box as Woody Johnson's guest for the game. Those guys are the finished product. They don't have to be taught anything but the playbook. Emotion is kept very low key right up to game time. Even during the games it is at a minimum. These are the greatest players in their sport... game planning at this level makes the difference. It is strictly a business. College football is a learning game. These guys are raw talent; they are running on pure testosterone. They need guidance, emotion, school spirit. They need to be coached in the fundamentals. Charlie Weis came to ND thinking he would turn the college game on its ear. He even said that all things being equal his game planning would prove the difference. He has since won one big game in his three years. I expect you'll see a completely different approach from Weis from here on in. Or you'll see a new coach. I'm hoping for the former.
It is interesting to me that the bulk of ND fans are being patient with Weis. Perhaps ND has had enough bad coaching hires the last several years that they know its not good to fire a guy in frustration and roll the dice on his replacement. It is SO cool that you got that kind of access to Woody Johnson and the Jets. Perhaps you observed that players and coaches don't watch what fans watch when they watch football. Interesting too here that the Jets are one of the worst teams in the NFL and there is STILL no lack of raw talent or training and development. I think we fans attribute too much of success in college football to emotion because we fans get all emotional about it. Many, many great coaches show almost no emotion on the field. We attribute things to emotion because we don't see 99% of the game that happens in the weight room, the film room and the practice field. Tom Osborne never showed much emotion anywhere but he knew game planning, player development, shrewd recruiting and playcalling. I think all of those play a bigger role than emotion. Teams that get all stirred up also tend to get a lot of personal fouls called on them; those make games a lot harder to win.
NYC I'm also a Texas grad/fan and we see the difference between Mack who is a cryer emotional type of guy who wants to give hugs to everybody and Stoopsie who at least from what I see is the direct opposite a kickass high energy coach. Our Texas teams play like Mack and the OU teams play more like Stoops. Now I know there are plenty of examples where just the opposite is true and going Frank Kush on your players isn't cool anymore but still I like coaches with intensity...gimmie Vince Lombardi please!!
NYC, There's not a dimes worth of difference between the best and the worst in the NFL. The league is designed for everyone to go 8-8. More about Woody Johnson tomorrow.
good topic <r><QUOTE><s> </e></QUOTE> I think its more on target that we know the difference between good coaching and bad coaching. Davie wasn't a horrible coach, his sin was that he simply wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box and he loved to have an excuse for everything.<br/> <br/> Ty was/is awful, and worst, lazy.<br/> <br/> Emotion plays a factor in college because you are dealing with mental maturity and maximizing talent. There are vast talent gaps between the various teams. Knowing how to maintain focus, while still having the ability to get kids up for 'the big game' is an art form. Too many people blame a coach for a team playing flat once or twice a year, that is going to happen. Knowing how to negate that and motivate the team to work through it is what makes the great coaches, great.<br/> <br/> Fundamentals.. Teaching fundamentals is paramount at the college level. We see more kids contributing around the country at an earlier age because the instruction of fundamentals has improved vastly in the past 10 years.. However, it is still lacking. There is so much that these kids simply do not know by the time they walk on the practice field as a college freshman...</r>
Well, the first thing you notice is that they are just normal people. I sat next to Nick Mangold going out which was cool because we each not only both come from Dayton, Ohio but played( in different eras ) at arch rival high schools. I sat next to Chad Pennington coming back who was very nice. They spend the whole flight out looking at game plans and listening to their I-pods. They are all in suits and the trip is definitely "work" to them. The ride on the bus to the game is interesting.... absolutely no talking aloud. As our five buses arrived at Browns Stadium we were greeted by a chorus of boos and obscenities from the Browns fans. We were part of everything except the team meetings in the hotel and the lockeroom. We ere on the field during pre-game and then they put us in seats on the 50. We ere there for one quarter when a Jets rep came down and said that Woody Johnson would like us to have lunch with him at halftime in his owners box. We got up there and he personally greeted us at the door. Filet mignon, crab meat, shrimp etc , a full dessert cart and full bar were ours. He spoke to each of us individually and then asked if we would mind watching the second half with him. He was intense during the game action, several times having his assistant call down to the bench and question strategy. It was a great experience. First class all the way.
George, Fascinating stuff. I would love to see the game from the inside sometime, I'm sure it looks much different than what we fans see, even the most devoted fans. Interesting that they wear suits while traveling. Any idea why that is? I'm sure emotion has a lot to do with why the college game is different than the pro game but I wan't to make sure we are not confusing our own "fan" emotions with the emotions of those actually involved in the game. Example from "Moneyball": Billy Beane and the Oakland A's shrewdly traded Jason Giambi (I think it was) to the Yankees when it was obvious that he was worth more than the As could pay him. It was a good deal from the A's perspective. When Giambi came up to bat in Oakland the fans booed and called him a traitor. Beane has no hard feelings toward Giambi whatsover, he was a success story for Beane. Often fans, ESPECIALLY the most passionate and devoted fans, don't have a clue what is really going on with their teams. Like the Brown's fans who boo and heckle the Jets who are calmly listening to their Ipods and studying playbooks. They must look like complete idiots to the Jets players, no less to the Browns. The emotions of the fans have no effect on what happens on the field; what happens on the field has everything to do with determining the mood of the fans. We fans tend to overestimate our own effect on what is happening. ~Matt
I like your input here, NYC Husker. It's a fascinating new "science" in sports to try to put a quantitative spin on why things happen the way they do. It works quite frequently too as the A's can somewhat attest. However, the World Series title they covet has thus far eluded them. I think that in the age we live we tend to "overquantify" things and by doing so, we overlook what a significant role raw human emotion can play when you're talking about human beings.
Aquila, Good point. I don't want to go overboard and say emotion doesn't matter. No doubt it does. My point is that we fans are about 99% emotion to 1% logic when discussing our favorite teams; George's experience with the Jet's highlights how much different the game looks to the people actually calling the shots and running the plays. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis is the story of Billy Beane, the manager of the Oakland A's and his ability to win with a limited payroll by identifying bargain-basement talent among players that wealthy teams like the Sox and Yanks overlook. The book was an instant classic and changed how a lot of people watch baseball. It swelled the ranks of the statheads and rotisserie baseball types who have long been attracted to baseball as a sport where statistics can lead to real intelligence about how to win the game. It is true that this approach has its limitations. The Baseball Prospectus book has a chapter titled "Why Doesn't Billy Beane's **** Work in the Playoffs?" The answer is too long to get into. And Michael Lewis does not ignore the college game, an even more unfair game than Major League Baseball. He wrote an EXTREMELY long and entertaining article in the New York Times Magazine on Texas Tech's Mike Leach as the Billy Beane of college football. Needless to say, Leach's **** doesn't really work in the race for the BXII South. His teams tend to either win by huge margins or lose by huge margins. Innovation and outside-the-box thinking doesn't necessarily translate to wins. But a quantitative and analytical way of thinking helps me get by my own passions and prejudices about my favorite game. This way of thinking asks a lot of "why" questions like "why do NFL coaches fare poorly when they take over college teams?" I think there is a more concrete answer than "emotion." I think that finding the answer will tell me something important about why we love college football. If you haven't read Moneyball, get it and read it. It is short and extremely funny and entertaining. I heard A's manager Billy Beane speak at a business conference and they handed out free copies of the book. This book singlehandedly turned me into a baseball fan (I had no previous interest) though of the Yankees, not the A's. ~Matt [/url]
Be sure to read the Mike Leach piece that I link to above. It is also a very entertaining bit about how a whack-a-doo lawyer who never played football worked his way into a head coaching job in a BCS conference. There is fodder for a dozen arguments in that article! ~Matt