Memo to Pete Carroll: Take the Money and Run!
Nick Saban bailed on the Dolphins after only two years to head back to Alabama and coach again in college. Successful college head coaches don’t always make good NFL coaches (e.g., Steve Spurrier) because the skill set needed for success is different. That being said, if I were Pete Carroll, I would take the best job offer available–his value will never be higher and USC won’t be as good for a while as they have been over the last few years.
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Written by randomfool on January 3rd, 2007 with
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I don’t watch college football. My friends and coworkers think I am crazy (they are likely correct, but that’s a post for a different day) given than I am such a fan of the NFL. I hear all the time that the college game is more “hyped” and there’s more tradition…blah, blah, blah. I don’t deny those arguments, it just makes me crazy that the national championship is decided by a computer and a vote rather than by a playoff system. I can’t watch football games if I cannot calculate the consequences. I didn’t even watch the Rose Bowl because it had no meaning. The national title game is the only game that matters because the winner will be the national champion…kind of.
Anyway, Nick Saban quit as head coach of the Miami Dolphins today to take the head coaching job at Alabama. It’s no surprise since the move had been rumored for a long time and since he wasn’t really making an impact in Miami. (Read Don Banks’ excellent analysis of Saban’s tenure in Miami.) I really think that the skill set necessary to succeed as a coach in the NFL is very different than the skill set needed in the college game. Setting aside the role of randomness for a second, college coaches are really recruiters first and coaches second. NFL coaches who do not also have general manager responsibilities have to actually focus on coaching because the NFL game is faster and more complicated. In college, the top teams are expected to be undefeated. In the NFL, there has only been one undefeated team…ever.
All that being said, I really think that Pete Carroll should take the NFL money that is bound to be dangled in front of him and run as fast as he can. He has done very well at USC after being a washed-out loser of an NFL coach but, just like the program at USC, Carroll has totally rehabilitated himself and his value will never be any higher. Once downside of his success is that he has set the bar very high and it is very unlikely that he will have success in the next few years on the same level as the last few years. There are already a bunch of coaching vacancies in the NFL, with more on the way. Carroll should get while the getting’s good. Even if he fails in the NFL, as Saban and Spurrier have demonstrated, he can always go back to the college game but with a few extra million dollars in the bank. If he succeeds and wins a SuperBowl, he’ll go to the hall of fame. There’s no downside if he goes to the NFL and only downside if he stays at USC.
Written by randomfool on January 3rd, 2007 with
no comments.
Read more articles on General Folly and NFL.