How important is coaching?

UTSA Fan · April 26, 2016

What has the highest odds of success-great coaching with average players, or average coaching with great players? It is interesting to see the answer as it may shed light on the development vs recruiting needing to be priorotized in a program paradigm. Obviously a program needs both, but which as the primary philosophy?

Edited April 26, 2016 by UTSA Fan

NT93 · April 26, 2016

To answer your question, I say average coach/great players in most situation. That being said, here's my theory:

10% of coaches will win wherever they go.

10% of coaches will lose wherever they go.

80% of coaches will have the record of the talent on the team.

I'm sure we've all heard the quote, "It's not the X's and O's, it the Jimmy's and Joe's."

foutsrouts · April 26, 2016

2 hours ago, UTSA Fan said:

What has the highest odds of success-great coaching with average players, or average coaching with great players?

If I must choose, give me the great players.

Ben Gooding · April 26, 2016

12 minutes ago, NT93 said:

To answer your question, I say average coach/great players in most situation. That being said, here's my theory:

10% of coaches will win wherever they go.

10% of coaches will lose wherever they go.

80% of coaches will have the record of the talent on the team.

I'm sure we've all heard the quote, "It's not the X's and O's, it the Jimmy's and Joe's."

This.

GOMG2013 · April 26, 2016

I would also pick great players average coaching. Coaching has to be at least average though.

But, I have seen bad coaching totally destroy a team with great athletes. Many times I have seen bad coaching not get the most out of talent.

Now if the question were below average coaching with great talent vs great coaching and average talent, I'm taking the average talent and good coaching. I have seen time and time again where a great coach whip a team full of great athletes because they were not disiplined, in the wrong position, lacked fundamentals, and we're not prepared.

oldguystudent · April 26, 2016

I dunno. After the last two regimes, I'd say coaching is pretty important. Not in 100 years would Dodge win at the college game. He just refused to understand the game at that level.

But then Mac was able to take Dodge's players and win with them (I mostly give credit to Skladany for that).

Then, with Mac, when the Grey Goose took control, I think we could've had Joe Montana, Joe Theisman, Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman, and Bart Starr on the roster, all 21 years old, and Mini Mac would still have started every game.

UNT90 · April 26, 2016

Ask Tony Benford.

Then go back and watch every 2012 UNT basketball game.

Both are equally important.

GOMG2013 · April 26, 2016

2 hours ago, oldguystudent said:

But then Mac was able to take Dodge's players and win with them (I mostly give credit to Skladany for that).

I like Mac as a person, and I'm not trying to take anything away from the 2013 season, but in most of our games we brought more talent than the others team. It wasn't ALL due to some great recruiting by Dodge either. We just brought more talent and EXPERIENCE in 2013 than other teams. Some things just fell our way.

Many teams we played had young QBs.

We caught La Tech and So miss, who were usually decent teams in a transistion.

To me, the mark of good/great coaching is how you fare against teams with similar talent, or even teams that have more. Can you get the most out of your players. Do you win the games you are supposed to and pull out an occasional suprise from time to time.

In 2013 we played 1 team with more talent in Georgia.

We played 3 teams with similar talent, Ball State, Ohio, and Rice. We went 2-1. Not bad.

The thing is we lost 2 games against teams with less talent in Tulane and UTSA.

A good coaching staff could have had that 2013 team at 11-3, 12-2 and ranked in the top 20, with a conference championship.

Ben Gooding · April 26, 2016

22 minutes ago, UNT90 said:

Ask Tony Benford.

Then go back and watch every 2012 UNT basketball game.

Both are equally important.

I can kind of agree with this. However, Mitchell was not a team player and I don't think that would have changed a whole lot unless we had Poppovich sitting on our bench coaching him up.

But, without good players you can't win at this level. It has been proven able to win with average coaching. We see it all over the country every season.

Wag Tag · April 26, 2016

10 hours ago, UTSA Fan said:

What has the highest odds of success-great coaching with average players, or average coaching with great players? It is interesting to see the answer as it may shed light on the development vs recruiting needing to be priorotized in a program paradigm. Obviously a program needs both, but which as the primary philosophy?

Player development is the most important. No matter what level player you recruit you have to develop that player to a higher level. I always thought the strength and conditioning coach was under valued!