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For Pilot and GBL...only because I totally feel the need to snuggle up right in between the love fest. Please understand the place that I'm coming from is sincerity and any inference in tone is completely unintended...snarky opening line not withstanding :)

Also, please know that my background is limited in both of your areas. The closest I got to playing organized football was rocket league, 9th grade team (totally dominated...for like a week), and marching band in HS and while at WMU. I also am pretty good with NCAA Football 09 on PS3. I would literally house anyone on here. Okay, not true, most of my elementary students would likely score 3-digits on me. I am a HS coach, but of a different sport. And I did ask Coach Molde a few questions one, but that was at a Bronco Band Concert where he used to come and conduct the band. Although, I never wrote it down. But, that is really all I come to this with.

I would like to think that we could all agree that there are cream of the crop, top of the world coaches...but they are very few and far between. There are also absolutely HORRENDOUS coaches, but I also think there are few of those as they tend to get weeded out. Most coaches fall somewhere in between. Most coaches are the victim or benefactor of circumstance, talent, fit, relationships, injuries, strong winds, ball bounces, beneficial calls, etc. I have had the same record at the end of the season in years where I have completely coached my ass off with a less talented team as I've had when the talent was through the roof but there was just never a gel.

The question that I have is pretty simple.

In the great Fleck v Lester debate, that never seems to die on this forum, was either appreciably, the better coach?

This is actually why I love college football so much. The amazing characters that you get at the college football level in the coaching ranks. You've got the Bill Snyder's of the world who could LITERALLY be most of our grandpa and still connecting with his kids and finding varying degrees or success. You've got the Mike Gundy's that would make me nervous sitting next to me at a bar. You've got coaching traditions handed down in the family like Skip Holtz or where football IS the family like the Stoops. You've got people that kick the doors down and light the world on fire like PJ Fleck and you have the coaches that come in, work their way up through the ranks, and coach directly from the heart like a Molde or Lester.

I honestly don't think...saving a handful or two...that there are many college coaches that are incapable of being very successful. At the same time, I would say there are only a handful that are capable of reaching the pinnacle of what the average college football observer would consider "The Top".

I think that both Lester and Fleck fall in with the rest of the majority and I'm curious if there is anything that either of you have seen or heard that would convince me otherwise.

(10-10-2018 06:39 AM)AFLAGWA Wrote:  For Pilot and GBL...only because I totally feel the need to snuggle up right in between the love fest. Please understand the place that I'm coming from is sincerity and any inference in tone is completely unintended...snarky opening line not withstanding :)

Also, please know that my background is limited in both of your areas. The closest I got to playing organized football was rocket league, 9th grade team (totally dominated...for like a week), and marching band in HS and while at WMU. I also am pretty good with NCAA Football 09 on PS3. I would literally house anyone on here. Okay, not true, most of my elementary students would likely score 3-digits on me. I am a HS coach, but of a different sport. And I did ask Coach Molde a few questions one, but that was at a Bronco Band Concert where he used to come and conduct the band. Although, I never wrote it down. But, that is really all I come to this with.

I would like to think that we could all agree that there are cream of the crop, top of the world coaches...but they are very few and far between. There are also absolutely HORRENDOUS coaches, but I also think there are few of those as they tend to get weeded out. Most coaches fall somewhere in between. Most coaches are the victim or benefactor of circumstance, talent, fit, relationships, injuries, strong winds, ball bounces, beneficial calls, etc. I have had the same record at the end of the season in years where I have completely coached my ass off with a less talented team as I've had when the talent was through the roof but there was just never a gel.

The question that I have is pretty simple.

In the great Fleck v Lester debate, that never seems to die on this forum, was either appreciably, the better coach?

This is actually why I love college football so much. The amazing characters that you get at the college football level in the coaching ranks. You've got the Bill Snyder's of the world who could LITERALLY be most of our grandpa and still connecting with his kids and finding varying degrees or success. You've got the Mike Gundy's that would make me nervous sitting next to me at a bar. You've got coaching traditions handed down in the family like Skip Holtz or where football IS the family like the Stoops. You've got people that kick the doors down and light the world on fire like PJ Fleck and you have the coaches that come in, work their way up through the ranks, and coach directly from the heart like a Molde or Lester.

I honestly don't think...saving a handful or two...that there are many college coaches that are incapable of being very successful. At the same time, I would say there are only a handful that are capable of reaching the pinnacle of what the average college football observer would consider "The Top".

I think that both Lester and Fleck fall in with the rest of the majority and I'm curious if there is anything that either of you have seen or heard that would convince me otherwise.

This is a good point and it is important to keep the NY6 year in context to a degree. Fleck was not a miracle worker-- if we had a bit more difficult nonconference slate then no undefeated season for us. But that's any season, and they still won every conference game by 2+ TD until the championship game.

I don't know or care what happens to PJF going forward but I think it's fair to say he's capable of reaching the pinnacle at our MAC/G5 level because he did it.

I did kind of touch on your paragraph about personality differences earlier. Lester clearly has something about him thats very different from the previous regime that still allows him to recruit well. I will say though-- and this speaks to the administration as much or more than the previous staff-- I don't think he's recruiting at this level without some of the facility upgrades etc. But that doesn't diminish what he's doing.

I will admit I and others have been a bit harsher than I would have been because I didn't like the hire to begin with. That's obvious and human. But I stand by the original sentiment. It reeked of legacy hire and nepotism and that is weak to me. He has every opportunity to prove that wrong though.

(10-10-2018 06:50 AM)wmubroncopilot Wrote:  I don't think he's recruiting at this level without some of the facility upgrades etc. But that doesn't diminish what he's doing.

I see the value in your points. I would also say that the above statement is true of Fleck. I think his ability to connect with big-money donors AND strong recruiting combined to help create the perfect storm. I would imagine the legacy that you leave as a coach is that you want the PROGRAM to be better when you leave it. There are always going to be good and bad TEAMS or years within a program. I do think the program, on the whole, is better for PJ having been here.

Now is Coach Lester's turn to see if he can create the ideal set of circumstances so that he, too, can leave the program stronger than when he started. If the continued recruiting is any indication, I think he has a punchers chance. I think it interesting to look back a little in time to Lester's time here and I would argue that he was a catalyst for some of the program success we've been able to enjoy in recent years. Power 5 recruit coming in and kind of starting the stream of QB records and successful players. Facility upgrades in earnest started around that time. Etc.

I know it is just hyperbole, but many of the players on the team would have run through a wall for Fleck...but I don't know if they would "take a bullet for him". If Lester is anything the coach like he said Coach Molde was to him during the presser, the kids might not be running through walls, but they might be willing to take that bullet. Either one is "buy-in" and buy-in breeds success.