(11-30-2020 09:02 AM)Love and Honor Wrote: (11-30-2020 12:01 AM)GoldenWarrior11 Wrote: The toughest football job in the SEC, without question. Not impossible, but a lot has to go right to be successful there.
Clark Lea reminds me of Pat Fitzgerald’s placement at Northwestern. Young, alum, from the area, defensive specialist and has a strong history of success coaching defense. However, the last DC hired as a head coach from ND did not fair well at all. You could say he encountered a disastrous ConnFLict.
True about Diaco, but coaches are individuals from unique backgrounds. Just because a lot of New England Patriots assistants have flopped elsewhere didn't mean that Brian Flores was doomed to fail, in fact he's doing a good job with the Dolphins. Also throw in that Kelly has some previous assistants who've had success (Butch Jones, Matt Lefluer, Chuck Martin) and coming from ND shouldn't give any reason for pause.
Vandy was able to benefit from a weak East during a chunk of the 2010s, traditional powers like Florida and Tennessee were down and that impacts them quite a bit. Once Georgia, UF, and even Kentucky started on their way up it really makes things difficult on them beyond their current limitations. They need to make a good hire obviously, but also need to bring facilities on par with the likes of Northwestern and schedule cupcakes in non-conference play so it only takes a couple SEC wins to go bowling. Its not a great recipe, but if they play the same game as their SEC peers they'll lose every time.
It doesn't mean that you are doomed to fail, but - if you are an AD or GM - why would you take a chance on a gamble that has repeatedly shown itself to fail more way more than it has succeeded?
Looking at Kelly's assistants that became head coaches:
Brian VanGorder, 19-25 (at Wayne State and Georgia Southern)
Jeff Quinn, 20-36 (at Buffalo)
Chuck Martin 106-53 (at Grand Valley State and Miami; 32-46 at Miami)
Bob Diaco 11-26 (at UConn)
Mike Sanford 9-16 (at Western Kentucky)
Matt LaFleur 20-6 (at Green Bay)
If I'm an AD, I notice that every single one of Kelly's assistants that have become FBS head coaches have losing records, with majority of them getting fired within four years. Martin does have tremendous success thanks to his tenure at Grand Valley State, but is 14 games under .500 at Miami. LaFleur is an NFL coach, which is nice, but as far as building a competitive and sustainable FBS program, I don't look at Kelly's assistants as being highly sought after.
To the point about Belichick, let's also take a look at his assistants that got head jobs that ended up getting fired with little-to-no success:
Charlie Weis (Notre Dame)
Romeo Crennel (Cleveland and Kansas City)
Josh McDaniels (Denver)
Eric Mangini (New York Jets and Cleveland)
Jim Schwartz (Detroit)
Bill O'Brien (Houston)
Matt Patricia (Detroit)
IMO, the strongest coaching tree within the NFL is Andy Reid's, as two of his assistants have won Super Bowls and many of his assistants have had sustainable runs as head coaches. At the college level, it is undoubtedly Saban, although his has been propped-up in recent years with retreads going to serve as assistants until getting another opportunity (I anticipate Sarkisian, Butch Jones, Charlie Strong, and/or Major Applewhite to eventually get another gig at some point).
For Vanderbilt, I can definitely get on the Clark Lea connection due to reasons previously mentioned. None of Kelly's former assistants that became head coaches had the same connection to a school that Lea would have.