FurmAlum wrote: ↑Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:02 pm
Florida wasn't good because it was Florida, it was good because they had Spurrier. The tradition means a little but the coach means a lot more. Duke wasn't good when they had Bucky Waters, they became good when they hired Coach K. And they've been good for a long time because he's been there a long time.
UNC went from good when Dean Smith was there, became awful when Matt Doherty was coach and went back to good when Roy Williams came. Same thing with Kentucky.
In football Notre Dame was bad when they had Gerry Faust and even Alabama was bad with Mike Shula.
As for USC, in my opinion, firing any coach before the end of the season, at least in college ball, is Bush League, and the Lamecocks are the epitomy of Bush League.
And giving a coach 7.5 M to leave after what he did is bad, and paying any coach 13M to leave is shameful. Just shows how dumb they were to make that deal.
FurmAlum, I agree with a lot of what you post. Coaches are certainly a driving force - huge!
But some schools do have more tradition and also
more leeway with regards to academics / players they can recruit etc. I don't see Vandy or Duke winning a football national title anytime soon - not in the modern age. To that point, with the
same coach we have 3 different schools ... and vastly different results:
Spurrier at Duke - 20–13–1
.600 win percent ... and to my point if you are .600 at Duke that is seen as great
Spurrier at Florida - 122–27–1
.820 win percent in a much harder conference
(82-12 vs SEC)
Spurrier at USC - 86-49
.640 win percent in the very same SEC
(44-40 vs SEC)
Same coach and yet vastly different win percent at Florida than the other schools