Talent Vs. Coaching

[GrandGreen]

It is somewhat amazing to me, the number of fans who use the no talent argument to explain the poor start by NT. The talent level of this year team has got to be greater than the previous year with the number of experienced players returning and the additions. Many of the DD critics last year opined that the talent was there but the coach was not. Now, there are many that blame the season on the talent level and think it will be years before the talent is good enough to compete in the Belt. Apparently most of the players became much slower than they were last year, although many were praising the speed of many of the players before.

Others believe that the team has just not learned the defensive and offensive schemes because it will take years to master. They have had the spring, pre-season, and now 7 games in the season to install their offensive and defensive strategy. If the majority of a defense or offense can't be implemented in that time frame, is it really ever going to be effective with players changing every year? Variations of the offense are being run by hundreds of high schools and the defense to me looks if anything fairly vanilla.

IMHO the biggest problem facing the Green is an inexperienced coaching staff and their learning curve is greater than the team's. NT has one coach that has been employed at the 1A level with his currently assigned duties within the last ten years. NT also has one other coach that has an extensive college background but has been switched from offense to defense.

Almost all are familiar with TD's fabled background. But how many realize that the offensive and defensive coordinator experience is totally as high school assistant coaches. Likewise the defensive line coach has never coached above the high school assistant level, the wide receivers' coach does have high school head coach experience but no college coaching background. The corner back coach has extensive college experience but hasn't coached prior to joining TD's NT staff for ten years. The offensive line coach has a solid university coaching background including several years at NT. The safety coach has seemingly the best pedigree having been a college offensive coordinator for many years. The strange thing is despite having the vast majority if not all his experience on the offensive side of the ball is now is a defensive coach. The defensive end coach has coached two years at the Div 2 level.

They're maybe a few other teams in 1A that have a couple of their staff without college coaching experience but I wager nothing close to NT. No, I don't think a different staff would result in a significantly better record, but I do think that the games would be much closer.

I have fate in Dodge and believe that ultimately he will succeed with or without staff changes. The staff may become a great asset, but I believe NT has and will suffer as the coaches adapt to the college game. In the long run, talent will trump experience and I hope this is the case with this staff.

Edited October 24, 2007 by GrandGreen