Is Wheeler Brown making a mistake?

[dscot399]

I realize that HBCU operate in a world to themselves, but I think A&T should have hired a consulting firm to navigate the coaching search.

The advantage of that is with a consulting firm doing the research they will be able to contact coaches that Brown would not even be able to reach.

The Pump Brothers have did these type of searches for as little as $5000!

Since NC A&T has no problem paying a coach $175,000 who is to say that a coach from a NCAA I-AA Powerhouse like Northern Arizona, Richmond, or Montana would not be willing to consider the job.
These are coaches that Brown would not approach, but with the money that HBCU throw to the head coach it might be possible to attract a coach from a WINNING D I-AA program.

[Bornthrilla]

I don' t want Wheeler taking advice from anybody who sounds like they should be starring in a porno movie.

[DOOMS]

Dscot, your idea reads very good in theory but you have to ask: If you were a coach would you take a job paying 150 large a year with roughly half the resources you are used to or keep the job paying 100 large with double the resources?

Your key point appears to be “you never know unless you try.” And on that note you are absolutely correct in my opinion. What concerns me is the fact that for lack of a better term, hbcus generally cheat our coaches. We put a little more into their pockets and put a lot less into their programs. A lot less. It’s as if we’re saying “We’re paying you more so you can single-handedly cover all the areas we do not. Good luck.”

In a few threads I’ve stated the opinion that if Bill Hayes and Jerry Moore were to switch positions with everything else being equal, Moore’d be lucky to have a winning season at A&T and Hayes would have similar success at App State (maybe not three national titles in a row but he’d regularly be in the playoffs). Putting a top team on the field requires a lot more than a head coach. And unfortunately as of right now we ain’t got the coach or the lot more.

I do believe we have the right A.D. I don’t believe that the administration has enough sense to give him what he wants or needs to ensure our success. On that point I hope I’m wrong.

Is Wheeler Brown making a mistake? We honestly won’t know for several years. While most anybody paying attention could tell you that Dee Todd was making a mistake, had she not drastically overpaid for Fobbs and gotten him a good staff things would have most likely turned out much differently. I’d go so far as to say Fobbs made a bigger mistake by thinking he could come in and just single-handedly outcoach the meac with a group of unseasoned assistants. Todd just didn’t know any better. If nothing else, we know that Wheeler Brown knows better.

[Bornthrilla]

The next coach will inherit a recruiting budget of about $90,000 a year. According to Wheeler, that is in the top third of the conference.

[dscot399]

LOL. I could not say David and Dana Pump, you would have thought it was a male/female couple.

I use the Pumps as an example (they specialize in Basketball). The question is still the same though, should A&T hire a headhunter to find a coach?

Seriously, the next football coach will be in the top 1% in salary for the university. His job performance will impact the university's relationship with alumni and other athletic department supporters.

A&T got tradition, but WSSU has just finished their fieldhouse and NCCU Masterplan has new football facilities on the checklist. If A&T rut goes on for another 7 years or so which is possible if you keep hiring the wrong coach and making changes every few years. A&T football is going to have a hard time gaining the stranglehood it had over WSSU and NCCU.

[DOOMS]

Nov 14, 2008 8:40:35 GMT -5 Bornthrilla said:

The next coach will inherit a recruiting budget of about $90,000 a year. According to Wheeler, that is in the top third of the conference.

That’s a start. What else will the next coach be inheriting?

I’m of the opinion that by rights if you underfund a program for x number of years, you have to overfund it for at least the same number of years to get it back to square one. Increasing it to 90 grand for a couple of years doesn’t really help if it’s been at 20 grand for the previous eight years. Recruiting budget also doesn’t teach a lineman how to block, a qb how to read defenses, a db how to cover, or any other position. It’s nice to recruit kids that already know how to do those things. Unfortunately for us, there’s about 30 other schools in this state alone that agree with that sentiment.

My belief is the best way to go is to find a guy that can win with whatever the heck you put in front of him. Anybody that needs several years to “build” has to have perfect conditions. We ain’t in a position to provide perfect conditions.

As far as Winston and NCCU, the only reason we aren't already dead in the water competitively against them is that they now suck too. If we look at Elon (who we were on a par with just three years ago) they are stratospherically ahead of us. Huge wasted opportunity.

[dscot399]

A top third recruiting budget is not bad, but it would be a wise move to take some of the money that had been set aside for salary and put it in recruiting. Take $50,000 from salary and put it into recruiting.

I think everyone agree that the quality of the athletes at A&T has not been up for the job. Coaching has been a problem, but the horses has not been there.

Doom, you are incorrect when you say Coach Hayes could have been just swapped with Coach Moore and there would have been similar results. If we are to use that line of reasoning I could say that if Skip Holtz coached at Alabama he would have turned the Tide around and Nick Saben would be stuck with an ECU team that let the BCS slip away.

You are not giving any credit to the individual coach ability to generate change. How about David Cutcliffe, did he not come and "change" the attitude of Duke and make them a respectable team? You can not simply replace a coach with another and say the results would be similar.

The Coaching staff at App State average low to mid $50's, there salaries are not that different than A&T.

The qualifications of the assistant coaches though is vastly different! The question is why?

App State staff is filled with guys who been at the school for over 5 years, while some redshirts seniors at A&T is going to be having their their third or fourth coach.

[DOOMS]

d, you misquoted me:

Nov 14, 2008 8:37:28 GMT -5 DOOMS said:

In a few threads I’ve stated the opinion that if Bill Hayes and Jerry Moore were to switch positions with everything else being equal...

What "everything else being equal" means is you take the same budgets, players, assistants, salaries, etc. You just switch coaches.

Moore could not win at A&T on the level Hayes did. Moore wasn't going to come to Greensboro and line practice fields and have his wife picking rocks off of practice fields. Generally when you come to an hbcu you just have to do more stuff that is not related to coaching the team than you do at a pwc. A lot of us fans ignore that fact.

I agree that you cannot simply switch one coach with another and have similar results. I wouldn't make the argument that you could switch Holtz with Saban. I also wouldn't compare it to switching Hayes with Moore.

I think we generally have the same point but are just arguing a little different. My contention is that if you give a guy enough resources he can do a good job and if you don't he won't do as well. That's regardless of who you hire. Making the right hire is a good start but there is no right hire if you don't support him. Hayes was really the exception to that rule. He had the individual ability to generate change that you speak of. His successors have not. That being typed, even he would have trouble winning with a budget that hadn't increased in six years.

App State has always supported their football team very well. Once they started winning national championships the donations from the outside absolutely exploded.

Why are the qualifications of the assistants at App State and A&T vastly different? That one starts with the head coaches.

[Aggie Monster]

It aint money people. We been hiring bad coaches and bad recruiters.

our money for salaries and budget is/will be in line with everyone else in the MEAC. To break it down to 10-20K here and there is just petty.

Our decisions have sucked and our coaching has sucked and that just has to be fixed.

I dont agree with the "No Horses" statement from dscot399. I've seen subparr kids turned into allstars from high school to college. We've seen some of our own kids go from getting ridiculed by our staff and fans to a NFL prospects.

We need a staff that can "Coach UP", teach, and establish an off season system that works.

And no it wont take throwing $180k at a head coach to get it. it just takes making a smart decision on who you hire.

[Aggie77]

Nov 14, 2008 8:20:02 GMT -5 dscot399 said:

I realize that HBCU operate in a world to themselves, but I think A&T should have hired a consulting firm to navigate the coaching search.

The advantage of that is with a consulting firm doing the research they will be able to contact coaches that Brown would not even be able to reach.

The Pump Brothers have did these type of searches for as little as $5000!

Since NC A&T has no problem paying a coach $175,000 who is to say that a coach from a NCAA I-AA Powerhouse like Northern Arizona, Richmond, or Montana would not be willing to consider the job.
These are coaches that Brown would not approach, but with the money that HBCU throw to the head coach it might be possible to attract a coach from a WINNING D I-AA program.

Wow! What a novel approach, defining the requirements of the position and actually have someone find the best match! Oh, but that would require someone to define the requirements for the job. I guess the old process works so well, why change.

Aren’t these firms paid based on a percent of starting salary contingent on successful placement.

[DOOMS]

Can't argue with any of that 'cause in my opinion it's all true.

The only reason I harp on the money now is 1) six years without increasing the budget will make a good coach look mediocre, 2) if we're going to be hiring mediocre (Small) and just plain bad (Fobbs) coaches, the money becomes a very, very strong point and 3) even a great coach is going to need some financial help to correct the years of financial lack and the mistakes of coaches past.

dont agree with the "No Horses" statement. I've seen subparr kids turned into allstars from high school to college. We've seen some of our own kids go from getting ridiculed by our staff and fans to a NFL prospects.

Thank you. That quote is why I advocate getting somebody who can coach what you put in front of them. I get nauseated when I hear alumni crying about recruiting more "talent." If you don't know how to use a chain saw you can't cut down that tree, so what good is it doing you? Meanwhile there's a guy that can cut down that tree with an axe much faster. He cuts down enough trees, the chainsaws will come and he'll be cutting down even more.

[Aggie Monster]

Dooms Man, you have no idea. The perfect example is Leesville Road high school. They like 10-1 in the Triangle Area and if you see all them damn pecker woods on that team you would think they were showing up to run cross country.

Until you realize that they dont miss tackles, stay in position, and dont make mistakes. By then you down 21 -0, LOL!

Fuquay-Varina is the same way.

[dscot399]

Please forgive me but I am not concern about being competitive in the MEAC! I want to see NC A&T in the D I-AA playoffs! I want to see a D I-A team on the schedule! This talk of being competitve in the MEAC is pointless to me. THERE IS NO SCHOOL IN THE MEAC WHERE NC A&T SHOULD WANT TO BE, SO MEASURING YOURSELF AGAINST MEAC SCHOOLS IS COUNTER PRODUCTIVE!

In order to coach up you have to superior coaching talent! Superior Coaching just don't walk into the MEAC. Lets be honest, you don't see our HBCU coaches jumping to the bigger conferences. Yeah, you have the Ron Princes of the world, but they are so few and far in between. I never heard of a MEAC head coach leaving for a non-HBCU. (I'm only in my mid 20s so it could have happen).

PARAPHRASING HERE => John Chaney said that HBCU was at the bottom of the D-I Athletics (in Black Magic). IF an Alum with his experience, said that there must be some truth in it.

So please tell me why are MEAC coaches getting paid more than Big Sky Coahes?

[DOOMS]

for lack of a better term, hbcus generally cheat our coaches. We put a little more into their pockets and put a lot less into their programs. A lot less. It’s as if we’re saying “We’re paying you more so you can single-handedly cover all the areas we do not. Good luck.”

I don't know if that's the reason we overpay or not d, but until somebody gives me a better reason that's my theory.

I think we all want to see us be competitive nationally. The problem is I don't think the administration puts anything more than lip service behind wanting us to be competitive nationally and they are the ones that will ultimately determine if we can be or not.

bluedeathvalley.proboards1.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=3963&page=2

That's my opinion on it.

As far as meac coaches leaving for non-meac spots, here's the ones I can name off the top of my head:

Willie Jeffries left SCSU for division I-A Wichita State
Joe Purzycki left Del State for JMU (Purzycki's white, by the way)
Floyd Keith coached at Howard and later Rhode Island (there was about a 10 year gap in between though)

Nov 14, 2008 11:11:02 GMT -5 Aggie Monster said:

..if you see all them damn pecker woods on that team you would think they were showing up to run cross country...

Somebody tell Freeze quote of the week got stolen from him at the eleventh hour...

[trues]

The next coach will inherit a recruiting budget of about $90,000 a year. According to Wheeler, that is in the top third of the conference

Actually he quoted $100,000 in monday night meeting.