Coaching news😳

[Griz in Texas]

Would Mariani or Akem ever be considered if they played college ball at Weber State? You, like many, are getting fixated on the fact they played football, albeit at a high level, at UM and are ignoring the fact they are not qualified to be a position coach for a Division I college football team, let alone one of the best and most storied FCS teams in the country. Do you think Nick Saban would have hired one of his former Alabama receivers to be the WR coach after playing a few years in the Pro's or ding postgame youtube film breakdowns? NOT. A. CHANCE. IN. HELL. The situations are not all that different. Hire the best guy for the job, no matter their background.

I don't know, you'd have to ask Coach Hauck. Since it's his decision and he's familiar with them, maybe, it's hard to say for sure. I would not be in favor of hiring Rashid Shaheed personally a few years down the road, that bias is acceptable here. Again, we aren't hiring the replacement, he is and he's not going to jump on to egriz to see what any of us think either. Bring some names into the discussion if you have any, that's all anyone has said on here is how they wouldn't mind seeing players from our system back in, no one mentioned Robbie that I saw. I've never met Nick Saban, but in his case, he won't be hiring anyone in his current position, so that is not relevant.

 

[HelenaHandBasket]

If you pay attention to this thread, and any thread pertaining to hiring a new coach, its pretty obvious all people want to do is go and find the person with the closest ties to UM possible and hire them regardless of their qualifications, or lack thereof.

For better or worse, people mention names they have some familiarity. That is far from it being a prerequisite.

 

[GrizRealist]

You can't generalize about all players at all positions when talking about limited position coach positions. Nor can you generalize about a player's ability's to coach, relate to players, or understand offenses and defenses. Sammy has shown in-depth understanding of both sides of the ball, player responsibilities, and why play's were successful and why they were not. He's a great communicator. Far more enlightened and entertaining to listen to than 90% of the schmucks on here.

Your criticism of posters who believe former great players should be brought in as a position coaches was based on, and backed by, a generalization about "players" becoming coaches. My criticism of that response was regarding only one of the players identified, Sammy Akem. He has the tools many of today's great coaches at all levels possess. I never said your generalization was not correct, just that it didn't apply to one of the players noted.

That said, where do you think former players who become great coaches get the experience to take them out of your generalization category about all players? Oh yeah, they are hired as position coaches. Try to find an NFL coach who never played high school, college or pro football, and then then come back with another generalization about that miniscule number.

Most guys, regardless of their background, are hired on as GA's or analysts. Not saying there are not outliers, but that's how most guys get their start. Not sure how much value playing high school football has to coaching, but there are plenty of examples of guys coaching high level football who never played college football or in the NFL. Mike Leach (RIP), Todd Haley, Jedd Fisch, Dave Aranda, Sonny Dykes, and oh yeah, Bobby Hauck.

All I am getting at is that if someone like Sammy Akem played football at Idaho State, and otherwise had the same resume, would anyone here be on board with hiring him? I really doubt it. But because he played at UM he is now somehow a qualified WR Division I WR coach. I'm baffled as to how people cannot see the logic here? Maybe he would be a great coach, no one really knows that for certain, but hiring him is taking a flier on someone with perceived potential based on things that would likely not even get him on a shortlist for a WR coaching job anywhere else in the country at the FCS or FBS level.

 

[GrizRealist]

I don't know, you'd have to ask Coach Hauck. Since it's his decision and he's familiar with them, maybe, it's hard to say for sure. I would not be in favor of hiring Rashid Shaheed personally a few years down the road, that bias is acceptable here. Again, we aren't hiring the replacement, he is and he's not going to jump on to egriz to see what any of us think either. Bring some names into the discussion if you have any, that's all anyone has said on here is how they wouldn't mind seeing players from our system back in, no one mentioned Robbie that I saw. I've never met Nick Saban, but in his case, he won't be hiring anyone in his current position, so that is not relevant.

Kirby Smart, Brian Kelly, Sark, Dan Lanning, Ryan Day. I could name coaches all day long who would never make a dumb hire of a previous player with zero coaching experience. Decision making like that is how you get fired.

 

[SoldierGriz]

You can't generalize about all players at all positions when talking about limited position coach positions. Nor can you generalize about a player's ability's to coach, relate to players, or understand offenses and defenses. Sammy has shown in-depth understanding of both sides of the ball, player responsibilities, and why play's were successful and why they were not. He's a great communicator. Far more enlightened and entertaining to listen to than 90% of the schmucks on here.

Your criticism of posters who believe former great players should be brought in as a position coaches was based on, and backed by, a generalization about "players" becoming coaches. My criticism of that response was regarding only one of the players identified, Sammy Akem. He has the tools many of today's great coaches at all levels possess. I never said your generalization was not correct, just that it didn't apply to one of the players noted.

That said, where do you think former players who become great coaches get the experience to take them out of your generalization category about all players? Oh yeah, they are hired as position coaches. Try to find an NFL coach who never played high school, college or pro football, and then then come back with another generalization about that miniscule number.

You've missed the point entirely.

Find the All-Pro, hall of fame caliber players who have elevated to elite, hall of fame coaches...

That number is also very, very small.

Dudes holding clipboards often learn the game with more depth than those breaking TD pass records.

Numbers of those type of former players as great coaches is enormous.

 

[ElrodGrizzly]

If you want to cherry pick a bunch of specific instances that are not indicative of coaching as a whole, be my guest. Also, Deion Sanders is objectively not a good coach. He does however have an ability to get players on his team based on his name, that he otherwise would not be able to get at those schools. I would not call his tenure at Colorado even remotely a success.

He was a good example to your point of needing to learn to recruit. He clearly had it figured out right away.

I'm not cherry picking. For fun I kept looking, and it looks somewhat evenly split but a majority of successful coaches I looked at jumped right into position coaching roles. I'm not saying it is constant, but your statement that players normally do not jump into position coaching roles is not accurate.

Jeff Stoutland (best offensive line coach on the planet). Bob Stitt. Shann Shillinger. Antonio Pierce. Desean Jackson. Kalen Deboer. There are tons of names. Like I said, as I'm thinking randomly of coaches and looking, they are pretty well split between going straight to position coaching or not.

And, as I said, just last year we had a "graduate assistant" who was hands on with the d-line. You are over generalizing and then suggesting that you are speaking to "coaching as a whole." There is a long, long list of successful coaches who went straight to positional roles. If the list is already this long from some random guy thinking of names off the top of his head, then you have over-generalized.

 

[ElrodGrizzly]

You've missed the point entirely.

Find the All-Pro, hall of fame caliber players who have elevated to elite, hall of fame coaches...

That number is also very, very small.

Dudes holding clipboards often learn the game with more depth than those breaking TD pass records.

Numbers of those type of former players as great coaches is enormous.

Your point is entirely right in general, and I always use Phil Jackson as a great example of that. I'd argue that nobody is suggesting that Akem would make a great coach because he was such a good player, though, but because he has spent his last two years acting as an analyst.

 

[GrizRealist]

Hey @billingsgriz feel free to join the conversation if you are getting bored of passive aggressively cereal downvoting posts.

 

[billingsgriz]

Hey @billingsgriz feel free to join the conversation if you are getting bored of passive aggressively cereal downvoting posts

I am just thinking how we at The Univerity of Montana just blew it, picking great GRIZ players like Robin Selvig, Krysko, Wayne Tinkle, Travis DeCuire, Mick Dennehy, Shan Schillinger, Tim Hauck, Justin Green , Brent Pease and then thinking they could also coach. You're right--what were we thinking ?

 

[GrizRealist]

I am just thinking how we at The Univerity of Montana just blew it, picking great GRIZ players like Robin Selvig, Krysko, Wayne Tinkle, Travis DeCuire, Mick Dennehy, Shan Schillinger, Tim Hauck, Justin Green , Brent Pease and then thinking they could also coach. You're right--what were we thinking ?

All pretty good coaches, most of which started their career as a GA, High School coach, or lower division position coach before they made the jump to D1. There are a few who went straight to position coaches, but we're talking 25 years ago at a minimum. We are in a different world of college athletics now. I'm not trying to change your mind here, (don't think it's even possible), but trying to get people to take off the maroon and silver glasses occasionally and look at these situations objectively and without the massive bias that many have toward hiring former players. Again, for every former player you reference as a success, I can easily go find some school that hired a former player, and it turned into a disaster and their legacy with their alma mater is forever tarnished. No school wants to fire a former player turned coach, and continually using the good ol boy way of hiring will eventually elicit one of these scenarios. Now, a WR coach is fairly low risk, but I'm sure when BH calls it quits there will be a monstrosity of a thread on this site with a bunch of people calling to hire former player x, y or z to coach UM. Its a slippery slope.

 

[billingsgriz]

All pretty good coaches, most of which started their career as a GA, High School coach, or lower division position coach before they made the jump to D1. There are a few who went straight to position coaches, but we're talking 25 years ago at a minimum. We are in a different world of college athletics now. I'm not trying to change your mind here, (don't think it's even possible), but trying to get people to take off the maroon and silver glasses occasionally and look at these situations objectively and without the massive bias that many have toward hiring former players. Again, for every former player you reference as a success, I can easily go find some school that hired a former player, and it turned into a disaster and their legacy with their alma mater is forever tarnished. No school wants to fire a former player turned coach, and continually using the good ol boy way of hiring will eventually elicit one of these scenarios. Now, a WR coach is fairly low risk, but I'm sure when BH calls it quits there will be a monstrosity of a thread on this site with a bunch of people calling to hire former player x, y or z to coach UM. Its a slippery slope.

But Realist, we do agree on Mike Ferriter, and hopefully next year if not this year, we can lure Mike back to Missoula as our WR coach.

 

[billingsgriz]

Your point is entirely right in general, and I always use Phil Jackson as a great example of that. I'd argue that nobody is suggesting that Akem would make a great coach because he was such a good player, though, but because he has spent his last two years acting as an analyst.

I would Sammy would probably make a good WR coach for both reasons, Elrod: He was a great GRIZ WR and is a very good, accurate, perceptive analyst.

 

[billingsgriz]

Agai

See, this I can actually sign off on because the guy has at least put in the work elsewhere and would have earned a wr coach role based on what he has done as a coach, not as a player for UM.

Again, both--great player @ UM + excellent WR, TE, QB position coach and OC.

 

[Copper Griz]

Yes. Haven't seen Mariani on a football field for like 8 years and he has never coached. While Akem is still in the football sphere (sort of), he also does not have any real hirable coaching acumen, especially relative to someone you could go out and pull off another staff somewhere.

I'll never understand this weird former player nepotism thing we have going on at UM, like only a former player can understand the dynamic and tradition of UM. From a hiring standpoint it is very blinding, because the fact that someone is a former player at UM is really the only reason their name gets mentioned. There are all sorts of people with the same resume, or lack thereof in this case, that would get laughed off this board if their name was mentioned. We are going to wind up in a Scott Frost at Nebraska situation eventually, and my guess is this is why a guy like DD has never shown interest in the job.

EVERY FREAKING TIME a spot on the staff comes open people run to eGriz to start spewing all the former players that could fill the role. Just dumb Stuff, and a sign on an unserious program.

Come on. Be real. Look a the salary. Look at the cost of living in Missoula. Then try and find coaches who can make it on that amount. Is Mariani still in Nashville and doing quite well with his second career? Unless something changed, I don’t see him back in Missoula. Could be wrong. Often am and would think he would be a great hire. Collegiate and NFL experience. Loves the program and is definitely qualified. Nepotism? Really? Who else are you going to get that is a top notch coach that will stick around. Be real. Sammy. Absolutely! Hire the kid. Watch his breakdowns and tell me he doesn’t understand the game. What a great persona as well. Surround young men with players who love the program and who have been there - done that. Sammy fits the bill. I would be elated with that hire.

 

[Copper Griz]

I Mike would be a great get--former great GRIZ WR and a successful position and OC coach for over 10 years !!!

Mike would be awesome. He would be a major get for the program. Plus, I just like the dude.

 

[garizzalies]

Again, for every former player you reference as a success, I can easily go find some school that hired a former player, and it turned into a disaster and their legacy with their alma mater is forever tarnished.

Like who?
Billings named about a dozen successful coaches who were former players.
Can you name about a dozen who would fit your bill? I can’t think of any

 

[GriznMN]

And, as I said, just last year we had a "graduate assistant" who was hands on with the d-line. You are over generalizing and then suggesting that you are speaking to "coaching as a whole." There is a long, long list of successful coaches who went straight to positional roles. If the list is already this long from some random guy thinking of names off the top of his head, then you have over-generalized.

Is that why our D-line under-performed last year?

 

[wbtfg]

I was joking. Lighten up Francis.

I was also joking.

 

[GrizRealist]

Like who?
Billings named about a dozen successful coaches who were former players.
Can you name about a dozen who would fit your bill? I can’t think of any

Randy Shannon, Rick Neuheisel, Scott Frost, Mike Shula, Brady Hoke, Paul Cryst, Kliff Kingsbury, need me to keep going? There are lots.

 

[GrizRealist]

Come on. Be real. Look a the salary. Look at the cost of living in Missoula. Then try and find coaches who can make it on that amount. Is Mariani still in Nashville and doing quite well with his second career? Unless something changed, I don’t see him back in Missoula. Could be wrong. Often am and would think he would be a great hire. Collegiate and NFL experience. Loves the program and is definitely qualified. Nepotism? Really? Who else are you going to get that is a top notch coach that will stick around. Be real. Sammy. Absolutely! Hire the kid. Watch his breakdowns and tell me he doesn’t understand the game. What a great persona as well. Surround young men with players who love the program and who have been there - done that. Sammy fits the bill. I would be elated with that hire.