Coach Dez: 2 Criticisms, 3 Scenarios, & 1 Upside
There are two recurrent criticisms of Coach Desormeaux: lack of experience; and lack of a network for recruiting coaches.
1. Experience
"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."
When I think back over some of the coaching disappointments over the years, in all sports, two themes stand out:
>>They didn't have a lot of ambition. Some of them started out with fire, but became demoralized for various reasons.
>>They didn't believe UL could become a major player. (See my thread about Hiring from Within.)
Mike faces a learning curve. But then, so does Saban, every year. The real question is, How quickly will Mike learn?
a) Mike is smart, ambitious, and a hard worker. I think we can agree that he'll learn very quickly.
b) He has talent to draw from. At our level, talent often appears to be the primary divider between winners & also-rans. Remember when people here were furious when they found we had passed on a chance to hire Blakeney? The man was clearly a football genius, because Troy was dominating the 'Belt.
Then the rest of the conference found out that Troy was getting superior talent by exploiting an NCAA loophole, and shut it down. Without the superior talent, Blakeny faded away, and Troy dropped to the back of the pack.
Which is why I suspect our mediocre coaches often survived. Even without much effort, they could win a minimum number of games from the quality of our local talent. Louisiana has a surplus of athletes (remember, it's one reason Billy came here), and our alumni/supporter base is now large enough, and belief in our program is growing enough, that recruiting is getting easier. In addition, with State, LTU, & Tulane in turmoil, and with Mike being a strong recruiter, things look pretty good.
c) The UL administration and our supporters are now committing the necessary resources for continued growth. We should keep moving up.
Mike has the drive, the discipline, and the intelligence to grow us, and grow with us.
2. Coaching Network
a) I think we're not looking at this right. D-meaux (as in 'D-meaux-lition Squad') now belongs to an elite club of 130 FBS head coaches. In addition, he is HC at one of the premier mid-majors, perhaps after Cincy goes to the B12, arguably the premier mid-major. From what I have seen, most of the FBS coaches, despite any on-field rivalries, are very collegial with one another. In particular, they make themselves available to the younger members. Some of that is character, but it's also survival. That explanation follows.
b) Dez already has a powerful network: Napier is his mentor, and because of the kind of people Billy & Mike are, that will continue indefinitely. Mike can call Billy at any time. From there, Napier can connect him to Saban, Sweeney, and pretty much the entire SEC & beyond.
c) P5 coaches will be eager to help Mike get assistant coaches. It's an odd thing about coaching: you want to hold on to good assistants, but if a HC gets a reputation for not helping assistants move up, he will have trouble recruiting coaching talent in the future.
d) It works both ways. In a way, the mid-majors function a bit like farm teams: the P5 sends us assistants now for experience, and then recruit them back at higher levels down the road. So Head Coaches are very careful about their recommendations, knowing that if word gets out that they recommend weak candidates, it could bite their 6 later because the other schools won't trust them on recommendations. Their damaged reputation will also hinder their ability to hire from other schools, and once again they are at a disadvantage hiring talent, but now from both ends of the spectrum.
The only way all of this fails is if we waste the talent the P5 sends us, if we aren't focused, disciplined, tough, and supportive of improving the people they send us.
I just don't think that will happen under Mike
Given the preceding, there are 3 scenarios, and an upside that I have not seen mentioned.
1) Mike produces a losing record.
For the above reasons, I doubt that will happen.
2) Mike produces a mediocre record.
We old-timers remember the 6-5 doldrums, good enough for the HC to keep his job, but not good enough for us to move up. We could see a talent and coaching drop-off next year (look at Clemson, even the mighty stumble) but I can't see Mike accepting mediocrity. And again, he's a fast learner. So I think any decline would be temporary.
3) Mike keeps stoking the engine.
The pistons keep pumping, and we keep winning. No problem.
Which brings up a huge upside to all of this. If my analysis here is correct, if Mike puts out a winning product over the next few years, and if UL & the community keep supporting him, it is unlikely Mike will leave us for the P5. Mike could be our head coach for the next 20-30 years.
If we support Mike, he's the kind of guy that could get us into a P5 conference.
So let's support him.
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Re: Coach Dez: 2 Criticisms, 3 Scenarios, & 1 Upside
Originally Posted by moorecajun
