Kirby Smart, head coach in waiting?

assumed that we would offer him more money than Georgia. To be honest I’m not too fond of the idea of a coach in waiting but I guess it could work. The way things unfolded at Florida State though makes me worry about that happening here. Then again Muschamp and Mack Brown haven’t had any problems yet so who knows.

The whole head coach in waiting thing is a bunch of hogwash. I hope that isn’t what happens. I hope Kirby Smart stays. I think he is good for the program and it seems Saban and he see eye to eye which is important. Looking at everything objectively I think going to Georgia as DC (a lateral move) would be a huge mistake right now. He would most likely be mentioned as a candidate for HC at Georgia when Richt is out and the ship has to be teetering over there after the 2008 season failure and this year.

I thought that the coverage here would drop off after the season for a couple of months like most of the sports blogs I read. Proved me wrong, this is a great great. Also made me think…why should I should pay for Tide Insider when I have this? True or not, it is an engaging read.

I’m not even all that psyched about him possibly becoming UGA’s DC. (Nothing personal against him, but he hasn’t really run a defense on his own yet so who knows how he would do on his own…)

Smart only has one national championship ring. He joined LSU in 2004, not 2003.

but i damn well believe the administration needs to start thinking about this now. over the last decade or so we learned the hard way about not having a plan for filling the head coach slot. i agree that the likelihood of saban leaving in the next several years is low given what he still has to accomplish at this level but pete carroll just demonstrated that “indefinitely” doesn’t necessarily mean “forever.”

and if you go back into the history you get other examples of how bad things can get if we haven’t figured out how to bring in the coach we want. we had to pass over coach bryant twice before the fiasco of ears whitworth got everyone off their ass and made it happen. we need to start figuring out who is that next coach and taking steps to lock him into the system.

…about designating someone that. But because we’ve seen how disastrously bad a coaching hire can go, I can understand the desire to have it in place. To award it to someone so young with no head coaching experience at that level really gives me pause though.

Many of these comments have been expressed above, but here’s my spin:

• Smart only has one ring, and even if he was with Saban at LSU, he’s never proven himself apart from our Grand Master. If he’s got one thing going for him, it’s that he has been able to endure and learn from our Nicktator, anyone who can do that for an extended period is probably going to make a good HC – however, I think he needs some time away from the nest in order to develop his own style.
• Don’t have the quote handy, but Saban didn’t say he was a proponent for “Coach in Waiting”, he simply said it can work if the people and personalities fit that situation best. I think that goes for just about anything you could think of – it works if the people involved want it to work.
• Why would Smart be a coach in waiting for what – 5 years? If he deserves to be tabbed Coach in Waiting, he deserves to be a HC somewhere, now. How long do we expect Saban to continue at Alabama? At least 3 more years? Why wait? Smart could likely wait less time for Richt to get canned and take the Georgia job – which would probably fit him more than Alabama.

is a great idea. It doesn’t work when your program is going down the tubes and the HC has not clear time line for retirement (see FSU). But it does work, when the program is doing good and when the HC is willing to hang it up in the near future (see Penn St). The problem lies in the volatile nature of coaching. If the program is doing bad, usually someones getting fired. Why would you want to wait around hoping to not get fired until the HC quits.

is to make an agreement with Saban (to the tune of several hundred thousand dollars) that he will notify the administration as early as possible about when he would like to retire. Then as a part of the contract, he agrees to stay for a potential two more years after the point that he notifies the administration (or the point of his proposed retirement, whichever comes first) – as long as necessary within that two year time frame to find a new coach. That way, if the school does not see any impressive HCs out there at the end of the season to pick from, they’ve got the next year, and perhaps the one after that to find someone without losing their winning head coach in the process (no pun intended). Saban would not announce his retirement until the administration had their guy in their sights, and then Saban would announce retirement out of the blue at the end of the season, and Bama could immediately hire the person they want. Smooth transition, great timing, and we beat other schools to the punch. Seems to win all the way around to me, and we’re not locked into hiring within the family, or a coach with no experience, or being rushed to hire because we weren’t ready for our current coach to retire.

However if Georgia want’s to make headway they should try to get Scott Cochran our strength and conditioning coach. Georgia’s problem hasn’t necessary been bad coaching but rather injuries. No other team that I can think of has sustained the amount of injuries to key personnel. When you look at Georgia’s team – AJ Green for example – the phisical stature is nowhere near what the average Bama players is. Look at AJ’s arms and legs compared to Julio’s. If Georgia could keep their key players on the field then coaching wouldn’t be as big a problem. We all know coaching is important but it really is all about the quality of players.
JMO

but I don’t like the coach in waiting concept. Think about it! Would Bear Bryant ever have agreed to be a coach in waiting? How about Nick Saban? Can you see him agreeing to something like that?

The answer to the problem of what to do when Saban leaves is simple. You make a list of the best head coaches out there and go after #1.

If you think about it the only two times Bama has ever done that was when we hired Bryant and when we hired Saban. Other than those two hires, the rest of our hires, in a way, have been compromise candidates. Sometimes we hired candidates with no head coaching experience (What were we thinking!!)

ESPN etc. thought the Bama job was not attractive when we got Saban. But now we have a huge stadium and a great program. The truth is if Saban left today we would have a shot at whomever is the best head coach in land.

If we hire a former Alabama assistant as head coach when Coach Saban leaves, I would rather it be one who has prior head coaching experience. This is no place for a coach to get his first head job

is that with a coach in waiting I think your overall recruiting is compromised. If i were a big time recruit I wouldn’t want to go where a coach is leaving in two-three years. But that is my opinion, we see how good of a class the Gators have in 2010 even though coaching is a question.