Everyone has their take on how HCMR and staff will do this fall and beyond. To me, it's an impossible analysis.
In all of his years of coaching in college and/or in the NFL, MR's teams, overall talent wise, were maybe better than 1/2 of their opponents in a good year and worse than 3/4 of their opponents in a bad year. In the good years, he had some skill players like TJ Houshmandzadeh, Chad Johnson, Stephen Jackson, Quiz Rodgers, which he was able to parlay into some good seasons and some big wins.
MR has never gone into a season where he arguably has better talent and experience than any team on his schedule except maybe one team (MSU). He has never had the depth that he has on this roster. More than that, he has never been in a situation where the resources are virtually unlimited, where he is coaching in a spot where there are 5 NCs and three Heismans, where there are 92k in the stands for South Alabama, where the school is on the cutting edge of performance training with unlimited training resources.
The fact that the situation here is so wildly different than his previous experiences makes evaluating the hire almost impossible (like comparing Saban at MSU in the 90s vs Alabama now), so all we can do is look at some incidental clues:
1. MR's personality seems to be a classic fit for this program and the culture around it.
2. As opposed to previous hires, MR has an amazing level of experience as a HC at the Power 5 level.
3. MR has been impressive enough to people who are football decision makers that he was able to land an NFL HC job and was offered at Alabama and USC.
4. One thing that we can probably bank on is that this guy probably won't alienate the fans, and what we see on the field, good and bad, will at least make sense.
5. Based solely on his team's comparative performances against Wisconsin in 2011 and 2012 vs. ours, it seems like MR and staff can compete with better talent than they have. In 2011, we gave up 48 points and 486 yards vs. OSU giving up 35 points and 397 yards. In 2012, We gave up 27/70 points and 295/640 yards vs. OSU giving up 7 points and 207 yards.
6. Maybe it's the fact that MR won 21 games against teams with winning records from 2008 to 2014 while we, with all of our advantages, only won 7 more in that time frame.
7. Maybe it's MR's team giving USC their only loss in 2008, or beating ASU late last season when ASU was still in the playoff hunt.
This is like an economic forecast with all of the indicators pointing up.
http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0LE...andzadeh/RK=0/RS=1Iig7iU7e58RqFmJmk.rMxTCG8Q-
In all of his years of coaching in college and/or in the NFL, MR's teams, overall talent wise, were maybe better than 1/2 of their opponents in a good year and worse than 3/4 of their opponents in a bad year. In the good years, he had some skill players like TJ Houshmandzadeh, Chad Johnson, Stephen Jackson, Quiz Rodgers, which he was able to parlay into some good seasons and some big wins.
MR has never gone into a season where he arguably has better talent and experience than any team on his schedule except maybe one team (MSU). He has never had the depth that he has on this roster. More than that, he has never been in a situation where the resources are virtually unlimited, where he is coaching in a spot where there are 5 NCs and three Heismans, where there are 92k in the stands for South Alabama, where the school is on the cutting edge of performance training with unlimited training resources.
The fact that the situation here is so wildly different than his previous experiences makes evaluating the hire almost impossible (like comparing Saban at MSU in the 90s vs Alabama now), so all we can do is look at some incidental clues:
1. MR's personality seems to be a classic fit for this program and the culture around it.
2. As opposed to previous hires, MR has an amazing level of experience as a HC at the Power 5 level.
3. MR has been impressive enough to people who are football decision makers that he was able to land an NFL HC job and was offered at Alabama and USC.
4. One thing that we can probably bank on is that this guy probably won't alienate the fans, and what we see on the field, good and bad, will at least make sense.
5. Based solely on his team's comparative performances against Wisconsin in 2011 and 2012 vs. ours, it seems like MR and staff can compete with better talent than they have. In 2011, we gave up 48 points and 486 yards vs. OSU giving up 35 points and 397 yards. In 2012, We gave up 27/70 points and 295/640 yards vs. OSU giving up 7 points and 207 yards.
6. Maybe it's the fact that MR won 21 games against teams with winning records from 2008 to 2014 while we, with all of our advantages, only won 7 more in that time frame.
7. Maybe it's MR's team giving USC their only loss in 2008, or beating ASU late last season when ASU was still in the playoff hunt.
This is like an economic forecast with all of the indicators pointing up.
http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0LE...andzadeh/RK=0/RS=1Iig7iU7e58RqFmJmk.rMxTCG8Q-
