New Colonel

I mean I won't turn down a side gig in this economy.

Hopefully in the coming years St. Henry can draw more from Union area as St. Timothy is a HUGE parish. Masses are full there and the school just finished an addition last summer that allowed for a significant increase in enrollment. They may also want to target Independence area too because St. Cecilia completed a large addition and St. Patrick is increasing their school enrollment. It would only be a a 2 miles further for those folks over Cov Cath, but you get less students and cheaper tuition. And to me, co-ed would be a bigger draw for my kids.

In those close games Gregg pass yardage goes way down, he threw 4 picks in those 3 games and he averaged only 11 yards per completion. He rushed 57 times in those 3 games for 342 yards and 5 TDs. 6 yards a rush against STOUT defenses proves he should be running the ball and his passing production isn't there when he faces equal or better competition.....but he can still run people over. Look high school football is simple. Run the ball and stop the run. Dixie should be a team that absolutely pounds the ball and chews clock. They'd have great success doing that. Take my strongest kid out of QB position and have him punish the opposition on the ground. It's supposed to be a team sport, put your team in the best position to win, and Gregg at RB does that IMO. Awesome discussion by everyone though, good stuff.

Love the analysis, thanks.

But my question is what sense does it make to not give someone a shot who is otherwise a perfect candidate? And I have seen this happen, where the committees sacrifice and overlook issues of candidates because they want to see a certain system run. The best answer to me on an interview committee would be, "I'll run whatever system I see fit to make our team the most successful based on their athletic abilities." Or "Why does my offensive or defensive scheme matter. You are hiring me to be in charge of a program and trusting my expertise. Either you are trusting my expertise or not." And funny you bring up Beechwood, I think at times they have an identity crisis on offense. We don't do the same thing for other sports. "Will you implement the triangle offense if you get the head basketball coaching job?" "How will you manage your batting lineup in baseball? Who would bat leadoff and cleanup and tell me why?" "What's your philosophy in handling goal keepers in soccer?" "Do you run zone or man defense in lacrosse?" It seems silly to me care about what specific system of offense or defense a particular coach uses. And if you as an AD do actually care, are you going to micromanage them in how they call a game?

Just out of curiosity, why would any AD care about the Xs and Os that a particular coach is running? To play Devil's Advocate here, if an AD is that much of an expert of scheme, maybe they should be the person coaching the team instead of hiring it out. Scheme should be bottom of your list when choosing a candidate to fill a position.

Awesome topic and thread! I obviously think the Wing-T is a championship offense. Today, we see countless teams running Wing-T concepts in their "offensive schemes." We see jet sweeps, buck sweeps, counter, and waggle run out of every scheme. It can't be a bad offense when everyone is stealing the concepts to try to make it their own. I too don't understand this weird notion that it limits your team or their players. If you struggle passing effectively out of the Wing-T, that's a coaching issue. Wing-T teams should be able to pass much more efficiently that spread teams. In the Wing-T, you know that if you see man coverage, you should absolutely shred the defense with passes with all the motions and play actions. So, as a Wing-T team, you should see predominantly zone coverages, and your team should know exactly where those weak spots are in the zones to make for a lethal passing game. You don't get that luxury when running spread..... you can mix all coverages against the spread to confuse the reads for QBs and WRs to keep them off-balance, which affects their timing. Finally, and I mentioned this in the other thread; the Wing-T allows you to punch way above your weight class. That's not limiting your players or team..... quite the opposite.

Very informative, thank you.

Can you explain what you mean by it pigeon holes players? And I think an important question for any program and especially a new head coach is..... how important is winning? And I don't mean that to be disparaging in any way. Not everyone is going to be like Beechwood or Trinity. If winning is your top priority, then you run whatever system gives you the best chances of winning, even if that's an old school system that isn't sexy for most fans. If you have other priorities, that's fine; just be honest with all stakeholders in your program and the reasons why.

Well said.

Spread also requires really top notch Olinemen to run well.

I disagree with much of the sentiment here regarding the Wing-T. The Wing-T allows you to punch way above your class so to speak. It gives you more chances to win. I also like the evolution into the Gun-T, but that's nothing new (Dale Mueller essentially ran Gun-T for decades at Highlands). Look, everyone runs the spread now. And honestly, most spread offenses are run quite poorly. I know I'm going to get heat for this and that's ok....but most high school offensive coordinators running the spread offense don't really have any type of system. They have a random assembly of plays and formations that they call an offense. It's all about "getting your athletes in space." But they don't understand how to set up a defense, and are doing their teams a severe disservice. The Wing-T is a system, and those Wing-T guys and other old school offensive coaches understand how to get the most out of their talent. And the Wing-T makes your opponent extremely uncomfortable and spend way more practice time going over how to defend you vs the spread that they see weekly. Sure, it's not a popular offense among fans, but it works. Period. And let's be 100% honest here. High school football is a very simple game overall. The teams that run the ball the best and have the ability to stop the run are the ones that have the most success. Spread coaches today are too obsessed with passing too much and most have terrible passing concepts. I have noticed overall that spread coordinators have much more turnover than coordinators who run old school offenses, and I don't think that's a coincidence. As I said, I think WV will have some growing pains moving the spread offense. Don't fix what's not broken.

I think going away from the Wing-T will hurt WV. Wing-T kills defenses in high school football, especially in the smaller school divisions.

Correct, it happened with Silver Grove schools a few years back.

Well I would comment on the quick turnaround; however, the pool of qualified applicants in late May is quite shallow to say the least. This seems like a great hire.

Seems like a solid hire with crazy fast turnaround. Best of luck to him and WV. I wonder how much change he'll implement this first season.

That's all I've said, that there has to be other circumstances besides a commute.

What was unreasonable about what I've said? Football isn't worth the pennies per hour sacrifice for family. What's unreasonable is to string along a school and a group of young men for 6 months when your heart isn't in it, clearly his wasn't....and that is perfectly fine. It's an extra curricular activity that most people take way too seriously. And most coaches of his caliber will still spend a crazy amount of hours as an assistant coach because that's what they do. They can't turn it off. I'm sure all the supporters would have a different opinion if this was your son's team or if you were the principal or AD of the school.

Ok, I have coached high school for quite some time on both sides of the river. I also taught for over 15 years. I know the time commitments. I'm very aware of the unrealistic and growing expectations people have of high school sports coaches. I definitely don't make it out to be bigger than life. I also am very aware of the unrealistic and growing expectations on teachers. Those people that do and missing my kids games on weekends is why I stopped. I also know when jobs become available, and many jobs have been available for a long time at every district. If you were thinking of leaving at any point, you should have resigned football duties months ago. I think everyone on here would feel differently if their son was at WV and suddenly there's a coaching search that'll likely go into June. There's not many candidates out there. Again, I don't have any ill will towards anyone. But to justify this poor timing is silly. I don't blame anyone for bettering themselves financially or for more time with family. The timing is garbage, plain and simple to say otherwise is being disingenuous.

Look, I completely understand wanting more time with your kids. That's the reason I stopped coaching high school. I completely get that. But someone with his resume could get on at just about any school of his choice without there being an official opening. And if this was on his mind, he should have resigned after the season so he could actually find something you are looking for and so the team (that you care about) isn't left in a completely terrible situation.That's how you should handle yourself as a professional and a man. Again, there has to be more to this than he wanted to save on commute. Maybe there's a disagreement with admin, athletic budget cuts, a health issue, something. If not, why would any school trust that he wouldn't leave them high and dry again?

I cannot respect a coach who decides to hang his team amd kids out to dry this late in the game. This is a decision you make in November or December, not end of May. No coach decides after 6, months of working with your team in the weightroom, preaching to kids about dedication and hard work and then leaving to save a few bucks in gas.

No way you decide in late May to quit being a head coach to be an assistant to cut down on your commute, especially when you have held that position for such a long time. I'm not insinuating anything nefarious behind the move, but there is definitely more to it than that. I have a really, really hard time believing any head coach would make this decision so late on their own unless offered a college job.

I didn't say it was right now, I said whenever it becomes available. And having D1 kids definitely makes those D1 coaches come around, but there are definitely coaches that do a MUCH better job of getting eyes on their players. And IMO, it seems the Cincy coaches do a much better job of that than on this side of the river overall. And yes, recruiting has changed dramatically over the past decade, not just with social media, but with the camps and clinics. NKY should have a bigger advantage with many schools having Spring Football, something that Ohio does not have. (I know Beechwood doesn't, or hasn't in the past, not sure about this year). And the point I was trying to make with Volker is, he will always be up on the latest trends with recruiting since his brother is a D-1 College coordinator. He's always going to be in the loop and always be a step ahead of 95% of high school coaches with regards to recruiting, which is only going to help Beechwood for the foreseeable future.

I've heard similar things over at Dixie with college coaches. I don't want this to come off the wrong way, but I wonder how much of it has to do with these former Ohio coaches. The Cincy schools seem to do a MUCH better job in getting eyes on their players. Now, Volker's connections in the college football world are probably more than anyone else in the area. It really helps out when your brother is a D-1 college coordinator. It allows you to stay on top of the the most recent developments in recruiting and to stay on top of them. This trend will continue in Ft. Mitchell as long as Volker is there. Keeping him should be top priority, especially when the time comes in the near future when the Elder job opens up.

Wow. Just wow.