News Flash! Bob Stoops won't survive in the NFL

The collective consciousness of College Football Coaches retains a certain amount, and no small amount, of smugness.  This isn't entirely undeserved because Head Coaches in College Football can obtain godlike status amount the populace.  It is no wonder there are those who want to be greater gods. The number of those who have obtained this is exactly zero.

Nick Saban took Alabama to the very brink of playing for all the marbles this year for Alabama. He did take LSU to the top in 2003. His head coaching career, in College Football, is shiny and filled with victories.  To date, his stats are 110 wins and 49 loses, damn good for anyone, anywhere.

As a pro coach?  15 wins and seventeen loses.

Steve Spurrier, walked on water as Head Coach In Florida. His stats prove he could do just that 122 wins and just 27 loses, Spurrier lead the Gators to six conference titles and a national title.

As a pro coach? 12 wins and 20 losses.

Oh, and how about Bobby Petrino? I love this one. After a stellar 21-4 record at Louisville, Petrino moved on to the NFL to coach just thirteen games, losing  ten of them before running screaming from the stadium.

But to be fair, I can give you an example of a College coach who did make it. Barry Switzer coached at, uh-huh, Oklahoma, and went  157-29 doing so. Then he stepped into a system developed by Jimmy Johnson with the Dallas Cowboys, and didn't screw it up.  He inherited a 12-4 team and was able to maintain just that for a couple of years, win a Superbowl, and then get while the getting wasn't getting any better.  In his fourth and final year he went 6-10.

It's not only hard to go from college to the pros as a head coach it is damn near impossible. In College Football, the head coach is godlike, and all powerful. He can ruin a player's career or help advance it to the next level. The players are unpaid students trying to get to the League, and they have to count on the coaching staff to pull strings to help them stay afloat in the academic world.  The players are barely out their teens and most have never had as much attention as they are going to get if they win.  The entire existence of some Universities centers around the football program and the Head Coach is the pope. They are given every resource, every ounce of manpower they need, and there is nothing the power-that-be won't do to keep a good head coach. College Football schedules lesser teams as sacrificial lambs, so big teams can look better by running up the scores, like 56-3 and that makes the teams, and the Head Coaches, look great. If a team wins just eight games a season they get to go to a bowl game, and when it comes right down to it, a College Head Coach has three, maybe four games a year where there is even a chance they'll lose a game.

Welcome to the National Football League.  This is a cut throat business where the players are the stars, not the coaches.  Prima Donnas making millions upon millions more than their coaches are the rule rather than the exception.  Fans want victory now, and your record means is the last game you won. The money that flowed into the program at the college level isn't there and the popular support isn't as intense in most cases. The media isn't obligated to support you and they'll eat you alive now your god status is a thing of the past. There are sixteen games to play, and if you're lucky you'll play half those games against sub 500 teams, but you're going to play some of the big boys and they're going to eat you alive.  It's a faster, meaner, and harder game to play, and as a Head Coach, you're suppose to know all this stuff already and you do not.

Therein, the pressure lies.

I've never seen a College Head Coach, at least a nationally known one, take a job in the pros as an Offensive Coordinator, or a Quarterback Coach, which is usually where good pro head coaches cut their teeth. They have to take over the top spot, and it's going to be a failure because they haven't learned the system yet. They haven't learned the players, the other teams, the defensive schemes, or for that matter, a damn thing. They're rookies in a pro world and that spells defeat.

So here we go again. Bob Stoops the Uber successful Head Coach at Oklahoma is thinking about taking over with the Denver Broncos, and he's going to take several of his assistants with him. How is that going to work out? Even in the weak AFC North, it's going to be a disaster.  The last coach at Denver, Mike Shanahan, won two Superbowls in fourteen seasons and he's gone. How many losing seasons can Stoops have and keep his job? One? Two? Maybe three?

Bob Stoops' stats are more impressive than most, but he's hasn't had the kind of career Spurrier had at Florida. He's a damn good College Coach but there is nothing that indicates he's going to be the first big name to make the big jump.

He'll go 7-9 his first year, and not much better the next. He'll miss the adulation and the  worship, and Bob Stoops will be the next big name to limp back to the college ranks.

Take Care,

Mike