Voice of the Fantlebury: Four things the next coach needs
Barry Odom’s firing is over 100 hours old. That initial reaction has worn off, and now all eyes are firmly on Missouri’s athletic director.
The spotlight is big for Jim Sterk. The task at hand is bigger. With this one hire, Sterk has the opportunity to:
*Unite and excite the fanbase, putting butts in the seats to pay for the South Endzone Expansion.
*At the worst salvage, and at the best dramatically improve, Missouri’s recruiting for 2020 and beyond.
*Return Missouri’s football program to a consistently relevant product, making the Tigers’ worst years like Texas’ best years.
This is a tightrope that Sterk needs to walk as he conducts interviews and narrows down his candidates, as he needs to balance the unrealistic demands of fans and donors (a problem not unique to Missouri) with the realistic restrictions of the particular job at hand.
With that in mind, here’s what Sterk SHOULD be looking for in Missouri’s next coach, from this fan’s point of view.
A Value Recruiter, A Player Developer
Even if Missouri lands a coach like Lane Kiffin that certainly has some cache on the recruiting trail, it’s unrealistic to expect that Missouri will start landing top-20 classes overnight. Sterk needs to find a coach that has found value in lower-ranked players, unearthing those “diamonds in the rough” and developing them into steady players, if not outright stars. Sterk needs to hire a coach that is more than a name; he needs a coach that has proven to have a plan on the recruiting trail, whose teams have proven to outperform their recruiting rankings.
A Delegator
This is one area, in my opinion, in which Odom drastically struggled. Gary Pinkel proved to be the steady hand of Missouri’s program because he was a CEO. He didn’t meddle or try to do too much with his assistants; he hired the guys to do their jobs, and he trusted them to do just that. Now, this doesn’t mean Sterk can’t hire a coach that also calls plays on offense or defense. He just has to make a hire that knows, from Day One, what he will and will not do as a head coach. He focuses on the tasks that he, and only he, should do with the program, and delegates the rest, trusting his assistants to do their jobs.
A Strong Brand (or the ability to develop one)
Sterk doesn’t HAVE to hire a coach that the public already knows. He doesn’t have to hire someone that the media loves to deal with, who will give great quotes no matter the situation. But, ideally, he should look for a coach that the athletic department can develop a brand around. This fanbase needs some excitement with this hire, and even if it’s not a big name, it should be a coach that they can grow to love because he’s not afraid to show his personality. Odom did that with his players; he did that when the cameras and recorders were off with the media. I don’t think he did it enough in public settings for the fanbase to see the culture his players talked about. Even a coach like Charlotte’s Will Healy would check this box. Would the fanbase be excited about him from Day One? No, probably not. But there’s a brand to be built around a coach like that.
A Job Jumper
This one is going to raise some eyebrows. After Gary Pinkel, it seemed like Missouri wanted a coach that was going to be in Columbia for a while. I don’t think that should be a big consideration for this hire. Again, Missouri needs a coach to bring back the fans, first with the excitement of the initial hire and then with the product on the field. To do that, Sterk can’t be afraid of possibly losing this coach after three or four or five years. If that happens, it shows Sterk made a good hire. The fanbase, similarly, shouldn’t be concerned with a coach potentially “using” Missouri for bigger or better things. If Sterk can hire a guy that wins early and wins often and then jumps ship, the program would be in better shape than it currently is and (potentially) be in a better position to make another strong hire.
If Sterk can check three of those four boxes (with a strong, strong emphasis on that first one), Missouri should be in good position to rebound quickly under the new coach.