here's my take, for what it's worth. i don't know shawn watson from adam. i don't know his work or his record. what i know is that we hired a coach we wanted (except Red, it seems) and we'd be better let him choose his own staff or we run the same risk of trying to micromanage the process as we're accusing the former AD and administration of.
my problem with shawn watson is not his record, talent or skill level, but where i am cautious is the long term familiarity he has with Strong. We just went thru a process of demanding a change of the existing paradigm. We wanted new hybrid vigor for the program. A couple of years ago, we demanded that Mack change his OC because of the exact same kind of long term familiarity he had with Greg Davis, even though the evidence at the time was that he actually ran a pretty successful offensive scheme.
I have long thought that coaches have shelf lives of 8-12 years, and that after that time, it's best to have a change of pace. the problem with that is that you have coaches who are successful (joe paterno, bobby bowden, mack brown) who have built allegiances within the school administrations, boosters, assistant coaches, BMD's, etc. so it becomes more and more difficult to replace an entrenched coach. They make friends, they make best friends, their kids know each other and grow up with each other, their wives become best friends too (and don't for a minute discount that little aspect) and they put down roots. It becomes harder and harder to remove them. People say, "they've earned the right to plan their own departure".
It's an absolutely classic pattern, but with familiarity comes getting comfortable and becoming a bit complacent. It's hard to keep evolving. It's hard to keep that edge. So we acquiesce to the easy way out and just let them stay until it becomes almost impossible to replace them without great angst and hurt feelings.
We need to learn from this last episode. We didn't go thru it with Royal because he saw the malaise coming by himself and stepped aside. That's extremely rare. We weren't that lucky with Mack, so we had an angst fest. We need to make sure that the next coach is told, from the get go, "look, even with success, perhaps even great success, there's going to be a time for you to move on and make way for some new hybrid vigor. That can be your choice, or it can be our choice. There's no guarantees and if we see the signs of malaise beginning to occur, we'll make the changes we need to."
We have to remind them of that along the way. It's part of the equation. Hybrid vigor is an important concept.
My objection to Watson isn't what he brings to the table necessarily. It's his long term familiarity with Strong. It reminds me of Mack and Greg Davis. Friendships are very bad for objective decisions. That's because there is no way for them to be objective. Not when you're best friends with the guy. Not when your kids are friends. Not when your wives are friends. So you develop a blind spot. WE ALL DO THIS.
Charlie needs to bring in someone else IMO. He' needs to avoid the old comfort level familiarity problem and change his paradigm too.
My guess is that he will. But just in case he doesn't, I hope the admin will remind him that we hired him because we wanted change and that he needs to look inwardly too.
If Watson comes, I will support him wholeheartedly. Charlie Strong needs to be supported in his decisions. I hope he chooses differently, but if he doesn't, he's sure going to have my support and not my constant brickbats.
