Who will be the next coach?

Thanks to my son for this great piece from Rivals.com on the search for Penn State’s next Football Coach.

Interesting items that stand out:

- Penn State Coaches looking for jobs – they identify unrest on the staff as well
- Candidates that will revitalize Penn State’s recruiting. Who would you want to play for, a coach who has developed a contender for the National Championship or a coach who seems content to be a middle of the pack Big Ten team
- Candidates with reputations for developing quarterbacks. It seems like quarterbacks don’t improve when they get to PSU. Also notice all the great Penna High School quarterbacks that have gone to play at other schools
- Coaches with great recruiting experience – Someone is needed who can get the best talent to come to sometimes happy, Happy Valley

I think the most interesting criteria is that there will be a ‘minimal connection to Joe Paterno’. So a connection with Paterno now is guilt by association where a while ago it was a badge of honor. Reminds me of the song ‘you gotta know when to hold them, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away…’. There’s a leadership / management principle in there somewhere.

I have pointed out some of these things in a previous post

Check out the remainder of the article and the Bio’s of each possible candidate at this site.

http://bwi.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1180543


Penn State's Next Coach: The Update
BWI Staff
Three months have passed since we went public with the definitive list of candidates (read now if you haven't already) from which Joe Paterno's replacement will be chosen. Three months later, we still believe the name of the next Penn State football coach is on the list.

Did we mention it's a new list?

Well, not really: The criteria are the same, and 10 of the 15 candidates from our initial list remain. We trimmed five from the first batch either because they got new jobs (although, as you'll see, that wasn't necessarily a deal-breaker...) or because events of the past three months made it unrealistic to keep them on the list. We replaced them with five coaches who (mostly) fit our criteria, and who became contenders either through circumstances or their own on-field success.

We'll get to the candidates in a second; first, let's review our previous post. We can start with the timeline. As we wrote in October: "We're convinced that Penn State will hire its first new head football coach in almost half a century no later than February 2012." We should know better than to try predicting when Joe Paterno will finally step down, but given his contract status, the uncertain prospects for his 2011 team, hints of unrest on his staff and the still underachieving state of recruiting, we'll stick with our prediction that this will be Joe's final year.

Now, onto our criteria - and what the events of the past three months have taught us about just how right we were.

Qualifications - We told you the next Penn State head coach would be a current head coach, and we still think that'll be the case. The high-profile hires this offseason have gone to a mix of head coaches (Brady Hoke at Michigan, Al Golden at Temple, Randy Edsall at Maryland, and, ultimately, Todd Graham at Pitt) and top assistants (Will Muschamp at Florida, David Shaw at Stanford), and while a dynamic coordinator with a record of success at a major program could make the cut (yes, we did add one such candidate to our list), we remain convinced the university will want someone with CEO experience.

Age - We continue to believe the most likely candidates for this job are 55 or under.

Broad Recruiting Reach - The demographic reality hasn't changed in the past three months, so a coach with recruiting connections in places like Florida, Texas or California will have an advantage in this race.

Minimal Connection to Joe Paterno - This might've been the most controversial of our criteria, and if anything, events of the past month or so confirm it's also the most correct. The fact that as many of half of Paterno's assistants have reportedly looked for other jobs since the end of the regular season tells us what we already knew: Barring Paterno's unexpected and sudden resignation to due health issues, his replacement will not come from his current staff. Period.