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Larry Coker Building a Program

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AlGolden

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THIRD SEASON, and started the D1 football program. Good for him. Finished second in conference USA With UTSA going 7-5. Best Tulsa, Louisiana Tech.
 
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Leisure-Suit-Larry is where he should have always been...at a MAC level program. He should have been "Lane-Kiffinned" right after the 2002 MNC game. The only people who wanted him at Miami for as long as he was .....were opposing coaches and the media who wanted to see him drag the program down (which he did with terrifying speed).

For all the damage Shannon did... it pales in stark comparison to the self-wrought devastation of the Coker-years. Dee and Donna got caught up with his "nice-guy" personna but the man was basically a kazoo-player on a Broadway stage. He wanted to be Bobby Bowden (without the coaching skills). He cut enough throats and stabbed enough backs that he could have earned himself a guest spot on Game of Thrones......all to buy himself time as Butch's players left the program. Then he was exposed for all to see as the media tried to shame Miami into keeping the idiot around. Miami handed him a Porsche in 2001 and in 2006 he handed them back a Ford Edsel.
 
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Coach of our 5th National Championship and should have been coach of our 6th...don't forget that. Every coach eventually gets fired. I am not defending his last few years, but for God's sake, look at the facts.

As a second thought, if a coach comes in and wins instantly is he just raking in the other coaches recruits or improving their skill. Is Gus Malzhan is terrible coach like Coker also? Stop cherry picking and living life in 20/20.
 
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RDCane said:
Coach of our 5th National Championship and should have been coach of our 6th...don't forget that. Every coach eventually gets fired. I am not defending his last few years, but for God's sake, look at the facts.

As a second thought, if a coach comes in and wins instantly is he just raking in the other coaches recruits or improving their skill. Is Gus Malzhan is terrible coach like Coker also? Stop cherry picking and living life in 20/20.
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Did you really just try to equate Guz Malzhan and Larry Coker?

Let's see, one took over a team that was 3-9 the previous season going 0-for-the-conference. The other inherited a team that went 11-1 and won a BCS game. Yeah those are the same circumstances.
 
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nwFL Griz said:
RDCane said:
Coach of our 5th National Championship and should have been coach of our 6th...don't forget that. Every coach eventually gets fired. I am not defending his last few years, but for God's sake, look at the facts.

As a second thought, if a coach comes in and wins instantly is he just raking in the other coaches recruits or improving their skill. Is Gus Malzhan is terrible coach like Coker also? Stop cherry picking and living life in 20/20.
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Did you really just try to equate Guz Malzhan and Larry Coker?

Let's see, one took over a team that was 3-9 the previous season going 0-for-the-conference. The other inherited a team that went 11-1 and won a BCS game. Yeah those are the same circumstances.
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It's not a direct comparison in many ways. Only way it correlates is that the coach came in and did what the other could not do... immediately.

Admittedly Malzhan is more impressive, but the previous coach was a **** show carried by Cam Newton
 
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Lol. You are reaching saying Coker yrs were worse than shannon yrs. he only lost over 3 games once and played in major bowls. He failed because he let shannon call the shots on most recruits because RS bragged about he is a father figure to them. He is from their neighborhood, can vouch for their characters. Remember all the trouble makers were shannon's defensive players.
 
canesupremacy said:
Lol. You are reaching saying Coker yrs were worse than shannon yrs. he only lost over 3 games once and played in major bowls. He failed because he let shannon call the shots on most recruits because RS bragged about he is a father figure to them. He is from their neighborhood, can vouch for their characters. Remember all the trouble makers were shannon's defensive players.
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Oh come on... Stop it... This thread has nothing to do with Shannon... Its about Coker... Out of the last 3 hires Coker is the best coach... He won championship, was cheated out of another and slowly regressed to his eventually firing... However, I would definitely take coach with his record at the U "right now"... That being said, who knows what might have happened if he had qb from 04-06.... I mean we got the best qb in the state but unfortunately he did transition into starting qb, we took a transfer from UF who took 2 years to come into his own, and the number 1 consensus qb recruit never panned out... I'm happy for Coker and he's building a brand at UTSA... To be fair, I think our issues with Coker stemmed from being outdated... I think our offensive philosophy became to transparent but it could also be attributed to lack of qb play... I mean just look at Louisville in 04 and 06 that offense gave us troubles because it was new... Spurrier had the run n gun and Texas Tech had their offense but Petrino's offense seemed a bit different and gave us problems...
 
First, Kudos to Larry. Maybe karma does get it right every now and again. By all reports, Larry Coker was a genuinely good person.


Here's something Ive been thinking about lately: Does it require the same skill-set to take a program from being a bottom feeder to being a bowl team (i.e.: going from 3-4 wins per year to 7-8 wins per year) as it does to take a program from being a consistent bowl team to being a national title contender??

Larry seems like a good example. I started thinking about this as we've been discussing Golden and dorito. They were able to take Temple up from bottom feeder to a bowl team. Does that mean they will be able to take UM back over the top?? Im wondering.
 
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I can't remember if it was Butch or Schiano but I remember one of them saying that it was tougher to take a team from 10-2 to 12-0 than it was to go from 5-7 to 10-2.
 
SFbayCane said:
Here's something Ive been thinking about lately: Does it require the same skill-set to take a program from being a bottom feeder to being a bowl team (i.e.: going from 3-4 wins per year to 7-8 wins per year) as it does to take a program from being a consistent bowl team to being a national title contender??
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There is overlap, but in general my answer would be that no, it doesn't. There is no such thing as a generic "good coach". There are program builders, disciplinarians, Xs&Os wizards, offense only geniuses, defense only geniuses, CEOs, people who know how to hire great assistants, extreme recruiters, etc, etc., etc.,.

There are a few people who are good/very good at some of these, but very few who are great at every one of them.

If I'm looking at a program builder - Art Briles is the A1 #1 best in the business in that he's got a proven system in place where less talented kids seem to consistently excel against better talent. Butch Davis is another, but for completely different reasons... he identifies talent better than anyone on the planet and is pretty good at changing minds. If I'm looking at someone to maintain a national #1 program, Briles would be in the list but probably not as high as some others, and Butch probably wouldn't even be a top 10 candidate. Someone like Mike Leach makes great sense some places, not so much in others. There are all manners of "good coaches", and Larry Coker was just an absolutely horrible fit for us at that time, unfortunately. We blew something magic.
 
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Parkland Cane1 said:
Images of Ed Reed trying to calm Larry Choker's nerves in the locker room before the start of the Rose Bowl. Dude was a clown
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Coker was far from being a clown. He was simply a man who was outmatched by the job he'd earned. No need to hate forever.
 
TheSwagger1 said:
SFbayCane said:
Here's something Ive been thinking about lately: Does it require the same skill-set to take a program from being a bottom feeder to being a bowl team (i.e.: going from 3-4 wins per year to 7-8 wins per year) as it does to take a program from being a consistent bowl team to being a national title contender??
Click to expand...

There is overlap, but in general my answer would be that no, it doesn't. There is no such thing as a generic "good coach". There are program builders, disciplinarians, Xs&Os wizards, offense only geniuses, defense only geniuses, CEOs, people who know how to hire great assistants, extreme recruiters, etc, etc., etc.,.

There are a few people who are good/very good at some of these, but very few who are great at every one of them.

If I'm looking at a program builder - Art Briles is the A1 #1 best in the business in that he's got a proven system in place where less talented kids seem to consistently excel against better talent. Butch Davis is another, but for completely different reasons... he identifies talent better than anyone on the planet and is pretty good at changing minds. If I'm looking at someone to maintain a national #1 program, Briles would be in the list but probably not as high as some others, and Butch probably wouldn't even be a top 10 candidate. Someone like Mike Leach makes great sense some places, not so much in others. There are all manners of "good coaches", and Larry Coker was just an absolutely horrible fit for us at that time, unfortunately. We blew something magic.
Click to expand...


I totally agree with two of your key points:

1) "The Fit" (between the skool and coach) is as important as the qualifications of the coach.

2) To be an elite head coach requires that one person have such an incredible collection of talents, that's why we rarely see them. The skill set requires they be:

* A top shelf X & O guy.
* A CEO
* A used car salesman
* A nice guy
* An elite talent evaluator
* A field general
* Incredible at networking (within the coaching industry)
* Have an appearance that appeases university management who often dont care about on-field success.
 
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The guy was 4-2 in bowls (technically 5-1)

He won a national title (technically 2)

He won an absurd number of games in a row, and didn't lose a regular season game until late in the third year.

He was 7-2 versus the Noles/Gators.

He recruited off lists, didn't maintain a solid staff, and ignored his S and C program. He deserved to be fired.

Randy Shannon OTOH did not a single good thing in his tenure. All the bad of Coker, with none of the good. Coker was Dennis II. Unfortunately in 2006 when we should have hired Butch II (or butch himself), we hired the Retardo Lord who basically closed the coffin on the program.
 
Larry didn't "win" the MNC.....he was a passenger on a ship on auto-pilot. However his ineptitude lost us an MNC in 2002. There are times when the record belies the man.
The truth can be harsh ...so much so that after being canned by Miami....every program worth its salt stayed clear of the man. They knew the awful truth ....the job (any top level job) had always been too big for him.
Frank Solich (Bless Him !) was booted from the CornHuskers, confessed his displeasure, but realized his limits and signed on with Ohio U. and made them respectable again. Larry on the other hand kept publicly sulking ...as if he was Pete Carroll done wrong. There's an old adage ' Never believe your own publicity ' ..but stupidly Larry had let ESPiN and the rest blow smoke up his butt ..telling him how good he was ...never realizing there was no love lost between the media and Miami.
 
xereus said:
Leisure-Suit-Larry is where he should have always been...at a MAC level program. He should have been "Lane-Kiffinned" right after the 2002 MNC game. The only people who wanted him at Miami for as long as he was .....were opposing coaches and the media who wanted to see him drag the program down (which he did with terrifying speed).

For all the damage Shannon did... it pales in stark comparison to the self-wrought devastation of the Coker-years. Dee and Donna got caught up with his "nice-guy" personna but the man was basically a kazoo-player on a Broadway stage. He wanted to be Bobby Bowden (without the coaching skills). He cut enough throats and stabbed enough backs that he could have earned himself a guest spot on Game of Thrones......all to buy himself time as Butch's players left the program. Then he was exposed for all to see as the media tried to shame Miami into keeping the idiot around. Miami handed him a Porsche in 2001 and in 2006 he handed them back a Ford Edsel.
Click to expand...

The Edsel a fine auto. Larry left a pinto.
 
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