Tom Hart explains why CFB coaches no longer need 5 years to rebuild a program
College football TV announcer Tom Hart joined McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning Tuesday to discuss the recent changes that NIL and the CFB landscape have gone through, pertaining specifically to the time it takes to rebuild a struggling program.
The summary of Hart’s discussion revolved around the success of coaches such as Josh Heupel and others who have had success in as little as 2 years after being hired. Sonny Dykes, as further example, just punched a ticket to the National Championship game as a first-year head coach at TCU after a 5-7 2021 season.
Some time ago, Hart argues, that turnaround would not have been possible.
“A couple coaches out there, like Sonny Dykes, like others, Josh Heupel, they’ve shown that you no longer need 4, 5 or 6 years to build a program. Get me in there, let me work get the NIL money working, let me jump into the transfer portal, let’s get this sense of belief and momentum around our program and we can get there immediately. I think that changes the dynamic of college football.”
The @SECNetwork‘s @Tom_Hart stopped by @MacandCube and discussed coaches across CFB proving that you no longer need 4-5 years to build a successful program.
Whole interview: https://t.co/cgaMEj6frM pic.twitter.com/TJKKg0A18R
— WJOX 94.5 FM (@WJOX945) January 3, 2023
Tennessee may be the best example of this in the SEC right now. The Vols were a sunken program when Josh Heupel took over out of UCF. He had a good season in 2021 and a fantastic season in 2022, one that was borderline CFP-worthy had Tennessee shown up to play against South Carolina.
Even still, the Vols finishing 11-2 after a 3-7 2020 season is as impressive a coaching job as it gets.
I do not agree with this at all. Heupel brings in only one high 4/5 star in McCoy and lost 34 to the transfer portal the year prior. Other transfers not highly ranked! He beats teams like LSU that brought in many transfers and Bama with lots of transfers and 5 stars all over the field. ESPN disrespecting the coach again. It’s just called great coaching! That’s all ESPN!
Rickys63
I’m glad someone else understands that fact that it’s nothing but a convenient excuse.
Imagine you being hired to step in and run a business and you sit down and write a letter to your employees, your investors and your customers and tell them I don’t have what I need to succeed and please be patient with me. I would guess by the end of the day you would be expected to have a different statement or your unemployment paperwork would be ready. Big boys go to work and don’t make excuses.
I don’t like his choice of the phrase “build a program”, because it’s not the best way to build a program. You can build a team by using the portal to fill gaps, but a lot of those players are one-and-done. Then you have to keep doing it, year after year. It can help, as a stop-gap measure, while you are building a program. It’s not a substitute for recruiting and developing HS talent.
totally agree bayou tiger and said so just a few days ago on another article. They were talking about kiffin building his program from the portal. While he did, to a large extent, build a team, he hasnt built a program and wont that way. I guess ole miss doesnt have a very good NIL collective working on their behalf. kiff may get lucky every few years living off the portal but he will never build a program doing that.
HURRY HURRY HURRY !!!!!!!!!!
Someone needs to get to Brian Kelly and Coach Dykes and tell them it’s against the rules to be successful in their first year.
Apparently that’s cheating and billy is going to write a letter about it to the NCAA
Terrible take- there are a handful of teams that can pull together talent in a year or two to turn a program around. Throw out TCU as an anomaly, and the list is short.
Let’s see how the programs that were built in 1 or 2 years last.