Market correction in coach searches: Throwing big money not the answer anymore

Maybe coaching searches just aren’t what they used to be.

In the last 12 months, there have been three mega-openings in college football with another on Saturday when Texas parted ways with Charlie Strong. And here is a snapshot of how those transitions played out:

►Southern California, with all of its cachet and unlimited resources, hired two-time interim Clay Helton with no full-time head coaching experience.

►Georgia fired Mark Richt after 145 wins in 15 seasons and immediately went to alum Kirby Smart without conducting a real coaching search.

►LSU, with two months to get its ducks in a row, settled on interim Ed Orgeron, who was a spectacular failure at Ole Miss less than a decade ago.

►And Texas, which three years ago had its sights set on Nick Saban, is likely to hire a coach in Tom Herman who lost this season to Navy, SMU and Memphis.

LSU names Ed Orgeron head coach

It’s apparent now that a market correction has arrived in college football. The explosion in salaries for head coaches and top assistants has had a two-pronged effect on the coaching search industry.

First, whereas it may have cost a school $3 million or $4 million to get rid of its coaching staff five years ago, it’s now often a $10 million-or-more proposition, which is enough to make boosters and administrators balk.

Second, with the gold-plated contracts coaches are now enjoying, it is simply quite difficult for any school to put together a package attractive enough to get an established, successful coach to move. In the last five hiring cycles, only eight Power Five schools have been able to poach from another Power Five program, with the most notable examples being Arkansas’ hire of Bret Bielema from Wisconsin and Nebraska luring Mike Riley from Oregon State.

In other words, throwing gobs of money at a great coach no longer works because, in most cases, that coach already makes gobs of money. Thus, the calculus becomes more about winning and comfort level. And while Texas, USC and LSU are clearly three of the top five or six jobs in college football, the potential trade-up for a Jimbo Fisher, Dabo Swinney, Gary Patterson or Chris Petersen just isn’t worth the trouble.

Charlie Strong expects to meet with Texas officials after loss to TCU

Having said that, each of these situations represents an administrative failure in their own way, none more so than LSU.

Athletics director Joe Alleva botched the attempted Les Miles firing at the end of last season, brought him back when it was obvious the program needed major changes, then fired him only to promote the defensive line coach.

Orgeron certainly brought a different energy to LSU, and the team played better under him than Miles. But it’s also true he did the bare minimum, if that, from a win-loss perspective. Is beating Missouri, Southern Miss, Ole Miss, Arkansas and Texas A&M while losing to Alabama and Florida with an impotent offense really any different than what LSU fans have gotten for years?

Orgeron is easy to root for because he’s affable, interesting and has come to terms in a very public way with his mistakes over the years. That he now finds himself in his true dream job is a terrific story.

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But given his track record, the likelihood is high that he will ultimately be overmatched in this job and hindsight will not look favorably the process that allowed LSU to make this decision. Alleva did not have a very good plan here, and after Jimbo Fisher said no, only a deep lack of imagination would cause someone to go immediately to either Herman or Orgeron with no other real options.

There are lots of terrific coaches out there, and good administrators with the confidence and autonomy to pull off those hires know who they are. But LSU does not have a good administration, and hiring Orgeron was a panic move by Alleva so that he wouldn’t be embarrassed by losing out on Herman to Texas with no real backup plan.

There’s no doubt it’s hard to hire a coach these days, but LSU made it harder than it needed to be. Most likely, the big winner Saturday was the rest of the SEC West.

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