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Is Another Major Change About To Hit College Football For 2024? · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Thursday, March twenty eighth. I'm your host,
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  Tom Moore. The Akron game in one hundred and fifty six days,
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  the game against Michigan in two hundred and forty seven days. Twenty twenty four
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  is a year of huge changes all across college football in just about every aspect
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  of the game. Oh heck, let's throw one more on the pile.
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  A report from Ross Dellinger at Yahoo on Wednesday says the quote to The NCAA
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  Football Oversight Committee introduced a legislative proposal this month that would expand the abilities of
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  a football support staff, permitting all staff members to provide players skill and tactical
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  coaching instruction both during practice and games. The proposal, introduced for a second
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  straight year after failing to get approval last spring, eliminates the policy limiting coaching
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  instruction to only the NCAA's maximum of eleven quote countable coaches, the ten assistants,
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  and the head coach. This is something that, as said, we
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  were all kind of thinking was going to go through last year, and then
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  it didn't. So now we're going to see try take number two. See
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  if they get it through in twenty twenty four, and everything else is changing
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  this year, why not throw a more and more thing on that pile.
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  One thing that'll never change. My guest today is Tony Gerderman ifuck i Huddle
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  dot Com. Tony, I guess the first question on here is exactly how
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  big of a change would this be for college football. I think it would
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  be a big change in that college football programs would no longer have to hide
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  the fact that all of these analysts and QC people are actually coaching on the
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  field, you know, during practice and stuff. So it would be more
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  open because you're not supposed to. But I think it's it's kind of silly
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  to have somebody that can watch but can't tell you, hey, do this
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  instead, and so you just get rid of that. But also when you
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  can increase the staff number, obviously now you've got more eyes on players,
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  more player engagement, you've got more guys doing less work and better work quality
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  I think gets better. And yeah, this is another situation where the rich
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  could get richer, but they'd be paying money to get richer because they're gonna
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  to be paying coaches. The coaching staffs get bigger, and it just becomes
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  a more manageable situation for the coaches, because with all of these changes in
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  college football, things are getting more and more less and less manageable with four
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  coaches based on all of the other things that they have to do as well.
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  This does feel like something that's going to benefit the bigger programs more than
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  the smaller programs, at least in terms of direct benefit from Hey, all
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  these people can coach. I mean, if you want to look at how
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  big college football coaching staffs can be, now, go ahead and pull up
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  a picture of Billy Napier's staff at Florida and look at how many people are
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  standing there in polo shirts who are on the coaching staff. There's the head
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  coach, there's ten countable ASTs distance. Boy, there's a lot of polo
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  shirts in that picture. So these staffs have balloon. Nick Saban very famously
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  was bringing in a ton of analysts. Ohio State has brought in some,
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  but not quite as many. It does feel like something, as you said,
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  that's going to benefit the big programs more. What's fascinating to me about
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  this is the AFCA, the American Football Coaches Association, represents all the football
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  coaches in the US it is run right now. The president is Craig Bowle,
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  the former coach at Wyoming, which is not exactly a college football blue
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  blood, and yet Craig Bowle is quoted in the article as saying the FCA
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  supports this one hundred percent. So my assumption there, Tony is that either
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  they feel like, Okay, this is not going to benefit big programs more
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  than small programs, or just the amount of demand on coaches these days with
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  year round recruiting and the transfer portal and nil deals and all that stuff.
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  Not that they need to have to deal with that all directly, but it
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  just kind of creates one more big headache for them that you know what,
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  even if it does benefit the big programs a little more, it's worth it
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  just to be able to have more hands on deck, to be able to
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  handle whatever portions of this job that they can. Yeah, I mean,
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  there's a lot of fish in the pond, and somebody at like a Wyoming
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  is a bigger fish than other programs, So the they could grab somebody from
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  lower up to become accountable coach or the uncountable coaches. I also, as
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  you're talking to him, think I'm thinking like a lot of these small school
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  head coaches might see this as an opportunity to go be an assistant football coach
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  at a large program and get a sizable raise for it. You know,
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  last year, what Todd Fitch was making two hundred and fifty thousand dollars at
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  Ohio State as an analyst and as an on field coach, which he would
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  now be able to be. He's no longer at Ohio State, but some
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  head coach from in North Dakota State or whatever, it could become a position
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  coach or an assistant position coach, and now you're one step closer. You've
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  kind of jumped the line in terms of a small program to a larger program,
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  and now once you're in that fold, it becomes a lot easier to
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  get promoted from there. So I also wonder if there's some selfish aspects that
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  in a different way that it's not just I want fewer things on my plate.
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  This could lead me to being on a different plate, having a different
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  plate, And so there are different factors involved. And really I think the
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  reason it didn't pass last year was just because people were concerned about the size
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  of staffs getting out of control. But even in the NFL. When you
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  can have unlimited staffs, there's only some. You know, you only need
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  so many people, and you're needing more and more. But it's not an
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  infinite number. No, it's not an infinite number. And that's something that
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  Hugh Freeze was quoted in the article the now Auburn head coach. He said,
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  quote, you can have too many. I don't want forty coaches.
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  We need more people than ever to try to hold our teams together. We
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  need the bodies to help capture our kids in culture and manage the eighty five
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  man roster. At some point we're limiting their growth, and you know you're
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  limiting the players growth. But there was a quote in there from Craig Ball
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  also about the fact that you're maybe limiting the coaches growth, where he says,
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  quote, this is possibly probably the most common sense approach we could make.
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  For years, we've had analysts and quality control coaches who have a desire
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  to coach. So much has changed with the landscape and players now being compensated.
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  To be concerned that you're going to have an assistant quarterbacks coach out there.
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  Coaching is counterproductive. It's been a compliance nightmare that kind of goes to
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  what you were saying earlier that you know, these guys are in the building,
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  and you can't say you can't do this. When you're in this role,
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  you can't. You you can talk to guys about one thing, but
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  you can't talk to them about another like that. That just feels kind of
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  counterproductive that you're trying to enforce this role that you probably can't really enforce it.
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  Also, you know, as you were saying though, that this feels
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  like this is an opportunity for more coaches. You know, coaches, we've
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  seen basketball any have the coach get fired. The whole fraternity of coaches wants
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  to tell you how this was a terrible move and you know he needed more
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  time. Because coaches are in the business of wanting to have more jobs for
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  coaches, and you have more patience for the jobs, job security for coaches.
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  This feels like an opportunity for football coaches to have more jobs out there
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  for football coaches, which if you're a football coach, yeah, that makes
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  sense. And it also makes sense one of the things in that article talking
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  about maybe you'll see are more special teams coordinators, just standalone special teams coaches
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  and that's obviously been a point of concern or controversy at Ohio State with Parker
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  Fleming the last few years. I remember when they expanded to ten assistant coaches
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  back in twenty eighteen. There was some thought at that time that that tenth
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  position coach might just be strictly a recruiting position and they would be able to
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  go out and about and they wouldn't have a position to worry about because recruit
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  is so important. I don't think that happened anywhere of note, and because
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  there's always something to do on the football field in the practice, Tom,
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  do you remember who who urban Meyer hired as his tenth assistant coach? Oh
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  boy, you're pulling this on me. I'm not. I am not coming
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  up with a name right now. Who was urban Meyer's tenth assistant coach?
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  Alex Grinch? And you want to tell me that a special teams coordinator is
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  a bad idea? That's right. That was twenty eighteen, wasn't it.
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  Oh boy? Well, I was remembering when Georgia brought over at Alabama's strength
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  coach Scott Cochrane. That was supposed to be this big coup. They brought
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  him over as a special he was their strength coach. He brought him over
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  as a special teams coordinator, and he was this big recruiter and all that
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  kind of stuff, and then I don't think he is in that role anymore
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  at Georgia. You know. And the interesting part of this is you have
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  the recruiting piece of this, which I think is obviously a significant streke on
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  guys. We always talk about coaches who just kind of want to coach,
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  and they don't, you know, some of the other accoutra mall that comes
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  along with being a coach is just sort of a little bit of a hassle.
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  There is a quote some quotes in there from Craig Boll and Neil Brown,
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  the head coach at West Virginia, about that. Neil Brown says,
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  it gives experienced staff members who don't like the grind of recruiting an opportunity to
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  get them back on the field coaching rather than being an advisory role. Because
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  what you can do here is if this goes through, and this has not
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  gone through yet, this is still just a proposal. But if it goes
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  through, you could theoretically hire twenty more assistant coaches and you just have to
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  designate which of them are your ten countable coaches in terms of recruiting, in
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  terms of going on recruiting trips. So if you're a coach who is not
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  an effective recruiter but is a great technical coach or a great tactician or whatever,
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  you don't have to be even if you're one of the coordinators or you're
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  one of the positions, you know, the head position coach, you don't
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  necessarily have to be going on the road. So this is I think Tony
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  an opportunity for maybe more specialization. Rather than being a bunch of generalists who
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  have to kind of do a little bit of everything, this is an opportunity
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  for some more specialization where hey, if you're a great recruiter but not necessarily
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  a great technical coach, or you're a great technical coach but not necessarily a
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  great recruiter, you can just focus on your area of strength and leave the
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  other stuff that you don't necessarily want to do to someone who's better at it.
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  Yeah, and I'm even wondering if you start to get to the point
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  where one of your player personnel people, because if you're opening this too,
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  if all of your support staff is able to be on the field and do
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  coaching. Does that mean you can designate one of those people? And could
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  that be like Sam Petito, Ohio State new director player personnel comes over from
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  Alabama. Everybody loves him, parents love him, players love him. Is
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  this something where now, maybe that guy is one of the guys that goes
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  out on the road to recruit and Jim Knowles doesn't or whomever you know,
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  can you afford to keep a position coach home if you can put one of
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  these uh play personnel guys out on the road. Is that something that you
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  want to do because a lot of times this is there, This is some
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  of their their most points of contact or with the player personnel guys in terms
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  of the recruits, and that's that's the first initial in at times. And
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  so is that something that schools will look at doing because you you're gonna have
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  the freedom and the malleability to change some things up. How much do you
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  want to change things? And does it just depend on like you said,
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  you don't have maybe some of your guys aren't the strongest recruiters. Do you
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  just think outside of the box and go away from something of of you know,
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  we don't we don't send our linebackers coach out because it's just it is
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  not good. Is that something that we'll see. I don't know, because
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  you also have to obviously build these relationships with relationships with coaches. But is
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  it the assistant linebackers coach or is it the linebackers coach that you're going to
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  send out there? And you know, all NFL teams have assistant coaches and
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  an assistant to the assistants, and I think that's what you will eventually see,
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  and Ohio State already has that, like the running like Tony Alfred would
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  have an assistant, Brian Harlane would have an assistant. You know where there
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  are just there are so many people on a staff. But getting rid of
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  the illusion that you can no longer you only eleven guys can coach, I
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  think is a fantastic rule because it's it's a rule just to have a rule,
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  and that's kind of pointless in that. Well, we will find out
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  if the rule actually becomes a new rule or not in a little while.
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  Still a six week they call it a socialization stage, as they get as
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  they get feedback from members and schools and conferences and all kind of stuff that
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  can make going to meet in mid May to potentially adopt that legislation. If
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  it does, it could go into effect as soon as this summer. We'll
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  see one more change for college football, potentially this year, in a year
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  full of change, full of excitement, full of drama, full of all
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  of that good stuff. A great place to celebrate what is going to be
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  a milestone year of college football and potentially a pretty exciting year of college football
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  in Columbus, Ohio is at Buckeye Huddle dot com. That's where Tony,
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  Kevin and I covered the team, Mark covers recruiting. We got our whole
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  team of ex's and thse guruz making you a smarter football fan as well.
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  Lot's to talk about right now with recruiting, with the spring football getting to
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  about the halfway point, as we count down the days to the spring game
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  on April thirteenth, much much more all at Buckeyehuddle dot com. We hope
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  to see you there. Let'll do it for today. Thank you guys all
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  for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk to you tomorrow.