Is Marcus "too nice"?
I tend to think Marcus' lack of fire as a coach is a significant part of the problem, but not the whole problem. I agree that he is "too nice" in the sense that he wants to empower the players; he seems to desire a team-led resurgence; and he continues with that philosophy despite the fact that it has not worked. However, I don't think his teams have absorbed any standard of performance that he sets, and you can question whether he has a standard of performance given what he accepts, and as a result you get the failures that we've witnessed.
Separate and apart from that, I think he has significant coaching weaknesses. He has high rated recruiting classes, but there are key position deficiencies (e.g., DL, WR, punter). And he doesn't seem to understand game day coaching in any material respect. He defers entirely to his coordinators, doesn't interact with the players on the sidelines, and doesn't work the refs. It's made me question whether he's needed on the sidelines at all. I'd also add that his comments about Leonard basically being a game manager before the NIU game were both stupid and naive. That may be true, but you don't need to say it that way.
As an organization, having someone at the helm who is perceived as nice but who is not competent ultimately makes the institution look weak. That strategy may appeal to moms who want to send their kids to a nice place, but in terms of garnering respect in the area in which you compete, it's not going to put points on the board.
Link: Too nice or incapable of molding men?
Replies to: Is Marcus "too nice"?
Brian Kelly wasn’t nice and where did that get us?
Pete Carroll was a players coach and won a couple national titles (shared one because it was still the poll era). I don’t think it is has to do with being nice or mean. It has to do with holding everyone accountable and clearly defining what your expectations are. You also need to put your team in a position to win. You have to know your team’s strengths and manage their weaknesses. He need to have frank conversations with his assistants and players. And tell them how it is, it doesn’t matter if you are a senior or a freshman, the people that are showing us they are playing to the standards in practice and games will play. For the coaches, if he hears them talking up a player and they clearly are not playing to standards, he needs to set it straight. If he sees a non-starter doing the right things and the starter messing up, he needs to tell the coaches who is playing.
5 ten win plus seasons. He wasn’t the guy but neither is Marcus.
(no message)
Also a 4-8 one and losing just about every big game.
(no message)
Many of the fans have been 'too nice' in continuously supporting MF no matter what he does
I expect the HFC to field the best players who will help ND win. I question whether MF is currently doing that at the QB position.
Was concerned at the pick but hoped he would grow into the position.
Year 3 and he has not. Unfortunate.
He will not be let go. however, barring a wheels off collapse...
Astounding that in over 40 years ND has only had 2 coaching picks that made real sense, Holtz and Kelly. (O'Leary made sense as well but the poor vetting was their fault.)
Unlike Swarbrick when Kelly left, Bevacqua had better be ready at any moment to get the best HC (that fits) available. In December 2026, he better have the best most successful HC he can get his hands on, that works for ND, lined up and ready to go. Money no object.
The malpractice in hiring coaches has been astounding.
Agree. ND seems to get it wrong in coaching hires a lot more than they get it right.
It's not a science, but the coaching searches post-Lou especially have been not well managed and seem haphazard and flat footed.
The malpractice you speak of is specific to hiring guys without prior HC experience..
We have a very high success rate when we hire guys with prior HC experience.
IMHO Marcus is a player's gentleman. He's really good at emotion & that hype thing.
He's goood at fashion and apparently keeping in shape. What he's not good at is being a HC. He doesn't know what he's doing and you can see that by his pressers. He's having a hard time making decisions that are tough and making decisions on the fly. Fist pumping and yelling rah rah stuff ain't going to cut it. He doesn't even know what his offensive philosophy is because he's not an offensive coach by any means.Why aren't we throwing downfield? Is Riley injured? Why did you sign him w/o a physical? Where the hell was Love the rest of the game? If he's the guy making the decisionns on RB playing time he needs to stop. If he's the guy overlooking offensive philosophy, he needs to stop. We have hiigh priced coordinators. Let them do their job and stay out of the way. He can go to alumni luncheons, raise money, be on the covver of mags and make hype videos but stay out of the way of offensive and defensive operations. All this is on him. This loss was on him. Everything that happened Saturday was under his direction. Somehow, some way, maybe the players can win in spite of Marcus like they did under BK. Living under the thumb of the Chicago media market, I can't escape the game. It's on all TV, print, radio and even non sports talk radio. BK took the abuse last week from Irish fans and karma said no, now it's your turn and it will be even worse. I agree totally with Goolsby in his "State of the Program" analysis.
Ayup.
(no message)
Sadly, I think this is the case as well
(no message)
Agree. Started with Faust...where ND exhibited the hubris to believe it could create a Rockne-type
...legend.
It actually started with Terry Brennan, with whom they tried to do the same thing. He'd only coached
in HS, but was a star player under Rockne. Made it even more unbelievable that they thought they could do it again with Faust.
We've had plenty of disappointments with experienced coaches too. I get it though. I hear ya.
(no message)
No we have not...that is a flat out lie. ty and Kelly have the worst two win % among
experienced hires. Name the 'plenty of others' pretty please, with sugar on top.
ty was the only complete failure we've had from experienced hires...he is the outlier.
Stop being a childish wise ass.That's the only response you're getting.
(no message)
ELP...I apologize for what I said, it was over the line to say you lied, let's start over..
I think your statement is a misrepresentation.
I will admit upon further review there were more than I stated who came with prior experience and still failed, but the results are still very heavily slanted towards the experienced HC hires.
I overlooked: Hunk Anderson, Hugh Devore, and Joe Kuharich. I thought when I did this research they showed no prior College HC experience but apparently I was wrong.
So when you look at all of our HCs and break them into win percentage of .750 and above vs those under that, you have 10 HCs above .750 who came in with prior HC experience and only 5 above that who were inexperienced.
When you look at guys under .750 (Kelly is at the top with .738) you have 10 who were inexperienced and only 5 who were experienced.
Mathematically, that is literally inverse results when you hire experienced vs inexperienced HCs.
List the experienced HCs who bombed!
You are just making things up and its counterproductive.
Joe Kuharich was one.
(no message)
Yeah I corrected myself above with apology..I missed a couple.
(no message)
Ty Willie should have had enough to succeed. He just sucked.
(no message)