Joe Pa Plans to Coach in 2011

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At ND I'd disagree. Holtz was the guy calling the play most of the time until he turned the reigns over to Skip Holtz for a few years in the early 90's. But even then Holtz had veto power on any play call coming in. The defense though was mostly Alvarez.

Don't get me wrong, I expect every coach to have veto power on any play call coming in. It's the same way with Miles at LSU. He also has 4th down decision making, which I believe is the same at most staffs.

But even with some control over the play calling, a college coach's job still basically comes down to recruiting and motivating players, appeasing boosters and cooperating with the media.

[FirstTimer]

Don't get me wrong, I expect every coach to have veto power on any play call coming in. It's the same way with Miles at LSU. He also has 4th down decision making, which I believe is the same at most staffs.

But even with some control over the play calling, a college coach's job still basically comes down to recruiting and motivating players, appeasing boosters and cooperating with the media.

No doubt. In 20-30 years quite a bit has changed. It was easier for guys like Holtz in the 80's to be X's and O's guys when most teams were running basic versions of I-form or Pro-set or still running variations of the option.

It was all really the same stuff in many ways so if you coached it you could defend it. The spread wasn't really prevalant at all. Even in 1993 when F$U came to South Bend they were running something pretty similar to the spread passing attack we see today with Charlie Ward. That had only started in late 1992 and F$U was calling it their "fast break" offense or some cheezy shit.

As offenses and defense have become more and more varied I don't think it's become very feasible for coaches to really be X's and O's guys on both sides of the ball..and many times not even on one side.

[SethMode]

Which is also a large reason why so many college guys fail when they make the jump to the pros, IMO (and why a lot of them hesitate to make said jump).

[Sportsbuck]

He still handles the recruiting, media appearances, and pre-game motivation speeches.

If you didn't know, I just described 75% of college coaching. There are few true tacticians in the college game (Saban, Peterson, Patterson, maybe a couple more) and the rest are essentially CEO's. Mack Brown, Les Miles, Lou Holtz, Bobby Bowden, etc... All of these guys have won national titles, yet nobody can really say they are great with Xs and Os.

JoePa doesn't really recruit anymore. The last in-home visit he made was Pryor in 2008. JoePa is a figurehead, Tom Bradley's pretty much the man behind the success (or failure) of PSU at this point.

[NAHSTE]

JoePa doesn't really recruit anymore. The last in-home visit he made was Pryor in 2008. JoePa is a figurehead, Tom Bradley's pretty much the man behind the success (or failure) of PSU at this point.

It makes sense that he doesn't go on visits anymore, but the Paterno mystique probably goes far enough. Plus I'm sure he kills when the kids make the official visits to Happy Valley.

[ram29jackson]

He still handles the recruiting, media appearances, and pre-game motivation speeches.

If you didn't know, I just described 75% of college coaching. There are few true tacticians in the college game (Saban, Peterson, Patterson, maybe a couple more) and the rest are essentially CEO's. Mack Brown, Les Miles, Lou Holtz, Bobby Bowden, etc... All of these guys have won national titles, yet nobody can really say they are great with Xs and Os.

Bowden said as much a couple years ago- head coaches are good delegaters

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Bowden said as much a couple years ago- head coaches are good delegaters

Yep. What killed FSU was when Bobby's top assistants like Chuck Amato and Mark Richt went on to become head coaches elsewhere.