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Thursday, January 11, 2007
McKay confident Petrino can make jump
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
Flowery Branch — College football head coaches often crash and burn in the NFL. The Falcons put on their fireproof suits and hired Louisville’s Bobby Petrino anyway.
Then again, Falcons guru Rich McKay knows something the rest of us don’t when it comes to quenching flames in this situation.
It begins and ends with this: McKay spent years in the same house with a college football head coach used to winning championships who crashed and burned in the pros before rising from the ashes to reach the NFC championship game and more playoff appearances after that. The team was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Their first head coach was the late John McKay, who happened to be Rich’s father, in addition to the college legend who took Southern Cal to four national championships.
“You’ve got to remember that a lot of [college coaches] that get hired in our league come to teams that aren’t very good, and in my dad’s case, he didn’t come to a team that wasn’t very good. He came to a team that was awful,” said Rich McKay, referring to a Buccaneers group that was winless in 1976 during its first season. It also lost its opening 12 games that next season. Then came the drafting of stellar quarterback Doug Williams in 1978, and the year after that, the Buccaneers fell just 10 points shy of reaching the Super Bowl.
Even so, the older McKay’s pro experience was as ugly as his collegiate days were pretty. He resigned when the Buccaneers became the Buccaneers again in the mid-1980s. Since then, whether you’re talking about Dennis Erickson, Steve Spurrier, Butch Davis or Nick Saban, few college coaches come within a clue of placing a Super Bowl ring next to a college national championship one.
Said Rich McKay, “I think that what happens is that it is a shock to those coaches that they’re not winning games. They went from losing one game a year to losing 10, and sometimes that’s really hard for them to be able to survive that.”
Which means what for the Falcons? After a splendid four-year run at Louisville that produced a 41-9 record and two finishes in the top six during the past three seasons, Petrino is inheriting a flawed team. He has everything from a quarterback (Michael Vick) who still is considered a project after six years in the league to a defense that continues to creak despite the Falcons spending millions to get it right.
This also is a franchise that never has managed back-to-back winning seasons since its birth during the middle of the LBJ administration. In fact, the Falcons just ended with back-to-back non-winning seasons. Sounds like a formula for disaster for a guy who spent 18 of his 21 years in coaching on the college level.
“Every case [of a college guy taking a pro job] is different, and in our case, what I did like was Bobby’s experience in Jacksonville,” McKay said of Petrino’s three years as a Jaguars assistant, including one as offensive coordinator. “He was very successful, and they were really a good football team. I also like what he has to say about building a staff. My dad always looked back and said, ‘You know, the biggest mistake I made [at Tampa] was that I didn’t get enough NFL coaches. I really went with a college staff. I thought that these were my guys.’ I think Bobby’s feeling is that, ‘I’m going to have my guys. But I’m also going to blend in some guys who have been there, done that.’ “
Five of Petrino’s initial hires, for instance, were NFL assistants. That’s an encouraging start.
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No defense for the BCS system
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
The worst argument against a Division I-A playoff — and all the arguments are bad — is that it would cause student-athletes to miss class. The BCS title game was played on Jan. 8. Classes began at Ohio State on Jan. 3, at Florida on Jan. 7. Feel free to laugh out loud.
The BCS has always been, and will forever continue to be, a transparent way to mollify those who demand a playoff while still (and above all) protecting the bowls. And the more insiders are exposed to the money inherent in the bowls — the payout to each BCS title game participant was $17 million — the less inclined they are to protest.
Remember Urban Meyer’s claim that the system needed to scrapped? Well, on the morning after Florida banked its championship and its money, the Gator coach sounded as if he might be re-thinking things. That’s the way of the world: When you become an insider, you want to stay inside.
And the trouble with the BCS is that it makes it tough on the outsiders. Boise State landed a berth in the Fiesta Bowl, yes, but that was only the slot created by the BCS as a sop to the smaller conferences, a slot made possible by the creation of the championship game itself. Boise State, lest we forget, was the only Division I-A school to finish undefeated. For this distinction it wound up No. 6 in the coaches’ poll, behind Southern Cal and LSU, each of which lost twice.
Do I think Boise State would have beaten USC or LSU in a playoff game? No, but I didn’t think Boise would beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta, either. (Neither did I think Florida would beat Ohio State.) The beauty of March Madness is that anything can happen. The failure of the BCS is that only a few things are allowed to happen. Two teams completed their regular seasons unbeaten, and only one was given the chance to play for the title. That’s just wrong.
Until there’s a playoff system, the wrongs will mount on annual basis, but I’m convinced there will never be a Division I-A playoff. Now Mike Slive, the SEC commissioner, is saying the BCS might take a look at having a “plus-one” playoff after all the bowls when the current agreement expires after the 2009, but isn’t the BCS title game essentially a plus-one unto itself?
For the strongest argument against the BCS, we need only to turn to Bernie Machen, who’s Florida’s president. His team just finished No. 1, and he thinks a playoff is needed. Guess ol’ Bernie hasn’t heard how much missed class time — heh, heh — such a thing would entail.
Permalink | Comments (58) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Quick Hit
