Good enough isn’t good enough

The firing season has begun in college football already. Les Miles received a reprieve late last season at LSU, but a less than stellar 2016 start brought the head coach his walking papers. Oh, and a big buyout check in the 10 million dollar range.

Defensive and offensive coordinators have also become part of the unemployment line. Don’t feel bad for them, they’ll be hired again soon.

There are a few more names. Like Charlie Strong at Texas that may be let go at the end of the year if the wins are hard to come by.

Strong’s name was on the hot seat last year but his team defeated Oklahoma in that rivalry game and it made the Longhorn fans happy again.

Alumni and fans are a fickle lot and athletic directors need to make sure these folks are happy otherwise they might not be willing to donate freely to the athletic fund and that would not be good.

Coaches need to have a stellar resume and make sure they can prove they can win and recruit. It is important that the coach is able to schmooze the big time donors and win them over. If a coach can do that he can get by with a loss now and then as long as those people know this is the guy that can deliver.

Coaches can often be compared with purchasing a car. There are a lot of styles and options and as long as that car performs and looks good, the car will come home every night to the garage.

But what if the car doesn’t perform or starts acting up? It is constantly becoming a problem and is no longer trustworthy.

Before you know it everyone starts talking about getting rid of the car even if the owner is still making payments.

No doubt you’ll take a loss on the investment but there is that new car (coach) that everyone is raving about even though it is going to cost a whole lot more to put that car in the driveway or the coach to move to your town and turn the program around.

Will the car live up to its hype? Does it really seat six and does it actually get 30 miles to the gallon? How is the ride and what about the stereo system? What is the warranty on this thing? What happens if I really don’t like it?

What about the coach, is he going to live up to the hype? Can this coach get the maximum out of the players? Can he recruit? Is he a good communicator and get the most out of the athletes that he is coaching?

How many years will we have to sign him up for just in case things don’t work out? There are lemon laws when buying a car but a coach is something different. Unless he really messes up (think Mike Price at Alabama) chances are it is going to cost the athletic department a bunch of money to fire the coach.

But there are plenty of big time donors at these major universities that can help get rid of a perceived failure at just about any big time school. Some coaches can last a long time while others are seemingly on a short lease. There is a fine line between success and failure and a lot of it has to do with how the school and its alumni and donors define it.

There is an old saying that a win is a win. But at some locales a win is a win as long as it is a rout. And those things are becoming more difficult to come by because every young coach wants to win and motivate and find the big payday at State U or the U of State.

Every now and then that big upset that catches everyone by surprise may also lead to a short tenure for the losing coach.

But that’s the nature of the beast and the reason coaches try to sign big money contracts for a number of years so they and their families are protected in case something bad happens and the fans no longer think the coach walks on water.

Coaches don’t automatically become geniuses when super success happens but they don’t become stupid when the losses start mounting. Those things happen. And when there is success there is usually a big pay raise and when there is hardship everyone wants the coach fired.

It seems when that happens, good enough really isn’t quite good enough, and it’s time to start shopping for that new car.