As time goes, it seems more and more like he struck gold with a staff, and as those guys left, his backfills and new hires have not been good enough. I still think he has time to turn it around but the recent trend hasn’t been good.
Mandel's: Dropped out: Norvell (No. 4), Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy (No. 9), Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell (No. 12), USC’s Lincoln Riley (No. 14), Wake Forest’s Dave Clawson (No. 17, retired), Kentucky’s Mark Stoops (No. 22) and Washington’s Jedd Fisch (No. 23). Feldman's: Dropped out: Florida State’s Mike Norvell (No. 10), Kentucky’s Mark Stoops (No. 14), Wake Forest’s Dave Clawson (No. 16, retired), Nebraska’s Matt Rhule (No. 18), Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell (No. 19), Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy (No. 20), Michigan State’s Jonathan Smith (No. 22), Auburn’s Hugh Freeze (No. 23) and Washington’s Jedd Fisch (No. 24) The previous year rankings of the guys who dropped completely out of the top 25 are wild.
Only if you are ranking previous accomplishments, not coaching ability in the current game. I took this list as how they would go in a draft if they were all pooled and redistributed.
That's my point. Dabo is not close to a top 3 coach in the sport right now. 2016 and 2018 were different eras ago.
Yeah these readings are always bizarre. I don't think Dabo is a top 10 coach right now but we have to put him top 3 because he won a championship. If Jimbo Fisher gets a job do we have to put him at 4 automatically
what's wild is seeing those names in the top 25 and, while not necessarily disagreeing (at the time), still be amazed that that's what passes for a top 25 coach. feels like we're in a serious dearth of quality HCs right now.
I'm not a Dabo fan at all. I shouldn't say "you must rank him top 3" (or top 10 or wherever). You can put him wherever you want. If this were a CFB coach draft, I wouldn't have him in my top 5. At the same time, these comps are stupid and you guys know they're stupid. Dabo has won 10+ games 13 of the last 14 years. Clemson has finished ranked in the top 15 in the final poll 12 of the last 13 years on top of 2 titles and a bunch of playoff appearances. Mack Brown hasn't had a 10+ win season since 2009. Jimbo hasn't won 10+ games since 2016 and has one top 15 season since then (COVID year).
Yes I don't disagree. You're having to kind of go off guys who are at different points in their careers. I think at a certain point you have to I guess forget they won a championship in a case like Dabo and he's pretty a top 15ish coach at that point. Maybe he's top 10. IDK
Since 2021, Dabo is 23-7 in ACC play, no AP Top 10 finishes, 2-2 vs. South Carolina, scored 6 points total in two games vs. Georgia, and 3-6 vs. the SEC.
This doesn't make comparing him to Mack Brown any less stupid so I'm not sure what you're going for here.
My point was that no one thought Mack was a top 25 coach entering last season because his accomplishments were so distant they lost relevance. The same applies to Dabo. His accomplishments came in an era before the portal and NIL. Since the implementation of those things, he's a top 15 coach at best.
Having Norvell at 4 last year was ridiculous. I know this exercise is just fishing for engagement during the doldrums of the offseason but bumping some of these guys on the success of one season and then plummeting them is kind of silly.
Obviously Ross is acting as a PR arm for the schools but they really think the judge is going to approve the settlement? Seems like too many objections filed to an already skeptical bench.
Idk. His record holds up against his peer group. Career Record v. Final AP Top 10 #1 Kirby: 16-10 #2 Day: 11-8 #3 Dabo: 9-20 #4 Sark: 3-19 #5 DeBoer: 4-2 #6 Freeman: 3-4 #7 Lanning: 4-5 Spoiler #8 Franklin: 4-30
Franklin is what he is. He’s a fantastic coach that gets his teams to play at their ceiling with remarkable consistency. His teams’ ceiling is below a top 5 level. He loses to the top 5 level teams. It’s just what he does but we could certainly do much much worse than him at PSU. Very rarely do his teams ever have a stinker of a performance, just like they rarely ever play up.
He seems like a “Brian Kelly with higher floor” to me. That said, he seems to be open to surrounding himself with elite coordinators which might be the differentiator. 2025 is going to be very telling for him.
There’s 3 or 4 games in Happy Valley Franklin should’ve won against top 5 teams maybe more A team with top 6-8 talent should be able to beat top 5 teams at home especially when your home field advantage is that pronounced
but they don't have top 6-8 talent, they have routinely been in the 10-14 range under Franklin and while he's 4-30 vs teams who finished AP Top 10 (I actually have 4-22 while at PSU, so the others are likely while with Vandy), how many times was he a favorite? 6 times (2-4 rec). how many times was he a dog of less than a TD? 7 times (1-6) so he's not supposed to win most these games in the first place, he's just not and ftr, only 9 of the games were at home and PSU was a dog in all of them and at a serious talent deficit in 6 of the 9 (6 of 9 are vs OSU) Franklin gets crushed for not beating a team who has a total of 19 losses since 2012 lol
they are certainly trending that way. but they still have critical deficiencies where you have to be at least above average; WR in particular. and then obviously they have to do better developing QBs, I do think he has wasted some talent there that could have/should have been a bigger difference maker in some of these games vs elite competition
We’ve had a few classes land there but generally speaking we’re just solidly top 15. Good enough to always be in the blue chip ratio contender group but not much beyond that. 2020 could’ve been a special season if not for Covid. Only getting two seasons out of Parsons was a travesty and Journey Brown was emerging as an elite RB until he had to medically retire. Then it just went off the rails because you know.
PSU fans badly want to be OSU and compare themselves to OSU when there isn’t a comparison. The comp would be Michigan, but they had Harbaugh. He was fine against Harbaugh until his last 3 years there.
We occupy our own little purgatory that I don’t think anyone else enjoys. At least until last season’s reprieve.
It’s Penn State’s turn to win a national title among Big Ten teams this year. Oregon has to wait because they are still probationary members.
Penn State's title drought is karmic punishment for their fans falsely accusing upstanding, unbiased B1G refs of being on Michigan's payroll.
probably none. look at where Clemson is in talent acquisitions 2014-25 and where PSU is. then look at the level of competition at the top of the league each dealt with
The conference opponents piece is totally fair. But the HC is also responsible for those recruiting results, so assuming a constant there is a bit disingenuous. Granted, Dabo has his own issues there - especially when it comes to recent developments in the sport - but to make the comparison in a vacuum seems off.
I'm not sure what my point is. If Dabo is a good coach and James Franklin is a bad one, presumably Dabo could jump in there and do better. But I think the overall takeaway is "good head coach" in college is a moving target. Dabo got weaker when he lost Brent Venables. But you can't say Venables is a better coach than Dabo when he goes 7-5 at OU and Dabo goes to the playoffs again.
totally fair other parts to the hypothetical would include: does he have Venables and all the other assistants that helped Clemson rise up? is OSU and/or Michigan going to tank like FSU did during the Clemson rise? it was a perfect storm for Clemson and Dabo, one I don't know we can assume would happen if Dabo was at say Penn St or another non top dog in a power conference
and for the record, Clemson's talent acquisition has fallen off since 2019 Dabo is now working with far closer to Penn St level talent. clemson is 64-17 since 2019 while PSU is 56-21
Franklin's Penn St and Harbaugh's 2015-20 Michigan really is a great comparison. Jim just got more out of the development come 2021-23 and he took advantage of having a 5 star QB, something Franklin hasn't been able to do