Dear Jimbo,
Thank you for taking over as Offensive Coordinator after Jeff Bowden resigned/was paid off/was fired despite his father trying to save him. Thank you for providing a new vision for our program and developing quarterbacks, making them more efficient, and creating a multiple style offense that we had not seen in over a decade. I remember where I was on the day Jeff was fired, I was driving north on 319 crossing Killarney Way, and I had an old flip phone that I was typing texts on as fast as I could. Since then I have had a picture of you in a frame with the Obama-style color scheme and "Hope" written underneath. It took me a while to find a good version, but I printed it out and now it sits behind my desk just conspicuous enough so a visitor to my classroom would know I am a diehard Nole fan who really trusts his head coach.
You have brought a brand new "Process" to FSU. It is one we did not have before, nor did we really need it prior to the Lost Decade. College football has changed drastically, and it is now a business unlike anything before. I could speak and breakdown for days the relationship between recruiting, NFL style offenses, preparing players for the NFL, and the lifeblood of a program being the athletes it gets. The relationship between all of those is directly related to the changing dynamic of professional sports and collegiate revenue sports. Your process is perfect fit for our program. You understand the changing of the game and what needs to be done to get the recruits and make them great players.
However, your Process is failing. As a former student-athlete, alum, an educator, and a coach I have perspective as to what it means to mentor student-athletes and it pains me to see my University failing in a manner that can be avoided. Here are some suggestions as to what should/could be changed and why it has to take place. Stop the coach speak; evaluate the necessary changes in your Process; learn how to adjust game plans on the fly; delegate.
First, Coach, stop the coach speak. I know the relationship between the program and the media is something you want to control, but nothing is more frustrating when the very people who support your program want to find a reason to continue to support it and all they hear is a coach who explains away the results as a "lack of execution". You do realize we crucified the previous staff for blaming players? Please stop doing that. Not only is it unhelpful, it is condescending. Surely, very few of the fans understand the schemes you are explaining, so maybe your hope is to overwhelm them with X's and O's and that will satisfy them. Or maybe that is just how you think, and that is ok... if you are an Offensive Coordinator. I expect the impersonal, condescending explanations from Charlie Weiss, not Jimbo Fisher. In no way am I asking for his return, but you do realize Bowden was able to stay as long as he did because he knew how to work a room; he knew how to talk to reporters, give them good quotes, tell a story, not be an X's and O's robot? The people who pay your salary don't want to hear that you drew up a good play and the players failed to execute it.
Second, clearly your Process has progressed the recruiting beyond what it was before you got here. We will be very, very talented. It has left some gaps in the offensive line, and that will have to be answered for. But your Process on the fied is not yielding results. Something is breaking down between the drawing up of the plays and the execution of them on the field. Something needs to change in how that is being implemented.
As stated before, I am an educator. Last chapter, I provided my students with written notes, a PowerPoint form of those notes, and a conceptualized form of the information through concept charts and idea mapping using Prezi. I nailed the drawing up of the information from every possible way a student could learn. They bombed the test. The next chapter, we read the chapter together instead of on their own, we reviewed vocab twice, not once, and I gave one set of notes in one linear written form. They aced their test. The tests were equal in difficulty, but the process to get there was far less convoluted. The first process looked good to other teachers, administrators, and parents but it failed my students. My point: simplify what is taking place.
Simplify what you require. These are 19 year olds who most likely are not the best and brightest in the classroom. They have a lot going on in their lives. You must change what you are doing as a teacher of football because the same mistakes are taking place in the run blocking and the play checking at the line of scrimmage.
Changing your Process also entails preparing yourself for in game adjustments. That sounds like an oxymoron, but you have to be prepared to change on the fly. You know your football well, and you understand what other coaches do as evidenced by your decision to call for a run at the end of the game knowing they'd blitz and hoping EJ would check to a bubble. It was a great piece of chess, but that didn't happen. Too often these types of things are happening (or not happening). They are related to the above issues, but your response is key. I know you prepare every week for 1:30, 1:20, :50 on the clock, but that preparation is coming across more like shackles to what you can do. We are limited in our play calling by being unimaginative and predictable. Surely execution should take place, but it's not. Adjust, please.
Lastly, delegate your responsibilities. You are the head coach, the de facto offensive coordinator, the quarterbacks coach, the lead recruiter, the only person who gives press conferences, luncheons, interviews, or call in shows. Further, you are a father and husband. How is there that much time in the day? You have to be skimping on something. You cannot possibly have that much energy or ability to prepare everything you should. It is obvious that you are a great father and husband. You are not cutting corners in that department. My guess it is in the coaching somewhere. In fact, I am certain of it. Manuel has not developed the way he should after having four years in the program. The offensive game plan, while effective in many ways is lost when we have a single disruption (running backs missing blocks). Honestly, 1st and Goal from the 1 and we don't score a touchdown. Explain that all you want about how the DEs and OLBs were going to pinch, but that is not an excuse.
Further, you need to let your Assistant Coaches speak. If anything, this will prevent the unnecessary awkward predicament the players find themselves trying to explain what happened on the field. In a strange twist you have your players doing the PR for you and your staff rather than the adults leading the team in the most important off field aspect of the program- media/public relations. And if you will not let your coaches speak to the media, is that not a great representation of the environment and intrinsic lack of confidence you have in your subordinates? Surely you are trying to avoid a PR disaster that can happen when an assistant may contradict you, or you are letting them game plan more. It seems like a good thing that they do not have to worry about that aspect of the program. But damn, man, you in making them invisible to the larger audience of fans thus painting a larger target on your back.
These suggestions are easily dismissed because you are a major college football head coach and I am not. We don't know what happens with you and your staff, and that's exactly the point. You have challenged players and fans to commit to the program, to live up to expectations, to literally buy into it being our time but you do not answer to anyone but yourself. We trust you and want you to win. We want this program to be good, but it is difficult to trust you when you don't trust your staff, the media, or the fans. We trust you with 2.75 million dollars a year but it's hard to continue the trust when you have the program held hostage.
More control from you over this program won't fix the situation. Doing the same thing over and over again getting the same result while expecting different is not Process, it's insanity. You need to back off some of that intensity. You need to teach simpler. You need endear the fans to you. Look at the guy on top. He may not be able to draw up X's and O's, but he trusts his staff, and his players play for him because he isn't an overbearing bore. Fans have learned to trust him; they had process and he wasn't, but he is winning. He may very well hold the job you consider your dream job and he is kicking ass.
We need you to be great. We trust you to be great. You don't have to win the National Title next year. You just need to show that the same mistakes aren't being made, that your players are progressing, they we are relevant in the national picture, and that you can enjoy being head coach as well as enjoy being our coach.... oh and beat that Ag-school south on I-75.
Roll Tribe,
Mitch
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