Hope + Change = Failure

December 12, 2019

Good Day Grover Pickers,

It’s evaluation season, a time when all the teams not in playoff contention will mull new ways to use their outsized expectations to mismanage their organization.

It’s also coach season, a time when the owners and boosters of college and pro teams fly around the country on private jets hunting for the next Lombardi in the same way Indiana Jones hunted for the Holy Grail.

Jones, a fictional character, was so much better at his quest than these owner and boosters.

Sports teams are terrible at hiring. They are always in a hurry. There is too much importance on winning the press conferences.

All the worst owners and ADs will keep telling you they’ve ‘got the right guy’ who, magically and on his own, will repair all the ills of a rotten organization.

This dude, who the search team has now known for 36 hours and who you have never heard of and who would have taken a different job if the other team had just offered a private jet for his family, is the next Saban, Bowden or Shula.

We are going to win now. Get your season tickets while you can.

These are The Commissioner’s Top 3 Hiring Secrets:

1. Hiring is a skill.
2. Nearly every manager, executive, employee, fan, cheerleader, and ball boy believes he/she is great at the hiring skill.
3. Other than the Pittsburgh Steelers, every manager, executive, employee, fan, cheerleader, and ball boy in sports is a fish-brained fool when it comes to hiring skills.

Here’s what happened so far: Boston College fired Steve Adazzio, but Colorado State hired him a week later. FSU fired Willie Taggart, but FAU hired him to replace Lane Kiffin, who was fired by USC once, but now is the head coach at Ole Miss, who fired an alumnus after losing to Mississippi State. Missouri thinks it should be better so they hired a guy who had success briefly at Appalachian State. App State was starting to think it was a football powerhouse and now they may find out differently. FSU took 9 seconds to decide to hire Memphis coach Mike Norvell. It is unclear if FSU ‘officials’ hired Norvell before or after they saw this photo of him as a player at Central Arkansas with cornrows. 

And round and round it goes.

Are these all good coaches? Certainly.

Do any of them fit at their new school? Who knows.

Would you agree to live in Tallahassee, Florida in return for a seven figure salary from a group of likely incompetent strangers you just met? Yes you would.

Here then are The Commissioners evaluations of some of the Grover PIckers’ favorite teams along with a few exceptional suggestions.

Florida-

Build a new facility completely out of step with common decency, but completely in step with college football.

The new Bill Heavener Football Training facility at UF will cost north of $85 million and gets a big boost from Mr. Heavener’s donation (Thank You Mr. Heavener!).

The facility includes A RESORT POOL WITH PALM TREES!

I hope the rest of the SEC enjoyed a few years of success because they all become backwater shanty towns compared to this. (You can take that as a compliment, please. It’s written so that I’m not calling all those places ‘current’ shanty towns. They are ‘potential’ shanty towns. My kindness knows no bounds.)

AND… The new Heavener Football Center is not just for football. According to multiple marketing materials made by UF, “The front lower quadrant of the building will be for all student athletes featuring a dining hall and lounge, along with outdoor activities and amenities.” 

Everybody in the pool!* 

*(exceptions: The ‘front lower quadrant’ is off limits to any  student majoring in Chemistry, Engineering, Biology, Nuclear anything, Business, Law, Medicine, English, Architecture, Education, Music, Economics, Political Science, Computer Science, Earth Science or Forestry. UF built a series of libraries for you people. Please stay out of the athletes’ pool.)

You and I really need to check into this amateurism thing. Seems like a really lucrative business.

Tennessee-

Where to start. First, if you can’t build a resort pool like UF, maybe you can rope off a swimming area in the Tennessee River. A giant slide is also a nice amenity. Second, get the search committee organized now for the next coach. Sure, you may win a few more games next season or the year after, but it sure feels like UT football is headed for one of those Urban Meyer/Art Briles/Bobby Petrino endings.

Alabama-

Get Nick Saban some help. The poor guy is out here trying to run an entire university and sometimes it’s overwhelming. Take special teams for instance. Is there anyway somebody in Birmingham can cough up a measly million extra bucks to hire a competent special teams coach for the Tide? This is a once glorious program that now has failed to make the college football playoff for 11 consecutive months. I’d say the boos will only get louder than they were a few weeks ago, but it’s hard to get louder when the fans have stopped going to games. Nick Saban deservers better. Just ask him.

North Carolina-

A. Lend some players to the basketball program. It needs help. Dopey Roy Williams is out-dopeying himself this time.

B. Get a team of nutritionists, doctors, hairdressers and physical therapists assigned to follow Mack Brown everywhere at all times. He can’t get sick. He can’t get any older. His hair must remain in place. He shouldn’t even risk shaking hands with boosters with his own hands for fear of germs.

C. Have some donors pour money into developing better high school football programs in the state. There’s lots of talent here that is underdeveloped.

South Carolina-

Thankfully, Gamecock fans have always enjoyed cheering for mediocrity except for most of the Spurrier era when life was good. This program needs a new identity. Change the name to South Carolina Swamp Foxes, after the legendary Revolutionary War General Francis “Swamp Fox” Marion. A swamp fox sounds more dangerous than a fancy chicken. An extra benefit is that the Swamp Fox fought for America’s freedom, so he’s a universal hero and you can skip right past any real or imagined Civil War controversy as well as allusions to illicit fighting bird contests that are no longer in fashion.

This, then, is the face of the New Swamp Fox. It makes so much more sense! Victory Will Follow!

Miami-

I know it’s a weird thing to say about a team that just lost to FIU, but he Canes need to lower their standards. In The Commissioners Official Proposed Football Realignment Plan, there will be a new conference of small private universities with fabled programs to include Miami, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Duke, Stanford, and Cornell. These schools will compete with each other for a chance to play one of the Major 40 Conference teams, which are the new ‘Collegiate Pro’teams such as Alabama, Clemson, UCF and the like. Canes fans, it’s time to stop thinking of yourselves as a team that competes with Texas and start thinking about how you can hold your own with Cornell.

FSU–

Start looking for your next coach after the failed Mike Norvell experiment. The history of football indicates a program gets one Bobby Bowden, one Paterno, one Schembechler, one Osborne, one Spurrier, one Bear Bryant AND one Nick Saban in special cases.

On the bright side, at least that erector set of a stadium will be easy to dismantle as the years go by and fan interest turns to more interesting pursuits, such as esports on YouTube.

Also, have you considered building a stocked fishing pond near Doak Campbell? I hear some players, particularly linemen, love bass and catfish.

Arizona State-

If only the Sun Devils could recruit retirees from the midwest who could play, this program would be top 5 every year. Unfortunately, there are not enough football players, or people, in Arizona to fill out a football squad and so, Herm Edwards is wasting his time. Also consider adding a shooting range to the football facility, maybe for machine guns or skeet. That could attract some players.

Mississippi State-

You be you, Bulldogs. Nobody else wants the job.

Auburn-

Quit trying to fire coach Gus Malzahn! Just shut up about it! He’s great! He’s as good as you will get for decades! He’s better than Pat Dye. A blind, drunk, three-legged platypus is better than Pat Dye! Pat Dye was TERRIBLE at his job and you treat him like the second coming of Bear Bryant! Stop it! Your school is in east Alabama or west Georgia which are both 2 hours from anything interesting. Just keep embarrassing Bama at Jordan Hare every two years and be happy. And leave Gus Malzahn alone!

Georgia–

You’re pressing, Georgia. You need to relax. You want so badly to be taken seriously, to win a championship, to be thought of as at least as good as Bama, Florida, LSU and sometimes Auburn.

Here’s an idea… endow an assistant coach position for comedian James Gregory. He’s a Georgia guy and he’s billed as “The Funniest Man Alive”. Take him to all the meetings. Let him give some pre-game speeches. Let him talk to the media instead of the head coach. It will lighten the mood. He’ll help all those great athletes relax and then they’ll run faster and maybe cover more Bama wide receivers. If you don’t like comedians, then may I suggest this guy….

Virginia–

Bronco Mendenhall is getting it together in Charlottesville, but so what? When the football world reorganizes based on The Commissioners Official Proposed Football Realignment Plan, UVA will join the Public Higher Education Elite League with schools like Michigan, UCLA, Florida, and UNC.

These are places where, if there were no football team, the school would still thrive academically, athletically, and within the world of international research relevance. This is a semi-pro league, not the Collegiate Pro league where the lesser schools thrive. Consider adding an underage micro-brewing facility near the locker room. That’s a win-win for players and boosters!

HOW TO FIX PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL TEAMS

The Bucs-

Cut Jameis. Put in new red seats at the stadium so they are actually red. Double the size of the pirate ship and install a Hooters on the top deck. See if former Buc John Lynch will return to fix everything. Bring back Buccaneer Bruce.

The Steelers-

The helmets suck. They should be gunmetal grey, of course.

The Cowboys-

End the charade. Just let Jerry Jones coach the team. I’m sure Super Bowls will follow. As long as the Cowboys have tickets.

The Jags-

Move to London.

Switch to rugby.

We won’t miss you.

The Browns-

Hire Ron Rivera as head coach.

Build a shelf to hold the Lombardi Trophy.

Plan the parade for February 2021.

The Dolphins-

Take modern football to the extreme. 5 tight ends at once on offense. No defensive linemen over 280 lbs, but all the safeties at least 230 lbs. Sign Cam Newton if he’s healthy and unleash him to run with power and chuck it deep. Don’t Be Normal! Be Weird!

The Giants-

Trade for Belichick. The Patriots like to get rid of players just before they decline. This is the time to get Belichick. As an extra incentive, you can buy the staff a new mirrorless digital camera system so Bill will feel at home.

Panthers-

Follow the ‘new’ formula and choose the coach that everyone seems to be after. He or she is a 22 year old Madden 17 expert who believes in using the 11 personnel concept, play action on all snaps from all formations, quarterback sneaks exclusively when there is 1 or fewer yards to gain, and never punts and only runs an augmented Tampa 2 defensive scheme with weak side pressure on 2nd down. Give him/her full control, refer to him/her as “Our genius”, and never draft a defensive player before the 4th round ever again.

The Patriots

Ummmmm… the Patriots spied on the Bengals? Isn’t that like the Queen of England pulling through the drive thru at Burger King to buy a Whopper? Also, Patriots ‘fans’ booed their team last week. How do you think that makes Lions’ fans feel?

Happy Picking, and good luck with your team’s tragic decision making….

The Commissioner