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Message: [QUOTE="CuseLegacy, post: 1303870, member: 469"] Free Article..2/47 Coaches don’t believe there’s a solution to issue of peers taking new jobs right on NSD [URL='http://2/47sports.com/Bolt/How-can-we-fix-assistant-coaches-leaving-after-signing-day-35688461…'][U]http://2/47sports.com/Bolt/How-can-we-fix-assistant-coaches-leaving-after-signing-day-35688461…[/U][/URL] What do Notre Dame, UCLA, Washington State, Central Michigan, TCU, FIU, Air Force, Ohio State, Vanderbilt, and Florida all have in common? Little, aside from the fact that each parted ways with a football assistant — in some cases, as high-ranking as coordinator — on National Signing Day. Not the week before. Not a month after the fact. On the very same day 20-30 kids were contractually binding themselves to enroll with the 128 universities competing in FBS football, some of the very coaches who’d convince them that there was no better place to spend the next 3-5 years of their lives were choosing another destination for themselves. This, somewhat understandably, left at least a handful of student-athletes feeling like they’d been sold a bill of goods. Most coaches hold the line, often parroted by fans, that players should commit to a university, not a coach. “You should never try to convince a player to attend a school because of who the head coach is, or who his position coach or coordinator is going to be,” said one assistant at a Power 5 program. “There’s a 75 percent chance that his coordinator or position coach won’t be there by the time the player graduates, and that’s probably as high as 50 or 60 percent for the head coach. That’s just the reality.” College coaching positions do indeed turn over at a high rate, but if kids are being dissuaded from choosing a school because of who based on who will be coaching them, what factors [I]should they[/I] be considering? Does the quality of a university’s engineering or broadcast journalism or philosophy program truly matter to five-star prospects for whom Plan A is to spend three years playing college football before moving on to the NFL? If pro football endgame, then it’s perfectly reasonable that kids would want to be comfortable with what they’ll be learning and from whom they’ll be learning it. "It does have more of an impact when it's a position coach because kids want to know who is going to be coaching them and working with them every day to get better," said one SEC assistant. "If a coordinator leaves they really just want to make sure the scheme is going to be the same. As long as the scheme is the same they don't care who is calling the plays." Signing day 2015 was perhaps most notable for the fact that last-minute coaching departures upended the plans of several blue-chip prospects, some of whom felt misled by the staffs they had planned to sign with. Four-star linebacker Roquan Smith committed to UCLA on NSD but eventually flipped to Georgia after his primary recruiter took an NFL job. Five-star defensive end CeCe Jefferson balked at sending in his NLI when Florida’s defensive line coach left but came on board once the new coach was announced. Four-star running back Michael Weber felt misled by [B][URL='http://247sports.com/Coach/Urban-Meyer-147'][U]Urban Meyer[/U][/URL][/B] and then-Ohio State running backs coach [B][URL='http://247sports.com/Coach/Stan-Drayton-151'][U]Stan Drayton[/U][/URL][/B], who took a job with the Chicago Bears just hours after Weber’s NLI came in; unlike Jefferson and Smith, Weber had no recourse because he’d already put pen to paper. It doesn’t seem like the best solution is to punish coaches who leave after signing day or to come up with a disincentive that constrains their ability to move from one job to another. “At the end of the day, this is a business, and people have to provide for their families,” said an assistant at a Power 5 school. “But I would also say that what isn’t reported is how many coaches are fired after Signing Day.” North Carolina secondary coach [B][URL='http://247sports.com/Coach/Dan-Disch-249'][U]Dan Disch[/U][/URL][/B], for instance, was one of the coaches unceremoniously relieved of his duties on Feb. 4. In a world where every coach is only as good as his unit’s last season — or, in some cases, their last game — it’s perfectly sensible that assistants would always be on the lookout for a chance to move up or even just stay afloat. But it seems like the same freedom of movement ought to be granted to the players. “I think it is an issue,” Nebraska head coach [B][URL='http://247sports.com/Coach/Mike-Riley-638'][U]Mike Riley[/U][/URL][/B] [URL='http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/115739/mike-riley-on-post-signing-day-coaching-moves-i-think-its-bad-for-our-game'][U]said on Feb. 13.[/U][/URL] “I think it is unfortunate for the student-athletes. I think they feel somewhat deceived, and I think that’s bad for our game in general … After signing date we need to talk about that -- what can be done, what are the kids' options? Can they be allowed to make another choice?” If the player happens to learn of a coach's intention to leave before he signs, he can withhold his signature. That's one option, and one that Roquan Smith proved the utility of in the weeks following signing day. But it's only an option for blue-chip prospects like Smith, who are virtually guaranteed a spot somewhere on a college roster. Other prospects with don't have the kind of leverage, so any solution short of giving them the freedom to void their NLI and sign elsewhere without forfeiting any ineligibility doesn't give them the same banquet of choices afforded to the coach who just left him in the lurch. [/QUOTE]

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