TheCatInTheHat wrote: ↑Tue Nov 16, 2021 11:39 am
Not to kick RichRod, but his recruiting tailed off, and some of our struggles getting pushed around in the lines so much the last few years (and during his own tenure) are his responsibility. Sometimes, there's a shelf-life for a coach and his pitch. You can sell "the big dream" early on, but after a while, you have to sell what you've settled into. He tried the videos on social media and the squirrelly uniforms, but it didn't really pay off. RPO QBs were always going to flock to his offense, but the talent problems were generally elsewhere. Hence the flirtations with Virginia Tech and South Carolina. (And don't get me started on Marcel Yates.) So, I don't think he necessarily would have been able to generally crank out 7+ win teams year after year, any more than Mike Stoops could have kept things in the 2008-2010 level after his best assistants (and Nick Foles) were gone. There's no replacement for money to attract and retain top assistants. You benchmark other programs at the level you want to compete, and that's your price tag. And the buck stops on Robbins' desk.
We'll never know. And college football is more about Jimmy's and Joe's than X's and O's, but the coaching certainly matters. RichRod won 7 games and came close to winning a bowl game (had Wood only held on to the int), with basically the same team Sumlin won only 5 games with. And Sumlin had more clunkers than RichRod, with the debacles at Houston, at WSU, and the meltdown against ASu. Sumlin's first Arizona team had offensive continuity problems all year, and it's hard not to believe RichRod doesn't go bowling if we retain him.
It's also hard to guess what might have happened during Tate's senior year had RichRod stayed. Maybe Tate bombs like he did, and gets replaced by a true freshman? Or maybe with RichRod, Tate lives up to the Heisman hype and is at least in the discussion a good part of the year?
Assuming RichRod had stayed, and made bowl games in 18 and 19, that's 7 bowl games out of 8 years at Arizona. Even if they were more New Mexico Bowls than Fiesta Bowls, this kind of winning record doesn't go unnoticed. Especially if the Tate hype is sustained through his senior season.
True, we'd be recruiting more RPO QBs and Smurf receivers than top D-linemen, but again RIchRod proved he could win 7 games with a team with a below mediocre D. And RichRod proved that with an above mediocre D, he could win the PAC-12 South. It's a lot of assumptions, but had RR stayed, I could see averaging between 7 and 8 games a year, with the occasional push for a South title, and the occasional clunker season too.
With Fisch, hard to tell. Brown is by far, the best assistant on the staff. But he's 65, and not sure how much longer he'll be around. And in the PAC, you need to have a solid O to win. Utah had solid defenses for years, but didn't win the S until their offense caught up. And they still haven't had enough to win the PAC Championship. And Fisch, to me at least, isn't a good offensive coordinator. Neither is Carroll. So unless we upgrade on that side of the ball, or somehow recruit USC level talent that can overcome the coaching, it's hard to see Fisch being successful long term. Just my opinion.