TOS has interviews with the assistants that I'd commend to all. Great series. Some reactions to the Netter/Talamaivao joint interview:
* This experiment of having two co-offensive line coaches and not providing them or the players with any clarity in terms of division of roles and responsibilities (as opposed to the model used everywhere else that has two offensive line coaches, which is having an interior OL coach and a tackles coach, with the latter often also coaching tight ends) is one of the most distinctive things about Taylor's first staff. This is a bold move. The way it played out - not being Taylor's first choice for staff construction but rather a fallback when two members of Taylor's initial staff left after just a few months, after the coaching carousel had spun and there were many fewer options available - undermines any argument that this is a vision for the optimal way to construct a staff. Taylor's first choice was to get a much more established and senior OL coach. Taylor's past head coaching success was built on a different model as well, which was to have his most senior assistant (and closest associate, the man he had co-head coached with at the high school level.....talk about a unique arrangement!) in the role. We're clearly in Plan B territory, running an experiment at the most important position group on either side of the ball when it comes to assistant coach instruction.
* As an aside before continuing to talk about our OL coaching situation, remarking on Taylor's unique approach to OL coach and reminiscing about his unique approach to high school coaching spurs a thought: Taylor is not a cookie cutter coach. It's probably an under-discussed aspect of him how willing he is to buck conventional wisdom, especially in terms of how he builds a staff. This is a head coach who is making his first foray into major college football head coaching with a staff that doesn't have an offensive coordinator or a QB coach aside from himself, a unique (hopefully innovative!) co-OL coach arrangement, and a defensive coordinator with no coordinating experience but two assistants below him with tons of coordinating experience. I think this qualifies as bold. One can worry about the uncertainty of traveling paths that aren't tried and true but I think one can equally be intrigued, even excited, about the prospect that Taylor thinks dynamically and creatively and won't be bound by the strictures of coaching profession groupthink. Personally I don't think the coaching profession as a whole should be viewed as particularly brilliant, so there's a real shot Taylor's experiments can be innovations. Here's hoping. I don't know enough about Taylor to comment on the extent to which this observation could also apply to being a creative, outside the box, innovative thinker as an offensive mind, but his past successes raise confidence. In fact I'd have more confidence in his ability to sustain dynamic offenses than I do in his ability to develop comparative advantage through unique coaching staff arrangements, but I hope he shows us both.
* While I do view this co-OL coaching arrangement as an odd experiment we only came to after being knocked off the initial preferred course, necessity is the mother of invention. I hope Taylor has hit on something potent with the partnership between Netter and Talamaivao. The biggest upside to this is something Talamaivao highlighted: getting two sets of eyes on the players and giving them no shortage of coaching. One can imagine a situation in which this is particularly attractive when so many young and inexperienced OL need to proceed along a learning curve quickly. On the other hand, there's the risk of too many cooks in the kitchen. In particular, I worry about players having difficulty processing mixed demand signals on technique or other issues, or just simply getting overwhelmed with everything being thrown at them. It's hard enough when players have to adjust to different coaching philosophies and teaching points from year to year. With the addition of these two perspectives Rogers, McLaughlin, Pogorelc, and Berzins have had five position coaches in college (Carberry, Heffernan, Adams, Netter, Talamaivao, albeit with Adams' tenure short and not including real on-field coaching). Not ideal, and to now have a different coaching perspective in their ear every other day is something else to adjust to.
* For this to work it's essential that the two-headed OL coaching monster cohere and work as seamlessly as possible. I've been eager for this interview to start getting a sense of how they interact and mesh. I wouldn't say the vibes were the most evidently synergistic we could have hoped for but seems like at least a modestly positive indication of their chemistry. At least I didn't pick up on any significant awkwardness, rivalry, divergent philosophies, or incompatibility. I did pick up on a little bit of unease and lack of obvious confidence/presence compared to my impression of the other young coaches Jackson has interviewed. That could be a function of the interview format requiring them to share the spotlight/alternate answers/vibe off one another or it could be a function of personalities (being less bubbly than Agnew and Osborne does not necessarily mean Netter and/or Talamaivao are less confident, though it could), but it could also speak to gravitas issues. While there's much I really like about the backgrounds for both and what I saw in this interview from both, it's just reality that they're both unusually inexperienced for a Power Five coaching job. We're a long way from both Yale and Northern Arizona.
* I use the word "rivalry" advisedly. For better or worse, Taylor has set up a dynamic that could very easily get competitive. These two have no division of labor or responsibilities other than alternating the days they work with given position groups and they're in a situation unusual for Power Five football. Given the possibility Taylor decides after a season or two that he's stretched too thin or that he needs a more senior offensive sounding board on staff than he has or that the co-coaching experiment isn't working, these two have signed up for a potentially competitive dynamic. I'm therefore quite interested (but never expect to know) how Taylor communicated the opportunity to them and how he manages them. I wonder if he gave any sort of multi-year commitment (unlikely given the nature of the coaching profession but you never know, especially given Taylor's gospel of love and that he surely appreciates the challenge of stability for assistants). I wonder if he checks in with them and/or gives feedback as a duo or individually (my guess is as a duo but I really don't know). The dynamic doesn't have to be competitive depending on how Taylor and the assistants act, but it could be. And if it is that could have deleterious or salutary effects. A lack of synchronization or communication would be bad. Hungry young assistants trying to impress their boss via results and recruiting outputs would be good.
* For the moment we can't do anything but take them at their word that it's a true partnership, organic, natural, all that good stuff. Better that they say it than that they don't. We'll see what it looks like on the field. Speaking of which, alternating days that one coach is with interior OL and the other is with OTs sounds fine for practice and, I guess, meetings, but what are we going to do on gamedays? Will either have a run game coordinating/advising role or is playcalling and orchestration of the offense 100 percent Taylor? Who talks to which linemen and when? Clear as mud.
* It was interesting Netter's ostensible establishing of Talamaivao's bona fides was "he was a great player in college." It's unusual for that to be what gets emphasized with a coach but then again it's unusual for a coach to have so little coaching experience. Part of me wonders if somewhere in Netter's subconscious he was distinguishing between his own level of coaching experience (five years as a full coach, albeit at the Ivy League level) and Talamaivao's (zero years as a full coach). I also wonder whether Talamaivao's playing credentials are top of mind in part perhaps because Talamaivao tries to connect with players and/or recruits on that basis. As I said at the time of hiring, I certainly remember Talamaivao as a player and recruit. 2,727 snaps for USC is so, so many. There's never been a Stanford OL, not even Walter Rouse and Johnny Caspers (and think about how much they played), who PFF recorded as having that many snaps at Stanford. I wonder if any Stanford OL have ever had that many snaps. If so, not many. Anyway, the point is Talamaivao has war stories to tell players and recruits. Talamaivao (like Kolodziej by the way) can talk about winning a Rose Bowl. Talamaivao also played Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl.
* This experiment of having two co-offensive line coaches and not providing them or the players with any clarity in terms of division of roles and responsibilities (as opposed to the model used everywhere else that has two offensive line coaches, which is having an interior OL coach and a tackles coach, with the latter often also coaching tight ends) is one of the most distinctive things about Taylor's first staff. This is a bold move. The way it played out - not being Taylor's first choice for staff construction but rather a fallback when two members of Taylor's initial staff left after just a few months, after the coaching carousel had spun and there were many fewer options available - undermines any argument that this is a vision for the optimal way to construct a staff. Taylor's first choice was to get a much more established and senior OL coach. Taylor's past head coaching success was built on a different model as well, which was to have his most senior assistant (and closest associate, the man he had co-head coached with at the high school level.....talk about a unique arrangement!) in the role. We're clearly in Plan B territory, running an experiment at the most important position group on either side of the ball when it comes to assistant coach instruction.
* As an aside before continuing to talk about our OL coaching situation, remarking on Taylor's unique approach to OL coach and reminiscing about his unique approach to high school coaching spurs a thought: Taylor is not a cookie cutter coach. It's probably an under-discussed aspect of him how willing he is to buck conventional wisdom, especially in terms of how he builds a staff. This is a head coach who is making his first foray into major college football head coaching with a staff that doesn't have an offensive coordinator or a QB coach aside from himself, a unique (hopefully innovative!) co-OL coach arrangement, and a defensive coordinator with no coordinating experience but two assistants below him with tons of coordinating experience. I think this qualifies as bold. One can worry about the uncertainty of traveling paths that aren't tried and true but I think one can equally be intrigued, even excited, about the prospect that Taylor thinks dynamically and creatively and won't be bound by the strictures of coaching profession groupthink. Personally I don't think the coaching profession as a whole should be viewed as particularly brilliant, so there's a real shot Taylor's experiments can be innovations. Here's hoping. I don't know enough about Taylor to comment on the extent to which this observation could also apply to being a creative, outside the box, innovative thinker as an offensive mind, but his past successes raise confidence. In fact I'd have more confidence in his ability to sustain dynamic offenses than I do in his ability to develop comparative advantage through unique coaching staff arrangements, but I hope he shows us both.
* While I do view this co-OL coaching arrangement as an odd experiment we only came to after being knocked off the initial preferred course, necessity is the mother of invention. I hope Taylor has hit on something potent with the partnership between Netter and Talamaivao. The biggest upside to this is something Talamaivao highlighted: getting two sets of eyes on the players and giving them no shortage of coaching. One can imagine a situation in which this is particularly attractive when so many young and inexperienced OL need to proceed along a learning curve quickly. On the other hand, there's the risk of too many cooks in the kitchen. In particular, I worry about players having difficulty processing mixed demand signals on technique or other issues, or just simply getting overwhelmed with everything being thrown at them. It's hard enough when players have to adjust to different coaching philosophies and teaching points from year to year. With the addition of these two perspectives Rogers, McLaughlin, Pogorelc, and Berzins have had five position coaches in college (Carberry, Heffernan, Adams, Netter, Talamaivao, albeit with Adams' tenure short and not including real on-field coaching). Not ideal, and to now have a different coaching perspective in their ear every other day is something else to adjust to.
* For this to work it's essential that the two-headed OL coaching monster cohere and work as seamlessly as possible. I've been eager for this interview to start getting a sense of how they interact and mesh. I wouldn't say the vibes were the most evidently synergistic we could have hoped for but seems like at least a modestly positive indication of their chemistry. At least I didn't pick up on any significant awkwardness, rivalry, divergent philosophies, or incompatibility. I did pick up on a little bit of unease and lack of obvious confidence/presence compared to my impression of the other young coaches Jackson has interviewed. That could be a function of the interview format requiring them to share the spotlight/alternate answers/vibe off one another or it could be a function of personalities (being less bubbly than Agnew and Osborne does not necessarily mean Netter and/or Talamaivao are less confident, though it could), but it could also speak to gravitas issues. While there's much I really like about the backgrounds for both and what I saw in this interview from both, it's just reality that they're both unusually inexperienced for a Power Five coaching job. We're a long way from both Yale and Northern Arizona.
* I use the word "rivalry" advisedly. For better or worse, Taylor has set up a dynamic that could very easily get competitive. These two have no division of labor or responsibilities other than alternating the days they work with given position groups and they're in a situation unusual for Power Five football. Given the possibility Taylor decides after a season or two that he's stretched too thin or that he needs a more senior offensive sounding board on staff than he has or that the co-coaching experiment isn't working, these two have signed up for a potentially competitive dynamic. I'm therefore quite interested (but never expect to know) how Taylor communicated the opportunity to them and how he manages them. I wonder if he gave any sort of multi-year commitment (unlikely given the nature of the coaching profession but you never know, especially given Taylor's gospel of love and that he surely appreciates the challenge of stability for assistants). I wonder if he checks in with them and/or gives feedback as a duo or individually (my guess is as a duo but I really don't know). The dynamic doesn't have to be competitive depending on how Taylor and the assistants act, but it could be. And if it is that could have deleterious or salutary effects. A lack of synchronization or communication would be bad. Hungry young assistants trying to impress their boss via results and recruiting outputs would be good.
* For the moment we can't do anything but take them at their word that it's a true partnership, organic, natural, all that good stuff. Better that they say it than that they don't. We'll see what it looks like on the field. Speaking of which, alternating days that one coach is with interior OL and the other is with OTs sounds fine for practice and, I guess, meetings, but what are we going to do on gamedays? Will either have a run game coordinating/advising role or is playcalling and orchestration of the offense 100 percent Taylor? Who talks to which linemen and when? Clear as mud.
* It was interesting Netter's ostensible establishing of Talamaivao's bona fides was "he was a great player in college." It's unusual for that to be what gets emphasized with a coach but then again it's unusual for a coach to have so little coaching experience. Part of me wonders if somewhere in Netter's subconscious he was distinguishing between his own level of coaching experience (five years as a full coach, albeit at the Ivy League level) and Talamaivao's (zero years as a full coach). I also wonder whether Talamaivao's playing credentials are top of mind in part perhaps because Talamaivao tries to connect with players and/or recruits on that basis. As I said at the time of hiring, I certainly remember Talamaivao as a player and recruit. 2,727 snaps for USC is so, so many. There's never been a Stanford OL, not even Walter Rouse and Johnny Caspers (and think about how much they played), who PFF recorded as having that many snaps at Stanford. I wonder if any Stanford OL have ever had that many snaps. If so, not many. Anyway, the point is Talamaivao has war stories to tell players and recruits. Talamaivao (like Kolodziej by the way) can talk about winning a Rose Bowl. Talamaivao also played Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl.
