In the spirit of those top 25 rankings for next season that come out the day after the national championship, and are completely worthless, I offer my grades of Troy Taylor's first coaching staff before they've done any coaching at Stanford.
Instead of letter grades let's do out of 100.
Troy Taylor: 81
I don't know how close we came to hiring anyone else, but ultimately we offered the guy who was always going to say yes. I mean, we were talking about Vic Fangio and Jason Garrett for a time. I think there was way too much path-of-least-resistance during the entire process of hiring Taylor and then putting together the staff. But I've said it before: the process can suck and the results still be good. I think Taylor brings some really good things to Stanford and I'm excited to see someone try to be creative on offense. I'm hopeful that the Coach Taylor who learned from his experience at Utah and excelled at Sac State is ready for a big step.
Klayton Adams: 84
Adams has a solid résumé. He rose to co-offensive coordinator at Colorado and coached there for five seasons. His NFL experience is a positive as well. There's more pressure on Adams to deliver than anyone else on the offensive side of the ball. We need excellent offensive line play and we haven't had that in a long time.
Malcom Agnew: 69
At least Agnew has two coaching stops on his résumé before Stanford. The only reason I don't mark him lower is because running back is a relatively low stress position and you're supposed to have one of your best recruiters at that spot. No pressure but you better deliver on that front, Agnew.
Tyler Osborne: 62
We're replacing a very accomplished coach who was doing a good job for us with someone who has three years of coaching experience, all at Sac State.
Nate Byham: 65
I know Taylor doesn't use tight ends a lot but this is a heck of a reach to pick someone who's only ever coached at a bad FCS program. If Taylor phases out the importance of this position then maybe we should view Byham as OL/TE coach? I'm reaching. We should be able to recruit tight end well and I'm sure Taylor can adjust to the talent he has, so if we can get good tight ends I'd hope we go after them.
Tavita Pritchard: 70
I don't need to rehash everything we already know about Tavita. I'm giving a 70 grade for three reasons. One, he wasn't the offensive coordinator at Stanford. Two, he split time coaching receivers for two seasons and then spent four with just QBs. Tell me which quarterback since the start of the 2014 season showed significant progress while working with Tavita. Mills doesn't count. I'm sorry if that seems unfair to anyone but when a Davis Mills shows up most of your job is to not mess him up. I feel the same way about Andrew Luck. Do you think the ASU hitting coach back in the day gets to take credit for Barry Bonds?
And finally, he was on Shaw's staff for the entire journey of the program falling apart. Maybe he pushed back against Shaw. I don't know. It doesn't feel right to start the rebuild with someone who was there to see us become a fixer upper. But he's on the staff so I'm hoping that we get to see Pritchard succeed under new leadership.
Phew. That's not a happy report card. I can't get excited about how this side of the ball worked out. Did we have to fight hard to convince any of these guys to join? Is there one example of us identifying a proven dude at a winning program and we went out and did what it took to get him?
Bobby April: 77
Again, I'm not in love with the result that we couldn't go out there and land a proven dude at a winning program. I assume we tried. Just like I assume we tried with positions on offense. But you don't get points for trying. However, I like some things about April and how the rest of the defensive staff came together is part of that. He helped coach strong defensive units at Wisconsin and for the last two years he held a responsibility outside of his position group, defensive run game coordinator. I really like that he was on board with, and I hope encouraged, putting together a staff with a lot of experience. I feel like that's a good sign about the quality of group think we can expect.
Ross Kolodziej: 71
He's only coached the position for two seasons and it's hard to know how much "credit" a coach gets for what the guys did during such a short time. But the Wisconsin DL was good and he does get bonus points for the work he did in S&C to help make those players so effective. I'm intrigued by his S&C background and I'm curious if he'll be a helpful resource for Deatrick or if he'll completely back off from that.
Mark D’Onofrio: 84
It's enough for me that he was the defensive coordinator for Temple when they went from 1-11 in his first season to 9-4 three years later. That's a little tongue in cheek, and I know that was a while ago, but he has spent a lot of years in charge of an entire defense and he's a position coach for us.
Paul Williams: 86
Strong résumé and another member of the Temple Miracle staff. His much more recent work at Wake forest is encouraging at a position we need someone to be able to coach up guys.
Bob Gregory 84
Another strong résumé of a guy who's done more than we're asking him to do.
Ok. I sort of ran out of steam there at the end to type about these guys. I'll keep it simple and say that I'm optimistic about the defensive staff and very disappointed by how things worked out on offense. I now open the floor for people to disagree with grades that honestly are based on very little info.
Instead of letter grades let's do out of 100.
Troy Taylor: 81
I don't know how close we came to hiring anyone else, but ultimately we offered the guy who was always going to say yes. I mean, we were talking about Vic Fangio and Jason Garrett for a time. I think there was way too much path-of-least-resistance during the entire process of hiring Taylor and then putting together the staff. But I've said it before: the process can suck and the results still be good. I think Taylor brings some really good things to Stanford and I'm excited to see someone try to be creative on offense. I'm hopeful that the Coach Taylor who learned from his experience at Utah and excelled at Sac State is ready for a big step.
Klayton Adams: 84
Adams has a solid résumé. He rose to co-offensive coordinator at Colorado and coached there for five seasons. His NFL experience is a positive as well. There's more pressure on Adams to deliver than anyone else on the offensive side of the ball. We need excellent offensive line play and we haven't had that in a long time.
Malcom Agnew: 69
At least Agnew has two coaching stops on his résumé before Stanford. The only reason I don't mark him lower is because running back is a relatively low stress position and you're supposed to have one of your best recruiters at that spot. No pressure but you better deliver on that front, Agnew.
Tyler Osborne: 62
We're replacing a very accomplished coach who was doing a good job for us with someone who has three years of coaching experience, all at Sac State.
Nate Byham: 65
I know Taylor doesn't use tight ends a lot but this is a heck of a reach to pick someone who's only ever coached at a bad FCS program. If Taylor phases out the importance of this position then maybe we should view Byham as OL/TE coach? I'm reaching. We should be able to recruit tight end well and I'm sure Taylor can adjust to the talent he has, so if we can get good tight ends I'd hope we go after them.
Tavita Pritchard: 70
I don't need to rehash everything we already know about Tavita. I'm giving a 70 grade for three reasons. One, he wasn't the offensive coordinator at Stanford. Two, he split time coaching receivers for two seasons and then spent four with just QBs. Tell me which quarterback since the start of the 2014 season showed significant progress while working with Tavita. Mills doesn't count. I'm sorry if that seems unfair to anyone but when a Davis Mills shows up most of your job is to not mess him up. I feel the same way about Andrew Luck. Do you think the ASU hitting coach back in the day gets to take credit for Barry Bonds?
And finally, he was on Shaw's staff for the entire journey of the program falling apart. Maybe he pushed back against Shaw. I don't know. It doesn't feel right to start the rebuild with someone who was there to see us become a fixer upper. But he's on the staff so I'm hoping that we get to see Pritchard succeed under new leadership.
Phew. That's not a happy report card. I can't get excited about how this side of the ball worked out. Did we have to fight hard to convince any of these guys to join? Is there one example of us identifying a proven dude at a winning program and we went out and did what it took to get him?
Bobby April: 77
Again, I'm not in love with the result that we couldn't go out there and land a proven dude at a winning program. I assume we tried. Just like I assume we tried with positions on offense. But you don't get points for trying. However, I like some things about April and how the rest of the defensive staff came together is part of that. He helped coach strong defensive units at Wisconsin and for the last two years he held a responsibility outside of his position group, defensive run game coordinator. I really like that he was on board with, and I hope encouraged, putting together a staff with a lot of experience. I feel like that's a good sign about the quality of group think we can expect.
Ross Kolodziej: 71
He's only coached the position for two seasons and it's hard to know how much "credit" a coach gets for what the guys did during such a short time. But the Wisconsin DL was good and he does get bonus points for the work he did in S&C to help make those players so effective. I'm intrigued by his S&C background and I'm curious if he'll be a helpful resource for Deatrick or if he'll completely back off from that.
Mark D’Onofrio: 84
It's enough for me that he was the defensive coordinator for Temple when they went from 1-11 in his first season to 9-4 three years later. That's a little tongue in cheek, and I know that was a while ago, but he has spent a lot of years in charge of an entire defense and he's a position coach for us.
Paul Williams: 86
Strong résumé and another member of the Temple Miracle staff. His much more recent work at Wake forest is encouraging at a position we need someone to be able to coach up guys.
Bob Gregory 84
Another strong résumé of a guy who's done more than we're asking him to do.
Ok. I sort of ran out of steam there at the end to type about these guys. I'll keep it simple and say that I'm optimistic about the defensive staff and very disappointed by how things worked out on offense. I now open the floor for people to disagree with grades that honestly are based on very little info.
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