TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

NFL column: Transition To Pros Is Not Easy For Coaches

ADVERTISEMENT

By IRA KAUFMAN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 16, 2007

TAMPA - Higher earning, higher learning.

That's the way head football coaches should look at the difficult transition from the college ranks to the pro game, especially with the recent departures of Nick Saban and Bobby Petrino still reverberating in NFL executive suites.

There's usually more money to be made as a head coach in the NFL, but those 32 jobs come with an advisory that Falcons veteran safety Lawyer Milloy articulated so clearly this week:

This league is for men.

"The move from college to pro can be done, but when you look at the last 10-15 years, I don't think the track record is very good," said Bucs quarterbacks coach Paul Hackett, a longtime NFL assistant who has served as head coach at Southern Cal and the University of Pittsburgh. "There haven't been a lot of success stories."

Hackett said the technical aspects of the sport are accentuated on a deeper level in the pro game, where players are interested in whether the head coach can "help me get another contract so I can take care of my family."

Petrino and Saban appeared to handle the intricacies of the pro playbook well enough to succeed.

But in both cases, they never left campus when trying to deal with professional athletes.

"From what I've heard, Coach Petrino tried to bring a college mentality to the team," said Tampa Bay center Matt Lehr, signed as a free agent in April after two seasons with Atlanta. "Discipline is good, don't get me wrong, but past a certain point, it doesn't work."

Given the recent examples of Petrino, Saban, Steve Spurrier, Butch Davis and Dennis Erickson, NFL owners and general managers should look at college hotshots warily.

"I'm sure there's a lot of guys who can come into this league from college and light it up," Bucs coach Jon Gruden said. "But the job is very different, yes it is."

High-profile college coaches like Florida's Urban Meyer and Jeff Tedford of Cal won't be automatically ruled out of consideration for vacant NFL jobs, but their attractiveness as candidates has taken a major hit.

Forget about the improbability of the Dolphins winning at Foxborough next week - the real upset of the year would be the Falcons replacing Petrino with another coach out of the college ranks.

The pro game is so mercurial for coaches, we could now be witnessing a growing movement from the NFL toward the college sideline.

Texans offensive coordinator Mike Sherman, a former head coach in Green Bay, just accepted the head coaching job at Texas A&M.

Despite a 3-9 season at Notre Dame, former Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis isn't leaving South Bend behind ... unless he has to.

"My wife and son are almost getting sick of seeing me," Weis said in 2005, toward the end of his first season with the Fighting Irish. "Come February of an NFL season, you're usually toast. You're burned as bad as you could possibly be. You need a few days laying on the beach in Puerto Rico just to try to rejuvenate."

Some college coaches have stepped up and done well in their NFL careers.

Between two stints at USC, John Robinson led the Rams to six playoff appearances. Bobby Ross was 50-36 in five seasons with the Chargers, including a Super Bowl appearance, after leaving Georgia Tech. Jimmy Johnson, who won a national title at Miami, won two Super Bowls with the Cowboys in 1992-93 after a 1-15 debut in 1989.

"At the pro level, there's more volume, the game is faster and it's more technical," Hackett said. "In college, you're dealing with players still in a developmental stage. Here, it's a business."

Risky business.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT