Coaching not always about Xs and Os
MORGANTOWN — Too often we lose sight of the real job football college coaches have in front of them, paying far too much attention whether are running their offense from the spread or the wing-T, whether they use an odd or even front on defense, whether they blitz or play straight zone.
The Xs and the Os are all nice to talk about, but in the end, there isn’t a football coach who doesn’t know an X from an O and what to do with his Os when your Xs are lined up in a certain way.
No, the football coaches get all the Os that appear on their contracts, be it five of them for hundreds of thousands of dollars or six of them for millions, for the personal challenges they face, for they must be far more group psychologist than strategist if they hope to succeed.
A coach deals with a long, long season where there are tremendous highs and devastating lows, both as a team and among individuals. In truth, it is far, far easier to be Urban Meyer at Florida, even though every day you are expected to win and win big, than it is say to be Doug Marrone at Syracuse, where you have to find incentives in losing situations.
When his all-Big East wide receiver Mike Williams decided to quit the football team this week, it was a defeat for Marrone far more difficult to understand than any game that he had failed to win. You can take losing games, losing football players is something entirely different.
Complete Story at- The Times West Virginian
