Would you hire Todd Dodge as Head Coach?

[93Mustang]

I'm with Mr. Mustang 1965 on this one. In a hypothetical world in which we needed a head coach or had money to pay a sizeable offensive coordinator salary, I'd take Randy Allen. Talk about maximizing talent, this guy takes a group that usually has about 3 division 1 caliber players and uses them to dominate schools with far more talent. While HP is on the cusp of returning to 5A, I suspect the transistion will be similar to SLC's a few years ago since HP has routinely beaten very good 5A competition in pre-district games while Allen has been there. HP wins because it has a great scheme which is taught to the players when they're very young and they play with great discipline. Additionally, these kids work very hard to improve their speed and strength to be able to compete with bigger and faster players on the teams they face. Anyone who watched HP's march through the playoffs and surgical domination of Marshall knows how well coached this group was. Moreover, Allen is a graduate of SMU. I also believe the 2005 HP would be a worthy opponent for SLC - not saying they would definitely win, but it would be a damn good game.

[Pony4Life]

.... Since you brought up high school coaches going to the 'next level', what about HP's AD & head football coach Randy Allen?

Personally, I think Dodge's offense at SLC would translate better to the college level, but I don't know that. Neither team has many D-I athletes, but both are programs that start teaching players at a very young age "the system" in which they'll play at the high school level. Many of these kids know the system by the time they even get to high school, and with the private technique/fitness/nutritional coaching and information, they get more out of their talent than many more talented athletes get from theirs.

However, I wouldn't hire either as a head coach at SMU. Just because they kick butt at the high school level doesn't mean they'd succeed at the D-I level. Could Mack Brown coach in the NFL? Who knows? (Fill in your own punchline here about whether he can coach at the college level....) Bob Stoops? Mark Richt? It's a different game. Pete Carroll is, in my opinion, the best college coach in the country, and he laid an egg as an NFL coach. Whether that's because he had no talent to work with, or because he simply isn't an NFL coach .... I don't know. If he got another shot, maybe he'd succeed, maybe he wouldn't. Nick Saban seems to have the Dolphins on the right track, but he has a lot of NFL experience. Likewise, you've got to have college coaching experience (as an assistant) in order to succeed. The exceptions to that rule are few and far between.

And Coach Bennett's going to be fine. He'll get the job done.

[MrMustang1965]

I'm with Mr. Mustang 1965 on this one. In a hypothetical world in which we needed a head coach or had money to pay a sizeable offensive coordinator salary, I'd take Randy Allen. Talk about maximizing talent, this guy takes a group that usually has about 3 division 1 caliber players and uses them to dominate schools with far more talent. While HP is on the cusp of returning to 5A, I suspect the transistion will be similar to SLC's a few years ago since HP has routinely beaten very good 5A competition in pre-district games while Allen has been there. HP wins because it has a great scheme which is taught to the players when they're very young and they play with great discipline. Additionally, these kids work very hard to improve their speed and strength to be able to compete with bigger and faster players on the teams they face. Anyone who watched HP's march through the playoffs and surgical domination of Marshall knows how well coached this group was. Moreover, Allen is a graduate of SMU. I also believe the 2005 HP would be a worthy opponent for SLC - not saying they would definitely win, but it would be a damn good game.

Thanks, 93. One additional note: the HP players are just damn smart, too. They use their heads both on the football field and in the classroom. Their GPAs are incredible.

[Stallion]

Looks like a High School Coach(Todd Dodge) and a Division 1-AA Coach (Jim Harbaugh) have already turned Rice down-I'm telling you this is the absolute worst job in Division 1-A and they are going to find out they have a lot more problems than Ken Hatfield's admitedly boring offense. They will soon recall the Hatfield days as the glory days of modern Rice football.