A recruiter or a schemer? How that plays into South Carolina’s coaching search
A national example might be former Minnesota coach Glen Mason. An SEC example might be David Cutcliffe at Ole Miss.
Each went to programs that were in so-so positions. Each got them winning at a decent clip. Each was fired, in part, because there was a belief those programs could recruit better. Each was followed by a strong recruiting coach who struggled.
From this, one might see a college football parable that dropping better-scheme coaches for good recruiters doesn’t work out. But there’s the flip side.
Dabo Swinney succeeded at Clemson because he was a top-flight recruiter and surrounded himself with top coordinators. P.J. Fleck’s biggest job before taking over Western Michigan was either NFL receivers coach or Mid-American Conference recruiting coordinator. But he could recruit, hired well and parlayed that into being a hot coordinator. Ed Orgeron failed with that model at Ole Miss, then won a title with it at LSU.
And this question is hanging over, and likely will continue to hang over, the South Carolina football coaching search.
For much of the process, former Gamecocks assistant Shane Beamer has appeared to be the favorite to get the job. Some of the other names out there are Louisville’s Scott Satterfield, Coastal Carolina’s Jamey Chadwell and Louisiana’s Billy Napier, who The State learned will interview in-person with South Carolina brass on Saturday.
Beamer is in that mold of Fleck or Swinney. He’s never run an offense or a defense. He’s got a special teams background, which means working with almost every player and most coaches. But it means when he comes in, the offense and defense will be guided by him, but they won’t be his in the same way that former coach Will Muschamp’s defense was an embodiment of his approach.
The other names above trend more toward scheme, but it’s not exclusive.
Chadwell’s offense is dynamic and different. He’ll move up at some point soon, but at this point he’s not gone through any sort of Power 5 recruiting battles. Some sentiment seems to have developed, based on a few reports, that Satterfield isn’t an all-out recruiter.
Napier seemed to bridge that gap, to a degree. His offense is a form of modern pro-style, one that relies on downhill running but also works in an efficient pass game and the QB run game. He’s also considered a tenacious recruiter, having worked for both Swinney and Nick Saban.
And whoever gets the job will have to deal with the fact the recruiting situation at South Carolina is a delicate one.
The chances for South Carolina to become a national recruiting power are slim, and it’s not going to precede wild success. Per the 247Sports team rankings, South Carolina has only once finished better than sixth in the SEC in recruiting.
It’s a tough neighborhood. Landing 15 four-stars and some five-stars is an ask so big that it’s likely unrealistic.
But USC also needs to keep the floor high. If they hire a scheme guy and the recruiting slips even into the 30s nationally consistently, the risk comes that USC could just get badly out-talented by half the schedule.
So that’s a delicate balance. A great recruiter in Columbia likely hits a ceiling but has to keep the team in a rather narrow band in that spectrum.
Obviously, guys who can both recruit at a high level and scheme at a high level are in demand. South Carolina has to pick its guy, project a little and hope a staff comes together to boost whatever deficiencies there are.
USC is coming off a hire of a recruiter with some defensive scheme background in Muschamp. That on balance didn’t work out and left the roster in a precarious position. South Carolina has some talent in terms of recruiting start, but development and other issues left the Gamecocks thin all over in his fifth and final season.
The signs at the moment point to another recruiter in the model of Swinney or Orgeron, but there’s still time for things to change if a different kind of candidate were to thrust himself into the conversation.
— The State’s Matt Connolly contributed to this story
This story was originally published December 3, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
