Thursday, February 3, 2011

What College Coaches Will Never Say

College football coaches have survived another National Signing Day. They have given it their best and can take off their sales hat for at least a few days. Coaches can also downsized the cups of strong coffee and actually hop in their own beds. They can kiss their wives and hug their children.

But yesterday as the coaches were reeling in their prizes like fish, they were doing other selling. Coaches were selling the media and consequently the fan base.

You had your usual big winning schools on signing day. These are the schools that end up in the top five or 10 in the BCS (Bowl Championship) almost every season. Lately, if you are a SEC school, you are almost guaranteed one of those spots. These coach’s speeches are easy. It’s like a winning politician on election night.

But what about the other coaches that doesn’t make the top 25 in the recruiting polls? What’s their spin? Obviously, it’s much more difficult than the top schools.

You will never hear one of these coaches say his school had a bad returning class. You will never hear them say, “We tried to recruit Johnny Red and we are terribly disappointed that he went to x-school. We blew it.”

These coaches always talk about landing the unheralded player that will fit their system. They proudly declare although they didn’t get the big cookie, they like the crumbs.

Folks, it’s all about marketing. But I imagine these coaches would love to tried places with the fat cats on signing day. They would enjoy having that marketing challenge.

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