Wow, Gus, this sounds dire. Grave, even.
“This rule will in essence be a death sentence to any high school coach wanting to coach college (football),” Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. “It’s putting an end to it, and it’s not fair.”
What’s the rule?
The proposal, part of a comprehensive recruiting reform package to be considered this week by the NCAA’s Division I Council, is an attempt to prevent hires made in hopes of gaining an edge with recruits who are associated with the new employee. It applies to “individuals associated with a prospect” (IAWP); along with high school coaches, it would apply to junior college coaches, as well as others such as family members of recruits. It would mirror a rule already in place for NCAA basketball…
A college would be prevented from hiring a high school coach for a support role if it had recruited a player from his school in the previous two years and would be prohibited from recruiting players from that high school for two years after the hire.
Gosh, how inconvenient that must be for you.
The IAWP rule proposal does not prohibit hiring high school coaches for an on-field assistant coaching position — which was the path of Morris and Malzahn — or limit recruiting from the coach’s former high school in that instance. But such direct moves aren’t the norm… [Emphasis added.]
Said Malzahn: “The goal is they learn college football for a year or two and then they get a job (as an on-field assistant).”
Well, the goal for everyone else, apparently.
Malzahn, who was a high school coach before moving into college coaching in 2006 as an assistant at Arkansas, has hired nine high school coaches, including Drinkwitz.
“Not one time did I recruit any of their players,” he said. “I’m trying to put good high school coaches and people into college football. We’re not hiring them to get players here. If that rule passes, it’s gonna hurt. Every one of those (nine coaches), I wouldn’t have been able to hire.”
If you weren’t recruiting their players, why couldn’t you have hired them? And if you’re not hiring them to get their players, how is the rule going to hurt?
It’s tough being a control freak, I guess. The only thing missing from his whine is a half-assed insistence that the rule is somehow going to hurt the players, too.
Get The Picture 
methinks Gus doth protest a bit too much…another recruiting edge going away in his eternal battle to compete with Sir Nick…
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He never would have hired them because he’d never have been hired himself. The only reason Nutt hired him was to get Mustain to Arkansas.
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Exactly what I was thinking. His real problem with this is that it would have curtailed his own path.
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It sure would’ve. I think it was more than Mustain though–they called the group the Springfield 6 or something like that…
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Gus’ first college job was as offensive coordinator. This rule would not have affected him. It only affects hiring a coach for a support staff position.
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Was support staff even a thing when he got hired? I thought they were only allowed GA’s at the time…
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With the overflow of gold and silver into all major programs these days, the only way you stop this is put a limit on number of “assistants” on and off the field, or block recruits from that HS going to a school that hires his HS coach for the current, and following five years.
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I have some problems with this rule, but Gus’ argument doesn’t make sense. First of all, as the Senator pointed out, since Auburn didn’t recruit any players from these nine coaches’ high schools, there’s nothing keeping them from being hired at Auburn. Second, there are high school coaches out there like Gus himself who were able to slide from the high school ranks right into an on-field coaching job in college. So… it’s not exactly restraint of trade or anything.
Still, if Kirby Smart decides he wants to bring the coach at Columbus High in as an analyst so he can transition to the college football world and it’s safe because Columbus High sucks at football and doesn’t have any prospects and then the best quarterback in the nation ends up in Columbus the next day because his dad took a job there… that sucks. We can’t recruit that kid, if I’m reading the rule right. That’s a little silly. And frankly, it’s a little silly to keep a coach from taking a college job even if the college IS trying to get one of his players. If a school wants somebody bad enough to sink a salary into a high school coach, go for it. In big time football we’re already giving scholarships to lesser football players who happen to be related to a prospect or a prospect’s best friend or something. We’re already giving a prospect’s girlfriend a track scholarship in some cases. Most schools aren’t going to hire a high school coach just to get one or two players, no matter how good they are. They can’t. If the NCAA is really that concerned about what these massive armies of off-field coaches and analysts are doing to the game they could finally step in and do something to regulate it. “Uh, Mr. Emmert, there’s a Mr. Saban holding for you on Line One…”
Still, I guess if a high school coach is good enough to get one of the on-field coaching jobs, this rule doesn’t restrain that. So, much ado about very little I guess.
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This is where Gus is lying. He hired Dell McGee from Carver in 2013. He also signed QB Jeremy Johnson from Carver that year.
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Seems like this would obviously hurt the career chances of coaches at large high schools.
If you are a coach at Grayson, how could you ever move to college ball with this rule?
Every year you are going to have players being recruited by nearly every schools in the country. Your career path is now significantly impacted by this rule.
seems like a bad idea.
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So no more riding the coattails of a high school kid for career advancement? So sad.
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Chizik rule, if it weren’t for a LB delivery – he would have never gotten a job at UT. Direct quote from TD club meeting by a certain UT head coach
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Well I guess the high school coaches will have to do it the old fashion way and work their way up the ladder. There are a lot of good coaches that went to Division 3 and Division 2 schools to get on track. Sometimes I think the Power 5 schools hire coaches based on the name recognition and not on the ability. The real problem will be the Junior College coaches. These Junior Colleges have become feeder schools for programs and no Power 5 coach is going to screw that up by hiring a coach from the feeder school. Junior colleges will have a hard time getting staff.
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Jeremy Pruitt got into college ball this way. I think it is over reach.
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It certainly will affect players. If you hire a kid’s high school coach you can’t effectively recruit him to come to Auburn. Think of all the wonderful experiences on he plains the kid will never get. It will ruin his life.
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Auburn coach Gus Malzahn said. “It’s putting an end to it, and it’s not fair.”
Not fair? Never took Gus for a liberal. 😉
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