Quote Originally Posted by The Historian View Post
I think Skip has done a tremendous job of building the Louisiana Tech program. But.....

Most power programs conduct coaching searches using consultants. Some make that public, while others keep that fact private.

All of those consultants pay former coaches or other analysts to pour over tape and/or attend games to strictly watch a head coach and his staff. Texas and LSU both used consultants who obtained sideline passes to watch Tom Herman during games in 2016.

Unfortunately for Skip his win ugly approach the past couple of seasons has certainly hurt him if he's seriously looking for a P5 job. The "play-not-to-lose" problems we had late in games from 2014 to 2017 can't help either. Could a program like Baylor overlook that approach? Perhaps.

Just to give a few examples. This past season in the Bowling Green game 15 or our first 17 run plays were the zone read give. The numbers were similar in the win at FAU in 2018. We tried that approach against Southern Miss in 2018. We didn't turn the football over but still lost the game. Skip calls his own plays and at times he looks like he's calling plays in a game coached by Bo or Woody during the 10-year war.

Couple that with the late game problems we had against P5 opponents like Kansas State, Arkansas, and South Carolina (we had 4th quarter leads in all three).

Can a consultant sell that to an athletic director? Could an AD sell that to his biggest boosters? Maybe someday but it hasn't happened yet.
More than most coaches, Skip Holtz could really benefit from a good OC. It's the missing link in Skip's program, and it's the primary reason Tech fans are bored with Skip. P5 school's won't hire Skip because he hasn't shown that he can hire, manage and get along well with a strong minded, successful, OC. And to win consistently at the P5 level, a head coach has to be able to do that.

With very few exceptions (Mike Leach perhaps, being one), a head coach at the P5 level can't wing it by himself as "co-OC" the way Skip does. It's bush league, and it's very limiting, creatively.