Coach Grade for hire

https://247sports.com/LongFormArticle/C ... 43680188_2

This is a fun read but these are always such a crap shoot. The 2017 version of this article by 247 had Chip Kelly as the best hire and Herm Edwards as the worst, which is laughable now. Have to love the off season!

NavyApp wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 12, 2020 3:51 pm

This is a fun read but these are always such a crap shoot. The 2017 version of this article by 247 had Chip Kelly as the best hire and Herm Edwards as the worst, which is laughable now. Have to love the off season!

To second your comment: in short, who cares what they think? Literally the only thing they know about Clark is that he was the offensive line coach.

To add an extra layer of "take this list with a grain of salt," the 247 list you linked actually pulled all of their grades and commentary from Dennis Dodd's CBS Sports article from a couple weeks ago.

That's not the only article of the sort CBS Sports has posted. A couple weeks before, Tom Fornelli gave the hire a B+, saying this:

When conducting your second coaching search in as many seasons, it's natural to gravitate toward consistency. Appalachian State has done that by promoting Shawn Clark to head coach. Clark, 44, has not only been App State's offensive line coach the last four seasons under both Scott Satterfield and Drinkwitz, but he played in Boone. There are very few candidates out there more familiar with the program or the players. It's a logical hire for a program looking to maintain its run of success in the Sun Belt.

Clark fit what the Athletics Dept and University were seeking at the time of hire. Some writer who's never met nor seen the man coach is "grading" the hire. I'll be over here continuing to get stoked for next season. 205 days until Morgan State!

appchicago wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 12, 2020 4:59 pm

To add an extra layer of "take this list with a grain of salt," the 247 list you linked actually pulled all of their grades and commentary from Dennis Dodd's CBS Sports article from a couple weeks ago.

That's not the only article of the sort CBS Sports has posted. A couple weeks before, Tom Fornelli gave the hire a B+, saying this:

When conducting your second coaching search in as many seasons, it's natural to gravitate toward consistency. Appalachian State has done that by promoting Shawn Clark to head coach. Clark, 44, has not only been App State's offensive line coach the last four seasons under both Scott Satterfield and Drinkwitz, but he played in Boone. There are very few candidates out there more familiar with the program or the players. It's a logical hire for a program looking to maintain its run of success in the Sun Belt.

Yea, I saw the B+ rating a few weeks ago as well. I personally think the B+ is appropriate and the C+ is inappropriate given all factors involved. Who is this guy anyways? I give him a big fat F for his article.

More off season filler......I’m going to go rotate my shoe trees.

I get it. On paper, it isn’t a flashy hire. He isn’t known as an offensive genius, or a coordinator from a P5 school, much like the staff that he put together for the most part.
What these guys don’t know or won’t grade is his passion and heart for SPECIFICALLY this school, and this team.
I feel That passion will more than overcome any perceived lack of experience or flash, and I hope the same for his staff too.

The Rock wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 12, 2020 8:07 pm

I get it. On paper, it isn’t a flashy hire. He isn’t known as an offensive genius, or a coordinator from a P5 school, much like the staff that he put together for the most part.
What these guys don’t know or won’t grade is his passion and heart for SPECIFICALLY this school, and this team.
I feel That passion will more than overcome any perceived lack of experience or flash, and I hope the same for his staff too.

It’s a very fair grade. We look at it through App colored glasses and are all delighted with the hire, for good reason.

But the reality is we are a top 20 national program that hired a first time head coach and completely unproven commodity. We know very little about his capability running a program, nor his in game management skills. Any other top 20 program would be heavily scrutinized if they took a HC from a D2 program. Coach Clark doesn’t even carry that on his resume.

If you were outside App looking in, a C+ would be very appropriate. I love the hire like most on here, but it’s a fair grade.

The Rock wrote: ↑

Wed Feb 12, 2020 8:07 pm

I get it. On paper, it isn’t a flashy hire. He isn’t known as an offensive genius, or a coordinator from a P5 school, much like the staff that he put together for the most part.
What these guys don’t know or won’t grade is his passion and heart for SPECIFICALLY this school, and this team.
I feel That passion will more than overcome any perceived lack of experience or flash, and I hope the same for his staff too.

I would say this is pretty close to accurate. In all honesty we don’t know what he can do as a head coach . I know this ... the team and the coaches love him and respect him.

I hope Shawn carries it as a C+hip on his shoulder..

No data? No grade. Incomplete

They can assign whatever grade they want. What will matter is whether they have to come back in a year or two and re-grade based on results. I'm pretty sure they did post season grades on "new coaches" this past year. I know I'm biased but I believe his grade will trend a lot like the rankings of our past recruiting classes.