Together forever: the good and bad of coaching turnover

BC’s current Football leadership (TOB, Spaz, Bible) is heading into its eighth consecutive season together. Want to read something surprising? Only one other BCS conference school -- Iowa -- has had their head coach, offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator in place for an equal amount of time. Every other school playing major conference football has had a change of some sort in the last eight seasons.

What does this mean? Good news first. BC’s staff has done a good enough job to remain in place. With each year, this togetherness and consistency should benefit the team when it prepares for games, recruits, and molds players. Each coordinator knows his role and has a good working relationship with TOB. BC’s foundation is solid, so there is no reason to think we cannot continue our success. BC fans, players, administration, parents, high school coaches, and opponents know what they are going to get.

There is a downside to all of this. While the team has done well, the three heads have not done enough to attract an opportunity that was better than BC. I know schools have reached out to TOB and Bible, but somewhere along the line the parties went their separate ways. No pro or college team has said “that’s our guy” and come hard after any of them. This group wins more than it loses, but still struggles against the elite, is still good for a trip up once a year and still frustrates the hell out of a core group of fans with their playing calling and management of their roster. But worst of all, this group has not won a big bowl game.

BC seems stuck in a rut. We put together an impressive streak of winning seasons, yet can’t seem to take it to the next level. I am starting to wonder if the current staff can and will. Kirk Ferentz’s annual flirtation with the NFL is bound to turn into something more, so in the near future BC’s core will have the longest concurrent tenure in major college football. Something’s got to give -- either a losing season or a Top 10 finish.

“Taking it to the next level” is probably going to be a major theme of mine this offseason. I clearly want TOB et al to win something big. Because another eight years of “pretty good” seems awfully boring.