Joel Klatt: Why so lotsof popular college coaches are leaving for the NFL

In a period of 2 weeks, we haveactually seen a mass exodus of college coaches heading to the NFL. 

Jim Harbaugh sentout shock waves through the college football universe when he revealed his choice to leave the nationwide champ Michigan Wolverines to be the head coach of the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers back on Jan. 24.

Following Harbaugh’s relocation back to the expert ranks, numerous other popular college coaches — both head coaches and organizers — followed fit.

Boston College head coach Jeff Hafley, who invested 4 seasons leading the Eagles, justrecently accepted an opening to be the Green Bay Packers’ brand-new protective organizer. Meanwhile, a set of coaches with previous NFL experience who invested this past year in the college videogame — Liam Coen (Kentucky) and Kliff Kingsbury (USC) — simply made the relocation back to the expert ranks, concurring to endedupbeing the offensive planners in Tampa Bay and Washington, respectively.

We’ve likewise seen popular college football coaches having to make the challenging option of transitioning their task into more of a CEO function than a standard head coach, which is the case with Ohio State’s Ryan Day.

The 44-year-old Day, who is set to getin his 6th complete season as the Buckeyes’ head coach, understood he might no longer take on the task of calling plays. Instead, he had to shift his focus over to taking the reins of NIL and raising cash in order to collect skill so Ohio State might possibly beat Michigan, win the Big Ten and win a nationwide champion.

With NIL now taking on such a popular function in today’s college football landscape, more and more coaches are going to have to getridof themselves from the football field side of things and dive head veryfirst into the organization side of the sport.

Personally, I wear’t like this for coaches since that’s not why they went into these professions in the veryfirst location. They went into these professions to coach football and to effect young males.

Even in the NFL, head coaches do not have basic supervisor responsibilities. One guy can’t be the supreme critic, as well as the coach, the videogame coordinator, the cap professional, and all of that. Because today’s college football is run like a service, programs needto construct a hierarchy that is appropriate.

In college sports, there are plenty of athletic directors who puton’t have much of a football background at all, and they are entrusted with hiring a football coach for the function of the press conference and fundraising. They desire to boost the enjoyment of their fan base, and then, that coach is accountable for hiring every other individual on the personnel, in addition to being in charge of the videogame strategy, examining gamers, recruiting gamers, handling NIL and dealingwith fundraising. That’s too much.

So, what is the option?

Programs requirement to start structure themselves to insulate the head-coaching position. Athletic directors needto be employing a president of football operations. That individual oughtto be in charge of hiring the head coach and employing a basic supervisor.

The head coach must not be accountable for hiring everyone duetothefactthat then everyone responses to him. That’s not the position head coaches needto be in — they must be focused on training football. So, you insulate them from the other responsibilities with a appropriate organizational chart.

That org chart exists in the NFL, which is why coaches are running to the NFL. College football requires to construct that in order to keep the leading coaches in the sport.

When Nick Saban signedupwith me last spring for our Big Noon Conversations series, he spoke about the concept of gamers requiring to have a little provide and take. Well, the coach likewise requires a little bit of provide and take. You merely can’t have all the power in college football.

If you’re going to lament the calendar, if you’re going to lament your schedule, if you’re going to grumble about the setting that you’re in, then guess what? You requirement to waterdown your power. You cannot have the supreme state in whatever.

If you desire to be a football coach, then be a football coach, however that suggests you’re going to have a GM. It suggests you’re going to have a director or president of football operations. There will be a front workplace within college football, and the reality that we puton’t have that right now in the middle of a billion-dollar market is wild.

We haveactually permitted ourselves to get to this point and the repairs are right in front of us. All we have to do is be sincere with where we’re at, have a little bit of offer and take — like Saban talked about — and I believe we can get into a position where coaches are insulated, the calendar is repaired, the relationship inbetween gamer and the organization makes sense, and then, we can relocation forward.

Once that occurs, we will be in the golden age of college football.

Joel Klatt is FOX Sports’ lead college football videogame expert and the host of the podcast “The Joel Klatt Show.” Follow him on X/Twitter at @joelklatt and subscribe to the “Joel Klatt Show” on YouTube.