Consult This! (Seriously)

Good stuff, scip.

I’ll take that as a compliment.

Pretty much completely irrelevant to your point, but I spent 2 years with a Big 6 consulting firm. The most fraudulent venture I’ve ever been associated with, rife with the type of asshole who sat in the front row in advanced financial accounting and asked if there were any extra credit projects available. 15 years since of various investment banks and hedge funds and those remain the most ethically challenged people I’ve ever worked with. Just awful.

If Cerrato’s role is as advertised then he can actually make a contribution. Otherwise this could be an utter clusterf*ck.

Great read. You pretty much mentioned everything that I learned in a whole semester of management.

But, everybody knows Deloss isn’t Boss Hog….Slim Thug is.

B-S: I was more worried back when we only heard about Tomey. But Tomey makes more sense if you’re also bringing in someone like Cerrato.

And yeah I guess clusterf*ck is still on the radar. But you must admit, the prospective names look decent.

(And to match your aside, I intentionally stopped short of saying that business consulting is a humble and honorable profession these days…frankly my impression of ‘em has been mostly of the douchebag variety, and I’m no longer applying for those jobs despite the fact that they offer the best starting salaries in my field. Mostly my point is that there’s a legit demand for their services; that they sometimes rip off their customers, well there’s a lot of that going around, isn’t there? Unethical flu.)

Nice work, Dagga – Mack has rocked some fail over the last 365, but getting some outside perspective to guide some tough decisions doesn’t fall into that category.

I believe jp’s new but already tired bit is suggesting new BC handles to provide cover for old authors’ about-faces re: Mack or whatever else. Time to break out some of the group photos from the BC Kwanzaa party and set the record straight.Assuming any were taken that didn’t record evidence of felonious acts or an overabundance of Paisley.

If OU is the yin to our yang the give me a plethora of yin. Yin being conference titles and head to head matchups while yang being 10 win seasons and a nice record against okie state.

I agree with Mysterious Package. Enough is enough and I’m tired of the embarrassments.

Well stated, Dagga.

Those critical of Mack for using consultants have unrealistic expectations of him to know all and be all. There is also an element of bitching for the sake of it. 5-7 is enough to make any spoiled Texas fan irritable.

It is looking like Tomey and Cerrato did their jobs and needed changes are imminent. That is all that matters.

Your analysis suggests that the best of the remaining candidates for coordinators would be the most hard-assed.

Dagga, a very thoughtful post. Im with you in that I think there’s a lot of bitching about the consultants because guys want to bitch, and there’s an understandable lingering anger that the program was allowed to reach this point.

However, I’m also sympathetic to the idea that most of the problems highlighted by Tomey/Cerrato (according to Jesus’s post) are problems that should have been glaringly obvious after even a cursory review of game film from 2010. There are exceptions like the recruiting bit, but really, I’d be concerned if my CEO couldn’t look at 12 games’ worth of tape and not understand what the issues are.

I’m not a Mack hater, and if he needed an outside look, so be it. But it isn’t confidence inspiring either.

Thanks for this, Dagga.

It’s possible Mack went the consultant route not mainly because of time pressures but because he’s uncomfortable firing people.

Two tom cats are walking down the street when a bulldog turns the corner, spots them and gives chase.

They turn into an alley where it dead ends with a barbed wire fence. The first tom cat jumps over the fence — the second tom cats jumps — doesn’t quite get as high and leaves his balls hanging on the barbed wire.

The second tom cats begins to bemoan the fact that he was the best tom cat in town and now that life is over.

The first tom cats says:

"Look on the bright side, now you can be a consultant.

Oh and about this:

. And he brought in another person who doesn’t know Mack from a retarded toddler – and who can thus provide an unvarnished outsider viewpoint, plus he has a ton of college recruiting and NFL GM experience.

Mack coached Cerrato at Iowa State. Maybe Vinny gives Mack the unadulterated view of the outsider — but it is Mack again turning to friends for advice.

Fantastic post.

I spent years as a management consultant. The problem with them is relatively senior people sold the deal and then they would back up the school bus and let a bunch of fresh out of college grads do the work. I can’t count the number of times I was there for the sell and the report out but wasn’t anywhere near the place for the actual work. If you hire a senior qualified consultant and he actually does the work you’re usually okay.

Also not sure what early Microsoft you’re talking about but Bill Gates was not a softie and Ballmer was a raving maniac. (he’s mellowed since). The warm and fuzzy Bill you see know is after the made a few tens of billions not during. I’ve heard many first hand accounts of epic management, technical, and sales asschewings in that company.

Great article but “Hoo Boy” I’m not drinking the MB cool-aid anymore, “been there, done that”. Agree with Parlin, J.R69, Mysterious Package,, Texannick and others coming from that side—-I have more faith in the powers above MB than MB. I just want this crap fixed, if we need consultants to tell a $5 million coach his program is in the shitter so be it.

Great point stilltrying. And for those like Dagga wondering where it’s all coming from, look no further than previous posts on this blog, explaining that Mack thought he could get away with just letting a line coach or two like MacWhorter and Tolleson retire, rather than making wholesale changes.

To clarify, I’m in favor of bringing in an outside viewpoint, and I think for Mack in particular, it makes sense. I just don’t like that it’s necessary. I compare it to the situation with the Texans a few years ago when Bob McNair brought in Dan Reeves to basically give him permission to fire Dom Capers/Charley Casserly and find replacements. Why was that necessary? The results on the field sometimes speak for themselves.

As much as I hate Anti-Christ Stoops, I respect the fact that he gets that big-time college football is a results-oriented business. I understand that Mack Brown can’t and won’t adopt that kind of attitude, and I applaud him for it. But after disasters like 2010, its not too much to ask for decisive and competent evaluative leadership from the CEO position.

srr50 – “Mack coached Cerrato at Iowa State. Maybe Vinny gives Mack the unadulterated view of the outsider — but it is Mack again turning to friends for advice.”

(sigh) really? Well, at least it’s been awhile.

Dagga:

I must admit I come at this with a prejudice. I was in TV news as consultants really took hold. As mentioned by another poster, at that time consultants were essentially brought in to give the GM’s and owners cover for cleaning house.

It was begining to dawn on local stations that instead of loss leaders, newscasts could actually make money. But no one (including the outside consultants) really understood all the dynamics that affected local news ratings.

So they came in, watched a few newscasts, opened their template and said, " catchy name (Eyewitness News!) shorter stories! more human interest!, more local youth sports!, more local weather!

Then they recommended firing most of the on-air staff and moved on to the next station.

When Michael Dell retired he left the company to a bunch of Mormons and Bain & Co consultants at a time when the industry was becoming commoditized.

Didn’t work out so well.

This is one of the few times I do not blame the Mormons.

Great rhetoric Dagga.

I thought it was common knowledge that Cerrato is firmly in Mack Brown’s Tree of Trust. Own branch in fact. He is anything but an unbiased outsider.

That being said, supposedly he’s pointed out the obvious to Mack – let’s not take that for granted – and brings a specific skill set or two to the process that actually has relevance. So maybe – maybe – this time the comfort level hire can deliver.

In my most humble opinion, if you’ve bought into the "CEO as head coach" concept, then you’ve bought into a concept that, lacking clear and straight forward definition, is as damaging to a college football program as the "head coach in waiting" concept.

What did "head coach in waiting" really mean in the case of Muschamp? To my knowledge there was no clear definition – not in the same way that West Virginia has described the position that Holgorsen took (i.e., head coach in 2012). Will’s extra title (over and above DC) as "head coach in waiting" apparently meant little more than a bigger pay check. But, maybe that was the point. It didn’t appear that he had any significant authority (such as input on coaching hires) to shape the team as the coach in waiting. Maybe it was hoped that for the additional dollars he’d just hang around until, eventually, at some undetermined point in the future, head be the head coach in fact.

So, what does "CEO as head coach" mean? Boy it sure sounds swell. UT football is a force that, with total revenue, the Bevo network, etc., has reached a critical mass that now requires a "CEO as head coach." A run of the mill head football coach just won’t do anymore. It might mean, however, that for so long as UT football is run by a CEO, it will not have a head football coach.

I’ll ask again – so what does "CEO as head coach" mean? Is there a job description somewhere we can refer to? In the business world, no matter how good the last quarter was or how good last year was, you’re expected to deliver sustainable improvement and long-term earnings growth on a regular basis. Under a CEO as head coach, how will "good" be defined? How will "improvement" be defined.

In the past, what has been published as the equivalent of an annual report has been chocked full of "Financial Highlights," a slick "Letter to the Shareholders," full of "Narrative Text, Graphics and Photos," but woefully short in "Financial Statements" and "Auditor’s Reports." Management has sold the 10-win season as being "good" because, with the exception of a couple of years, there has been no real sustainable improvement; no long-term earnings growth.

If the "CEO as head coach" position is not subject to the generally understood definition of "CEO," and there is no description of what "CEO as head coach" means – what the expectations are – then "CEO as head coach" looks like away to avoid having anyone be accountable as "head football coach." Otherwise, how do you explain a near wholesale house cleaning among the coaching staff that does not affect the head coach? Where else in D-I does a head football coach get this kind of a mulligan?

This is college football, after all. Is the goal to win championships or to produce the most revenue? My guess is that if you are doing that first thing, the second one will take care of itself. Then you can hire all the managers you need to manage the revenue.

"CEO as head coach" means no head football coach.

P.S. gonna make me one of those Three Dog Nights.

People always ask me if I’m going back to school for my MBA. I tell them “hell no!” because of the perception of the business world that stories like the above have given me. I’m an engineer, so I can’t rid myself of it completely (I wouldn’t have a job) but I stay as far back as I can. Send me the engineering consultants. I’m usually fine with them (was one for a couple years).

Jackie, you make a great point. I’ve said something like this before, but can you name another coach of a top tier program that doesn’t have a schematic pedigree on one side of the ball or another? I think this ties in to your point about accountability perfectly. I’m not saying the CEO model CAN’T work under any circumstances, but I think it led to real conflicts this season with regard to the HCIW situation.

I’m not hating on Mack, and I’ll be the first to donate to the statue fund when the time comes. What he’s done for this program has earned that level of respect. But I’m troubled by what I see. If outside consulting leads to much needed changes, that’s good. But I don’t think anyone is silly to ask why it was necessary in the first place.

How solid is the proposition that it was in fact Mack Brown who suggested and/or hired the consultants? It seems at odds with what JS (I believe) and others have posted about him wanting to just shitcan MacWhorter, talk Tolly into retiring and move on when the season ended in spite of Tomey’s opinions. It’s not hard to envision Tomey telling Mack like he saw it. But did Mack decide to bring him (or someone) in or was it from the top? I ask because he apparently was going to move forward without any significant change until Will’s leaving or someone above him or both proved enough was enough so Ceratto was maybe then brought in to confirm the obvious for him? I say that because I can’t imagine player interviews being done until after the season was over!

I spent nearly 20 years as a consultant with Big 6 and finally at IBM, both in delivery and business development (sales) and there is a lot about this situation that is vastly different from many of the engagements I both sold or worked on yet some is the same. Often consultants are hired to bring in a core comepetency that is beyond the organization’s skill such as implementation of new software/hardware systems and the processes surrounding them or to simply to restructure processes to make a company more efficient. Either of these can be done pre-emptively and not due to existing turmoil. However, both can mean cutting people but also, say where labor unions are strong, it can be done with less or little cutiing and better reallocation of people to operate more efficiently across the org as a whole. Again, it is often done pre-emptively to improve what is there and implement new technologies for the sake of progress and competition and not to seek a new vision for the ogr and not to clean house as was the case with our football program at the end of this season.

Now if you look at our football program as a homogenous division of the University, it makes more sense to take the view that a consultant was needed. IMO, that is clearly not the situation. Our football program is an organization unto itself and its mission is vastly different than that of UT as an educational institution. It is comparable to a separate, thriving business and it imploded this year, pure and simple, from the inside out. Trust me, more often than not when that happens in private industry, the BOD brings in a new CEO to remold the business and bring new vision for the model going forward. A prime example of this is Sam Palmaisano at IBM. They were teetering on the brink of extension and Sam was hired to fix it—-not as a consultant but as the new CEO. I’ll stop short of saying Mack should have been fired, but it is damning to him that other people had to be brought in to do his dirty work for him, which is reallly all that has happened here. He deserves very little if any credit for it, especially if it was a second choice to his first response to not make major changes and came concurrent with Will’s unexpected departure which should not be underestimated as a key component of this “process”. Sam brought in consultants for niche items such as HR outsourcing to save bucks, but he didn’t hire consultants to rebuild IBM, just some to implement the decisions he envisioned and stood behind because they were beyond the core competencies of the people inside the org, which is legit. But it was his vision that was implemented and he remained in place to see it through because it took new vision to do it and his presence provide assurance that the same thing wouldn’t happen again. (Let’s not forget 2006 and 2007 or the 60 point ass rapings.)

Conversely, there is indeed a parallel here about consultants in the example that srr50 brought up. They are sometimes just hatchet men for those who lack the conviction to make the tough choices. It’s no coincidence that it’s usually done to improve the poor performance of the entity economically and competitively but is driven by the fact that complacency has set in and fat has accumulated, (as was the case here), and wholesale firings are made as a result. Was this about shitty performance by Mack and his staff or money you may ask? It was really about both, but in college football (unlike say the Cowboys and Redskins) the former drives the latter and, unfortunately, that’s what we came to and that my fellow fans is an indictment of Mack Brown. He espoused an organizational culture that allowed it to once again occur after a very successful season, but needed to have someone else do the wet work for him because in the past, all he needed to do was reassign someone or hire a new DC(s) who was at the top of his profession at the time. No, I don’t expect Mack to fire people in mid-season. But no matter how “busy” he was he should have, and I believe refused to own the responsibility of tossing out the deadwood around him. That does not bode well that he has developed any new vision or the ability to keep it from happening again. The only thing that is now very unclear, at least to me, is who made the decision to hire someone else do his job for him? Was it him or Powers/Dodds?The easy part of this whole shebang is hiring talented guys to replace the people who have left, including Will. The difficult part was forcing out the root causes of it, which were as plain as the nose on everyone’s face except Mack’s, and he failed miserably at that.

But hey, now that we seem to be getting the right hires (hope so), we can forgive Mack and move on down the road but, I gotta tell ya, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth which I’m sure will disappear right after the presser on Monday. Mack’s blind loyalty got him into the ditch to begin with, and ostensibly he hired (or was forced to hire) other people to come in and throw Davis, et al under the bus because he didn’t have the stomach for it…not a pretty picture, folks. I hope that he has at least learned hat he never should agree to appoint another HCIW who actually takes the fact that he has that title seriously and expects to have some say so in things. But I wonder if he’s learned anything else worthwhile?

We will be better for this in the short term; no one with a brain would say otherwise. But is there a lot of potential for it to reoccur before Mack hangs ‘em up? Yes. I’d say that concerns me, but I may be dead by then so fuck it!

I agree with the results, but after reading each response, no one has addressed the one question that I have. How do you justify firing assistants immediately following winning the Big 12 Championship and an appearance in the National Championship game? Didn’t win the MNC, but was it because our starting QB went down to injury or due to poor game planning?

I agree with the critical analysis of the offense over the entire Greg Davis era. I also agree with the criticisms of our offensive line throughout the Davis tenure, with the exception of the Studdard line. But, fire Davis after McCoy? It appears to be motivated by something other than performance, unless one is watching the program closely over a period of time.

This was the time to start with a clean slate, unfortunate, but true. Any comments criticizing Mack for not cleaning house a year ago is simply bitching for lack of anything better to do.

“There’s really only two ways to assure that those reports are accurate. First is by letting it be known, in no uncertain terms, that performance is the only metric that matters, regardless of what the reports say. If performance continues to falter then those employees will be thrown ass-first into the street, period”

Sounds like another big business in Austin ,DELL enterprise server tech,good for me I found a better job

Funny how the thread went from talking about the Horn football program to a group therapy session about the ravages of the consulting racket.

And I use “racket” purposefully, and in relation to the activities I’ve seen from the former Big 6 crews, given that their core competencies seemed to revolve around getting a foothold in a company and then start finding solutions for problems that didn’t yet exist.

Which of course meant growing their on-site staff in much the same way as mold takes over a loaf of bread.

And of course, the dumbasses in charge at the Very Big Houston-Based Computer Company at which I worked kept forking over the dough. At one point, we had more consultants working in our group than actual VBHBCC employees.

@CJD

FWIW, I worked in the public arena and every job we ever got was first requested by a State agency before being funded by the Lege after being vetted during a Session and was competitively bid. Sorry about your bad experience, though.

I worked with some great people in Big 6 and some not so great, pretty much like what you get in every profession.

Elliott Smith was not a hipster, you motherfucker. He was just moody.

C and D (it’s like we’re twins on the name front) – I think my bad experience was due to my position in the middle of the company, which is the soft underbelly that rapacious consultant firms target.

I have little doubt that consultants hired to consult with the upper echelons of a company (as is apparently the case with Mack here) generally do excellent work.

I also have little doubt that consultants hired to clean up work at the lower end – the day-to-day stuff – can contribute a lot (this also includes people brought in for very specific roles, such as training or systems documentation).

But middle managers – who are often tasked with extremely difficult tasks/decisions that quite often are out of their competency level, or beyond their level of authority – can easily see themselves swamped with less-than-ethical firms.

I should also mention that this behavior from our various consulting firms came at the height then downslope of the tech bubble (and it’s attendant consulting bubble). I mentioned how those groups seemed to double and triple their footprint overnight. Well, sometime in the middle of 2000 or so, they disappeared just as quickly.

It was pretty uncanny, actually. And then Enron happened …

HenryJames drew this picture when Elliott Smith died.

I’m not sure I buy into the CEO excuse that some offer for Mack. First, at most the “company” that is the UT football program is worth about $120,00,000 per year in revenue. In the real business world, that’s pretty much peanuts. Also, in the real world, there are generally several (meaning a lot more than 3) between the head guy and the workers in the field. To me there is absolutely no excuse that Mack shouldn’t know the in’s and out’s of everything that’s going on, including x’s and o’s and how each player is producing. It’s just not that big of an organization for him to be overwhelmed with everything, IMO.

However, bringing in consultants, I think, is a good thing. Everyone sometimes needs a little wake up call, and hopefully that’s what’s happening. I would hate to think they would tell Mack more of what he already thinks he knows — if so, we’re fucked.

My question is who brought in the consultants— Mack or Deloss or the BOR? I think the answer to that question may likely have a big influence on how things turn out in the end.

I have no problem believing Confused and Dazed had a long career in consulting.

I tend to agree with java that shitcanning a bunch of assistants after an MNC runner up season would have seemed foolhardy. That being said, it doesn’t really change my thinking on Mack per se. He has certainly had some high water marks coincident with transcendant players at the QB position. But, it’s not like the Texas program was ever a consistent juggernaut under his leadership. I always sensed a hollowness and fragility to the position of the program, but I beat back those gnawing doubts with happy thoughts and managed to mindfuck myself into believing the hype. That was a better feeling than lingering on the doubts, inconsistencies and contrived metrics that Mack has been fond of pointing to as measures of “success”.

I can counter the two Big XII titles and MNC game appearances with obscenely negative data points such as the hide tannings OU laid on us and the utter failure of the offense to even be competitive in 4 out of those 5 games, a loss to a pretty shitty Stanford team in 2000, getting pushed around by the Piggies at home in 2003 in a game that was not as close as the score indicates, two straight losses to inferior aggy squads directly following our MNC season, a narrow win against a shitty Iowa team in the 2006 Alamo Bowl and a blowout at home to a shitty KState team in 2007.

Then, there are the plain as day observations of Mack’s coddling (BTW, I REALLY wish he’d drop all of that “family atmosphere” bullshit and come up with some other recruiting jingoism, it just doesn’t lend itself to the kind of attitude and aggression it takes to succeed on the gridiron) and the lack of physicality in practices. Granted, the lack of physicality no longer comes up as much now that practices are by and large closed to the public. But, it was consistently obvious in the way the team could never really handle a downhill running attack and the endemic lack of performance of the OL.

With all that said, 2010 was the season all of these chickens came home to roost. It was a complete implosion – an abhorrent abomination. At this point, the program has come full circle with absolutely no assurances that success is around the corner. I do not trust Mack one iota to not be Mack going forward. And, I strongly believe that Mack being Mack is the fundamental reason that we are where we are right now. This sort of epic collapse gets most people fired, and justifiably so, regardless of what happened in the past (a mixed bag, as I’ve evidenced above).

All of this wishy-washy, touchy feely consulting crap does not make me feel any better because I believe that Mack is the fundamental problem and that we will continue to spin our wheels as long as he is in charge. I guess time will tell.

Felonious – Mack’s ‘family atmosphere’ edict can work provided you have accountability enforcers for assistants. Roosta commented up top about the Mack/Stoops continuum and about similar stuff in a previous thread. Your description of patterns of Mack teams is readily observable and real, and for that reason your skepticism and fear that nothing will fundamentally change with Mack as HC is understandable. However, 2011 will be the first season since 1995 that Mack coached without Greg Davis as his OC. Much more than a mere data point, this could be a nodal event.

A lot hinges on the hires, and without multiple and stylistically different consultants, blind spots and old patterns are more likely to remain, imo. More so now than ever, separating Mack and Greg is the big event we’ve been waiting for, and an opportunity for a fundamentally new trajectory – even if Mack remains HC.

fwiw, I think that the coaching schism made team performance worse this year than had the internal conflicts not spilled out into the open. Getting our players’ heads back in the game is something that can happen relatively quickly and could result in a bigger rebound in performance next year than expected and an end to some familiar decade old patterns.

@CJD

I hear ya, and I really wasn’t trying to extoll the virtues of consultants in my original post so much as to point out that there are various reasons why they are hired and that I obviously didn’t believe they were necessary in this case for any other reason than to do what Mack lacked the will to do and, while it should be a great short-term fix, the root cause is still there and it can very likely happen again on his watch depending on how much longer he stays although I hope not. But I’m still fuzzy on the original claims on the ’Cosm and other sites that Mack initially thought he could slide by with just getting rid of Tolly and MacWhorter. Can anyone shed some light on that?

As for your “Enron thing” comment, you hit a nerve and a HR with that one. It’s how I woke up one morning and found out I was working for IBM. Talk about culture shock!

@BP:

 Your last sentence is key, as I pointed out in my very long post. Is this a new paradigm for Mack or was he forced to do it and also forced to follow the recommendations? Unfortunately, we won’t know for a while if ever.

@Black Scholes:

I’m sure that was a compliment….right? :<)

Thanks!

Triple,

Your points are certainly a valid rebuttal to the apprehension I detailed in my assessment. I hope you are right. Mack certainly has qualities that make him a solid human being and I respect that on a personal level. Given that what I want most for our beloved Horns football team is to win championships (within reasonable ethical parameters, of course), I would not mind at all seeing Mack turn it around. My problem at this point is with the results that the man has produced, not with the man himself. I hope you are right as it would be easier on all of us if the rebound took place sooner rather than later.

I fundamentally believe that we are at a seminal inflection point right now. The successful aspects of Mack’s regime and the positive perceptions that have resulted are tremendous advantages that a new HC could make some serious hay with. But, perception is an ephemeral thing, unfortunately. If, God forbid, we stagnate for a couple of years (just as viable a possibility as an immediate rebound IMO), a new HC would be digging out from a much deeper hole and we could very well wander the wilderness for years similar to Michigan’s current malaise and our own experience of the late 80’s and early 90’s. As such, I actually think it is riskier to allow Mack to very possibly piss away all of this goodwill and to empty the cupboard in the process than to let the next guy come in and use these tools to rejuvenate the program.

Granted, he will be sans Davis for the first time since 1995. But, I think the larger and tremendously vexing question is why Davis was allowed to hang around as long as he did in the first place. Remember, that the UNC offense always shit the bed against Florida State back then, too. I think that speaks to Mack’s lack of a killer instinct, not to mention his cronyism. That is a terrible deficiency in both a football coach and a CEO and I have no empirical reason to believe that it has been resolved. Do you?

Re Felonious: “Granted, he will be sans Davis for the first time since 1995. But, I think the larger and tremendously vexing question is why Davis was allowed to hang around as long as he did in the first place. Remember, that the UNC offense always shit the bed against Florida State back then, too. I think that speaks to Mack’s lack of a killer instinct, not to mention his cronyism. That is a terrible deficiency in both a football coach and a CEO and I have no empirical reason to believe that it has been resolved. Do you?”

I don’t have an answer as to why Davis was retained for so long despite glaring deficiencies to outside observers. The explanation probably is some combination of the warm comfort and deluding effect of self mirroring Davis represented and Mack not challenging himself to argue with success. The combination creates a sleep hold that can require outside diagnosis.

Dagga Roosta’s Yin and Yang analogy is a powerful one, imo:

“Very few people master both the inspirational and insufferable sides of leadership. Most prefer one approach or the other. Thus most successful executive teams end up with a good-cop-bad-cop dynamic. If the president is a softie, the veeps should be taskmasters (think early Microsoft). And if the president is in a nonstop frenzy, then the veeps should soothe people’s nerves (think later Facebook). Yin and yang.”

Looking around, an optimal balance is a rare thing on college football staffs. I think there’s a tendency for good cops to surround themselves with good cops, and likewise for bad cops. Look at Stoops and his historic bad cops on both sides of the ball: Mike Stoops, Venables, Leach, Mangino, and whatever OL coach(es) has resulted in bitter OL player defections (if memory serves).

Arguably, through his DC’s, Mack ‘as good cop’ has periodically had a better balance than Stoops’ staffs have ever had. And if I had to pick which end of the spectrum to have as HC, it would be the ‘transcendent’ one, not the ‘transactional’. Being the best HC also involves being that master recruiter, PR genie, pappa bear etc.

I don’t think Stoops’ numerous BCS choke jobs and failure to repeat in an accident. If Stoops were a jockey, his horses would consistently place but come up short from being whipped too much down the stretch. But take the whip out of his hand, and he fails to even show.

None of us knows what is going to unfold on the field yet, but we could witness a strong team dynamic with Mack now separated from Greg that we previously could only imagine.

I happen to think consultants are great for objective advice. Of course, that’s not an objective opinion, as I consult with Booz Allen.

Consult This! (Seriously) was peculiarly informative thank you, I believe your incumbent audience could require many more articles of this nature. Take care that you do not constrain yourself. MAny authors restrict themselves to what they consider they are able to do. Be sure you can travel as far as your brain will permit you.

This is definitely very helpful. Thanks for discussing this. I’m going to be keeping tabs on this blog more often thanks!