The coaching profession dedicates an enormous amount of time and energy into being masters of any variety of schemes, but more than a few coaches often find themselves asking if that's really the most efficient approach to building a team.
Last week I wrote about how Rich Rodriguez was looking for a certain personality, and that "schemes are overrated," while searching for his new defensive coordinator at Arizona, and today at ESPN, Will Muschamp talked about how he and his staff are focused more on what players can do, and less on scheme, especially in year one of the new era.
“It’s all about what the players can do. Don’t ask a guy to play man-to-man if he can’t cover a bucket of water," Muschamp said on set.
At SEC MD, Muschamp went as far as to say that the 2016 Gamecocks may not fit the vision on offense and defense of what they have in mind down the road for the program, and that vision will start to take shape when they're able to get a few recruiting classes seasoned.
“It’s not about what your scheme is, it’s about fitting what your players can do. We may not be schematically, in our first year, what we want to be on either side of the ball.”
"That’s what good coaches do," he went on to note. "We’re going to evolve that in time with recruiting our roster.”
More important to Muschamp in year one is that the offense carries the same look and philosophy week to week in the pursuit of winning games, The State notes.
Muschamp was also asked an interesting question about what the perfect recruit looks like to him, and The State points out that he described guys that want to compete for playing time, noting "the guys that ask me about the depth chart the third time - I'm done. I'm moving on to the next guy."