This Week's Obsession: New Faces

photos: David Stluka/AP via SI; WXYZ still; Mike Pettigano;  Justin Aller/Blackshoediaries

Michigan's not the only Big Ten East power program holding introductory press conferences this month. PSU has a mostly new staff, and Ohio State poached a legendary assistant from them while also adding what appears to be one of the more competent guys from the Bielema group. How does this change things?

Nussmeier to Michigan, Franklin to Penn State, Ash and Johnson to Ohio State, Pat Narduzzi to...dammit all to hell, how can a guy mentioned in every coaching search not go somewhere?!?

How will these recent coaching changes affect the balance of power in the Big Ten East, and the Big Ten in general? Who'll still be coaching at the same place, and who will be the happiest with their guy three years hence?

Ace: If nothing else, recruiting in the Big Ten East is going to be an absolute war. We've discussed the recruiting upgrade Nussmeier provides over Al Borges in this space. Now Penn State lands James Franklin, who managed to reel in the #26 (247 Composite) class at Vanderbiltin 2013 and was on his way to repeating that feat this year before his departure; given the foundation laid by Bill O'Brien and the ever-receding shadow of the sanctions, he should be very successful as an energetic, big-name recruiter in a relatively talent-rich area. Franklin's already had three prospects commit (or flip their commit from Vandy) to Penn State since he took over; he's a coach who players commit to over a program, and now he's got a big-name program to pitch, as well.

Meanwhile, Ohio State gets the Nittany Lions' longtime ace recruiter in Johnson, who should pick up any slack lost when Mike Vrabel bolted for O'Brien's Houston staff—coaching musical chairs! It can be weird!—and Ash also carries the reputation of a solid recruiter.

Those who've witnessed a James Franklin press conference admit Penn State won this round. [Justin Aller/Black Shoe Diaries]

All in all, I think Michigan benefits the most right away from their recent hire, though I can also see the argument for Ohio State. The upgrade from Borges to Nussmeier should pay immediate dividends on and off the field; while OSU is very much the team to beat in the division, U-M's recent recruiting success and strengthened coaching staff should start closing the (for now, relatively wide) gap between the two programs.

The Buckeyes, for their part, landed a quality co-DC in Ash whose specialty—coaching defensive backs—is exactly what they need to patch up a porous secondary playing well below its talent level. He improved Wisconsin's pass efficiency defense from 53rd in his first season there (as the defensive backs coach) to 22nd in his third year (his second as DC and DBs coach) before moving on to Arkansas; how much he's to blame for the Razorbacks' #105 ranking in that regard in his lone season there is unclear.

[After the jump: the stuff after the jump. Also: tautology]

While I think Franklin is a very good coach—and probably the best possible hire PSU could've made—it's difficult to look at him as an upgrade considering O'Brien is now spearheading an NFL franchise after going above and beyond any reasonable expectation for success in Happy Valley in the wake of the sanctions both as a coach and recruiter. O'Brien is an NFL-level coach and Franklin still has to prove he can excel at a major program.

There's no question that the Big Ten East is the stronger of two divisions by a significant margin, and the recent coaching moves only add to that. While I think the coach with the best long-term outlook with his new program is Franklin, I just argued that U-M and OSU made bigger upgrades to their respective staffs with their moves. Since the biggest apparent worry with Nussmeier is that he'll move on to a head coaching job after a few years—which would require a very successful run as the OC in Ann Arbor, and then Michigan can throw buckets of money at another rising coach—I'd say the Wolverines did the best job of improving both their short-term and long-term outlook. Franklin's ceiling seems too similar to O'Brien's, Vrabel and Johnson basically cancel each other out, and Ash's resume doesn't strike me as being as strong as Nussmeier's. That said, all three of these programs did very well with their hires and the division should be remarkably competitive for the foreseeable future, especially once Penn State is entirely clear of their scholarship limitations.

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Coach Brown: If nothing else the Big Ten appears to have brought in some solid coaches at multiple programs who have a history of solid coaches. Ace talked about it already but the Big Ten East is just far better than the West. Ohio State still has a talent edge and a winning mentality quite a bit higher than everyone else, although Michigan State seems to do just fine with lesser talent. If coaching changes aren't something that occurs every season Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, and Penn State could really beat up on each other.

David Cornwell, Bama's top-ranked QB recruit, was reeled in by Nuss. [The M Block]

I think the recruiting aspect is going to be very interesting. Nussmeier brings a lot more to the recruiting table than Borges and everything I've heard directly from recruits proves that. I honestly don't know a ton about Johnson but from all accounts he's been an ace recruiter for a lot of years in a talent-rich areas and has built solid pipelines that he may be able to plug into Columbus....yay. Franklin's recruiting ability is also top-notch as he turned a Vanderbilt program into a respectable outfit on the field (off the field is another story) by recruiting at a level far above what Vanderbilt was accustomed to.

Schematically it would appear that every team improved their stock. Johnson has a great reputation as a defensive line coach and Ash specializes in the secondary where the Buckeyes looked pretty porous. Nussmeier should be able to outperform Borges simply because it'd be almost impossible not to. Plus his track record speaks for itself. As intense and energetic as Bill O'Brien seemed to be, Franklin brings even more of both to the sideline. Recruiting shouldn't be a problem for him so I'd expect the product on the field to improve at a faster rate than it did at Vandy.

The future of coaches can be next to impossible to figure out. As poorly as Borges did this season I didn't really think he'd get fired. Coaching changes sometimes seem so obvious and don't happen, and other times coaches fly the coupe out of the blue. I think Franklin will be very successful but I wonder if his personality will be too much at a place like Penn State. One could argue that Vandy is cut from the same cloth as some of the Big Ten schools academically and morally but let's be honest, it's still the SEC. Ohio State is going to be Ohio State. They recruit as well as anyone in the country, accept every one, develop players well, and Urban flat out wins ball games. Ash and Johnson both roll into Columbus with an overstocked cupboard and will get results on the field. They won't be going anywhere unless they want to.

With Nussmeier it's tricky. If he succeeds out of the gate, he's probably gone in a year or two as he's already been a candidate for legitimate head coaching positions. If he doesn't succeed, then he's just Al Borges in a much different body, and that may lead to other changes in the near future. 2014 will be interesting.

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BiSB: It's becoming increasingly clear that the Big Ten East is an elaborate prank on Rutgers and Maryland, or at the very least a macabre initiation ritual. You could argue that all four big teams in the East are in better position than they would have expected a months ago. Michigan State was probably figuring to lose Narduzzi, and unless Vandy hires him (HIRE HIM, VANDY), they will get at least one more year with their death-merchant.

Your assessment of Nussmeier's effect at Michigan probably has a lot to do with how you felt about Borges.

Ohio State lost Mike "Gold Bond" Vrabel, which was painful, but the rest of the staff remained intact and Ash and Mister Larry Johnson will probably more than compensate for Vrabel. And while the Nussmeier hire has been discussed ad infinitum, it remains an upgrade from a recruiting standpoint and certainly not a downgrade from a playcalling standpoint. All four stand to lose coordinators in the next few years, but the situations (with the possible exception of Hoke) seem remarkably stable right know. Poor Damn Kevin Wilson.

I'll disagree with Ace a little bit, in that I think the hiring of James Franklin is a bit of an upgrade over BOB. O'Brien is a fine coach, and he did more with the sinking corpus of the S.S. Nittany Lion than could be reasonably expected, but there was always the sense that his stop in college was a temporary one. So, while I think O'Brien was every bit the coach and recruiter Franklin is, this is as smooth of a transition from "we need someone to save us from going ker-blammo" to "okay, time to rebuild" could go. Franklin is a long-term answer, which settles one of the large remaining clouds over Penn State.

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Seth: If nothing else these changes have already had a profound effect on our roundtablers beginning their responses with "If nothing else." This also give me a chance to table the disparity between Michigan's division and the one Nebraska and Wisconsin get to fight over:

*247 composite rank among FBS schools for 2012-'14 classes as of 1/16/2014

The East has the Alabama of the Big Ten, three of the four programs with 700+ wins, five of the eight schools over .500 the last three seasons, one doormat (Maryland) to two in the West (Illinois & Purdue), and the only two schools recruiting among the Top 25 in the country.

You guys are saying most of what I wanted to say about the Franklin hire and we've discussed Nuss a lot so I'll tackle the Buckeye guys. While doing an HTTV-like book with Penn State's bloggers last year I was inundated with their feelings on Larry Johnson Sr. They talked about him like he is the program.

They're trying to be cool about it now because Penn State blogging these days is a lot like being the guy in charge of the HR e-newsletter at Blockbuster.* But trust me, there is no assistant in the history of position groups who has been more beloved, or comes with a better track record. It is astounding that he's never wanted to be more than that. He turned a crappy Maryland high school into one of the state's biggest powerhouses. His brother is the AD at the school that Remember the Titans is about. Every high school coach east of the Appalachian Mountains and north of the Carolinas thinks of Johnson Sr. the way you think of Bo. He is their first phone call when a D-I player emerges, he closes like Urban Meyer, and his record at sifting through busts was the engine behind Paterno's zero-attrition defenses. What he couldn't add by recruiting he went ahead and reproduced on his own, sending two sons to Penn State, one of them being the Jr. you know about.

He can coach the position better than guys who've ridden just that ability to head coaching gigs at power programs and in the NFL. Remember how PSU's defensive line just did things against Michigan even when we weren't running into 9-man fronts?

College football would be way less fun if Ohio State defensive backs could tackle. [Andy Morrison/Toledo Blade]

When O'Brien rumors started in earnest I gchatted Brian to say "Michigan needs to get this guy!" no matter how much we both knew defensive line is covered by Brady and Mattison. Hoke probably thought about finding a cushy landing spot for Mark Smith or Roy Manning anyway; this is a guy you make room for. As it happens Ohio State had just lost Vrabel. Damn them.

* [Here's 19 Incredible Things You'll Find While Cleaning Out Your Desk!]

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As for Ash, despite inheriting a lot of Courtney Avery types, he did some great work with the Badgers' pass defense. Like MSU, it involved a lot of subtle pass interference of the kind that doesn't get called in the Big Ten. A young dude, that two-year turnaround was enough to put him on lists of up-and-comers. Then he went to Arkansas and oversaw a pass defense equivalent to Michigan's in 2010.

Razorback fans blamed Petrino for Rodriguezian recruiting. At Arkansas he had guys who weren't talented or particularly clever, and he had them sit 15 yards off the line of scrimmage because if they didn't they'd be the 120th passing defense instead of the 116th. Here's Arkansas's SBNation blogger talking to OSU's:

Arkansas was very conservative on defense most of the year due to talent deficiencies in the secondary. Opposing receivers typically received pretty generous cushions in an effort to prevent big plays. It didn't always work – look at the game-winner for LSU to end the season – but Arkansas' defense did gradually improve through the season (We did hold Auburn to 35 points in November, which is much more impressive now than it was then). I'm sure he wanted to attack more as most coaches say they want to, but we just didn't have the personnel to do it.

"Fans were disappointed in basic tackling by the secondary, something for which he actively promotes himself. You can see a particularly egregious performance from Tevin Mitchel in the Ole Miss game on a play that went for a touchdown in the second half and essentially lost the game for us."

You probably already know this from the last three games against OSU and all of our previews, but the Buckeyes have very talented defensive backs who're constantly forcing writers to come up with nice ways of calling them "dumber than a box of rocks." So I'm guessing the magic he worked with Wisconsin's guys isn't repeatable in Columbus.

Ace gave you the efficiencies, here's the relevant stats, with the teams Ash coached in bold (I included befores and afters for comparison):

If you say "well Iowa State recruiting" I respond he was ISU's recruiting coordinator since 2004, when he got the job only because every team needs a Beyonce and he's young. Everyone is pretty much in agreement that he isn't a recruiter.

Johnson is, and he gives OSU a lock on the region Michigan was trying to pry away from them during Penn State's time in the penalty box. He'll keep Ohio State's defense as annoyingly good up front as they've been for all of Fickell's tenure. Net result: maybe not so much. Ohio State is repeating strengths; until their defensive back recruiting shifts from a million Ted Ginns they're going to remain dudes who live and die with their talent, which is considerable enough to usually be good enough.

So predictions. In three years:

• Johnson will leave Ohio State because he is sick of them, and Ash will leave because they're sick of him;
• Doug Nussmeier will be leaving Michigan to be the head coach of something, because good coaches at strong programs do that. He'll be moderately disappointing next year since the OL is really young and the receivers are as well, and he'll look great in 2015, and the rumors he'll take the Arkansas job will begin. And;
• Franklin will be on the hot seat at Penn State because as much as it appears the sanctions are easing, their effect is going to hit the next couple of years the hardest, which will mean lots of days when Nittany Lions fans are pissed off at Franklin, who is nobody's idea of a dude who can remain calm and upbeat through a shitstorm. I seem to be the only person in the world who thinks this combination is a volatile one, but I hold to that. He is a great coach, but even great coaching at Penn State could get them five losses in 2015, or six, or seven.

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Brian: You guys covered it to the point where I could say something but it would only make the post longer. Gold stars for everybody.