There is no shortage of Southeastern Conference football coaches who have produced significantly better second teams compared to their inaugural versions.
Alabama’s Nick Saban and Georgia’s Kirby Smart are front and center in this conversation, with Saban’s 2008 Crimson Tide and Smart’s 2017 Bulldogs improving by five wins over the previous seasons. There are also those who have come and gone, with Florida’s Urban Meyer and Auburn’s Gene Chizik winning national championships in their second years at the helm.
If the adage is true of making your biggest jump from the first to second game of a season, then shouldn’t it be true of the first to second year of a coaching tenure?
“I don’t want to say that it should be that, but I think the most difficult thing is to change the culture,” Saban said Wednesday. “When you inherit a team and are trying to change the culture of the whole team in the first year, you get some buy-in, but you don’t get total buy-in.
“As the program progresses, you get more buy-in, and when you get more buy-in, you get more players who are doing things the way you want them to do them. It probably happens to a different degree in every program.”