‘So It Goes’ In The College Football Universe
December 4, 2021 at 5:25 a.m.
‘So It Goes’ In The College Football Universe
By Chip Davenport-
College football isn’t dead. However, it’s an evolving business, but still not as nimble as the NFL. Recent events remind me college football is a huge entertainment business, nonetheless.
What do I think of the mindset many disappointed Notre Dame fans have of how the recent resignation of coach Brian Kelly, clinging to a shifting business etiquette?
So it goes.
Here in the heartland college football fans are grousing about (11-year head coach) Kelly taking the Louisiana State University head coaching position, and the manner he transitioned from Notre Dame.
Kelly’s hire by LSU was swift, and the story broke before Kelly could return to speak to his 100-plus athletes, his coaching staff, and other support personnel working in his Notre Dame program. His speech was short. When Kelly arrived at his facility at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning, he made his announcement, and his ensuing exit in approximately eleven minutes.
Stop grousing about how Kelly left. He has no obligation to make Notre Dame fans feel good about how he departed. His obligation must immediately shift to the gaining organization whose contract could give him and his family multi-generational wealth.
The gentleman filled his obligation to the fans and to Notre Dame. They were sliding toward irrelevance in the shifting of the modern college football landscape. He succeeded despite the institution’s stodgy, rigid administration. The university had elite admission requirements difficult for recruiting competing with elite public university programs.
His good work has reaped the reward of even greater money to another elite program, LSU, who has one of six among the seven CFP title trophies. Good for him.
Instead of getting shellacked by Alabama and Clemson, Kelly has a chance to hoist this championship hardware without his former employer’s constraints. The program he’s joining affords him some wonderful ingredients to accomplish this feat.
Regardless of how Coach Kelly left, let’s look at it as if he were a top-flite orthopedic executive heading to his gaining organization. Kelly, like a top-flite exec, now has a new employer whose company needs him to produce immediate results (within the month in Kelly’s).
A huge evaluation day for Kelly’s immediate contributions, early signing day, is Dec 15. It’s early only in name, and it became just as big as the traditional signing day in early February, and it is eleven calendar days from this morning.
Kelly was visiting LSU recruits right out of the gate. No time for pomp and circumstance for the organization he left. This is business folks. College football is a business.
These head coaches also need to assemble a staff and a support infrastructure very quickly. These aren’t positions as easy to hire as our day-to-day jobs are either. Agents, attorneys, and university administration all must move swiftly to make these things happen.
Kelly’s swift, rather unceremonious departure? This is the business of present-day college football. If you’re hurt, you’re losing touch with the new world order.
How you, the fan, wanted to see it end? So it goes.
Look in your mirror. How altruistic are you when you leave an organization? In the dogmatic two-week notice timeline, how much of your brain space are you sharing between the gaining organization and the outfit you’re departing?
Loyalty tends to have (what math students call) a strong negative correlation with the options afforded to a person.
Look around your organizations. Look at how many of you who’ve bounced among at least three orthopedic companies – an example I’ll use because the industry affords many employment options and opportunities here in the small town of Warsaw.
Are you getting bad press for moving quickly, or for you, and maybe even for your new company’s attorney creatively naming your new position so you can avoid violating your non-complete clause?
How much notice, from another angle, has your employer given you or your colleagues when they let you go? Do you really owe them a speech when your departure is swift and voluntary? I was impressed by Coach Kelly realizing a drawn-out meeting would have made him look self-important.
What’s the hurry Coach Kelly? Got a plane to catch? Oh, yes, he did.
He signed a long-term contract worth multi-generational money at LSU. He’ll likely never fully spend the (nearly) $100 million from now until he’s buried or cremated. The big speech is better suited for the gaining organization who committed the generational money.
Business executives exit quickly, too. For those of us left to keep the company humming, it’s best to move the C-suite in and out as quickly as possible. I only need the exiting exec’s passwords and open projects when they tell me they’re moving elsewhere, and I prefer to spend the remaining time getting the new exec up to speed on how the sausage is made.
What about those student athletes, you ask? Trust me, Coach Kelly’s athletes understand.
Pretty soon, later this month in fact, some of those student athletes as well as several others nationwide will begin announcing their entry into the transfer portal, or they’ll even opt out of a bowl game to preserve their health as potential NFL draft picks, the first job they hope to secure after departing campus.
College football is a huge business, and I think it’s perfectly fine for the people who comprise the operation of this huge business to be free to move on in any manner they wish.
College football isn’t dead. However, it’s an evolving business, but still not as nimble as the NFL. Recent events remind me college football is a huge entertainment business, nonetheless.
What do I think of the mindset many disappointed Notre Dame fans have of how the recent resignation of coach Brian Kelly, clinging to a shifting business etiquette?
So it goes.
Here in the heartland college football fans are grousing about (11-year head coach) Kelly taking the Louisiana State University head coaching position, and the manner he transitioned from Notre Dame.
Kelly’s hire by LSU was swift, and the story broke before Kelly could return to speak to his 100-plus athletes, his coaching staff, and other support personnel working in his Notre Dame program. His speech was short. When Kelly arrived at his facility at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning, he made his announcement, and his ensuing exit in approximately eleven minutes.
Stop grousing about how Kelly left. He has no obligation to make Notre Dame fans feel good about how he departed. His obligation must immediately shift to the gaining organization whose contract could give him and his family multi-generational wealth.
The gentleman filled his obligation to the fans and to Notre Dame. They were sliding toward irrelevance in the shifting of the modern college football landscape. He succeeded despite the institution’s stodgy, rigid administration. The university had elite admission requirements difficult for recruiting competing with elite public university programs.
His good work has reaped the reward of even greater money to another elite program, LSU, who has one of six among the seven CFP title trophies. Good for him.
Instead of getting shellacked by Alabama and Clemson, Kelly has a chance to hoist this championship hardware without his former employer’s constraints. The program he’s joining affords him some wonderful ingredients to accomplish this feat.
Regardless of how Coach Kelly left, let’s look at it as if he were a top-flite orthopedic executive heading to his gaining organization. Kelly, like a top-flite exec, now has a new employer whose company needs him to produce immediate results (within the month in Kelly’s).
A huge evaluation day for Kelly’s immediate contributions, early signing day, is Dec 15. It’s early only in name, and it became just as big as the traditional signing day in early February, and it is eleven calendar days from this morning.
Kelly was visiting LSU recruits right out of the gate. No time for pomp and circumstance for the organization he left. This is business folks. College football is a business.
These head coaches also need to assemble a staff and a support infrastructure very quickly. These aren’t positions as easy to hire as our day-to-day jobs are either. Agents, attorneys, and university administration all must move swiftly to make these things happen.
Kelly’s swift, rather unceremonious departure? This is the business of present-day college football. If you’re hurt, you’re losing touch with the new world order.
How you, the fan, wanted to see it end? So it goes.
Look in your mirror. How altruistic are you when you leave an organization? In the dogmatic two-week notice timeline, how much of your brain space are you sharing between the gaining organization and the outfit you’re departing?
Loyalty tends to have (what math students call) a strong negative correlation with the options afforded to a person.
Look around your organizations. Look at how many of you who’ve bounced among at least three orthopedic companies – an example I’ll use because the industry affords many employment options and opportunities here in the small town of Warsaw.
Are you getting bad press for moving quickly, or for you, and maybe even for your new company’s attorney creatively naming your new position so you can avoid violating your non-complete clause?
How much notice, from another angle, has your employer given you or your colleagues when they let you go? Do you really owe them a speech when your departure is swift and voluntary? I was impressed by Coach Kelly realizing a drawn-out meeting would have made him look self-important.
What’s the hurry Coach Kelly? Got a plane to catch? Oh, yes, he did.
He signed a long-term contract worth multi-generational money at LSU. He’ll likely never fully spend the (nearly) $100 million from now until he’s buried or cremated. The big speech is better suited for the gaining organization who committed the generational money.
Business executives exit quickly, too. For those of us left to keep the company humming, it’s best to move the C-suite in and out as quickly as possible. I only need the exiting exec’s passwords and open projects when they tell me they’re moving elsewhere, and I prefer to spend the remaining time getting the new exec up to speed on how the sausage is made.
What about those student athletes, you ask? Trust me, Coach Kelly’s athletes understand.
Pretty soon, later this month in fact, some of those student athletes as well as several others nationwide will begin announcing their entry into the transfer portal, or they’ll even opt out of a bowl game to preserve their health as potential NFL draft picks, the first job they hope to secure after departing campus.
College football is a huge business, and I think it’s perfectly fine for the people who comprise the operation of this huge business to be free to move on in any manner they wish.
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