Vanderbilt: The Worst Coaching Staff in America
by Bryce Martin
Vanderbilt head football coach Bobby Johnson's teams have won a total of 20 games in his six years at the helm. Most of those wins have come outside the Southeastern Conference of which Vandy is a member, of sorts.
When Vandy makes dumb mistakes that cost them ballgames, a regular occurrence, Johnson always states the obvious. That Vandy has enough problems in beating anyone and that they, more than anyone else around, cannot afford to make dumb and unnecessary mistakes.
Yet, he and his coaching staff allow the same unnecessary mistake to happen time after time, that of a running back fumbling and turning over the football. By now, you have to figure it is just lip service coming from Johnson. The team has not had a winning season since 1982. Do you think it would harm the team's chances down the line if they actually benched someone who fumbled?
Perhaps they avoid those kinds of benchings because they know they have been lax as coaches. There's barely enough time to work in all the fancy stuff, much less time to stress fundamentals such as how to not possibly fumble a football when you have taken it from your quarterback and cradled it up against your body.
When a team wins, as Vandy did in its opener yesterday against Miami (Ohio), the mistakes are sometimes downplayed. With Vandy, they shouldn't. Running back Jeff Jennings coughed one up early in the first half and this time it only cost Vandy a field goal.
I really do not think the Vandy coaches are stressing the finer points of holding on to the football as they should regarding their running backs. They can't be. Year in, year out, they can't be. I do think the Vandy coaches are alibiing their way out of all the fumbles. It is their responsibility as coaches. A player cannot fumble a football if he holds it properly.
I know that if I was a coach and I taught a running back the proper way to hold a football so as to not fumble it, and we practiced it enough, that I would definitely sit down anyone after that who did not follow instructions. Vandy, more than any other school can afford to do that, to teach a player that lesson. But that is only if the coaches have truly done their part.
It's about time the coaches took the heat, and we quit blaming the Vandy players.
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