If we are going to be honest, Prime is a bad coach who overly excels as developing talent, recruiting, and motivating but is a horrendous strategist, generationally bad tactician, and so so as an architect who operates as a CEO but not a good one. He's probably the worst coach on staff with Hart who I think maybe a better motivator and recruiter than Prime while being worse at the other things Prime is bad at.
The thing is, Prime has three things no one else has, not even Nick Saban
1. He has his own recruiting map. He has the ability to have a parent or kid say, you wanna go to CU because of Prime. It's a recruiting card only Prime has and it has nothing to do with his recruiting skill.
2. He has his own media company which feeds the beast. This generates attention and revenue. Plus good storylines.
3. He has the media presence of LeBron James. Meaning, he will be a topic of your favorite talk show good, bad, or ugly. This gives him the TBS edge that the Atlanta Braves had in the 90s as America's team.
Those 3 things is why even as a bad coach, even Alabama would be highly interested in Prime and while Colorado sees him as critical to the brand.
I don't know how you really improve a bad coach like this. Coaches all have strengths and weaknesses. Prime is an above average recruiter. He's nowhere close to Mel Tucker. Not even in the same area code. But 1, 2, and 3 put him in his own recruiting category known as Coach Prime.
Hes a tremendous talent developer. Most elite guys know this better than others so it's no shock, Prime is better at this than most coaches maybe all college coaches since Nick retired. I think this is his best skill. If you want to get to the NFL, no lie, he will get you there and well prepped. I think he rivals Coach Cal at this skill. This isn't all that valuable to winning games but this matters A LOT to players. Probably the most.
I think he's a master motivator. Part of being one is what you accomplished previously and how can you inspire. I think he's elite at this as well. I just don't think it's as good as say Brent Key or Dan Lanning but it's elite.
We all know his strategist ability is bottom tier.
He is even worse at an tactician.
He's a so so architect because he's overly elite in one area and overly bad in the other.
Most coaches don't really suck at multiple areas. Even guys like Pat who are underwhelming as HCs and OCs are good at many things and element of being a coach.
I think Prime like Hart can improve but coaching is not like Basketball. It takes many years to get better and some guys just are way better natural coaches than others like Nick Saban or Bill Bellicheck like playing football.
Honestly, if you take away 1, 2, and 3, Prime might be one of CUs worse coaches of all time. Dorrell from my scout is a clearly better coach than Prime and Mel was significantly better. I do think Prime like Hart has a lot of potential but they gotta lock in and grow at areas like tactician and strategist but I don't know if Hart has enough time left. Hart is not Flea or the others. If he's fired, it's straight to the HBCUs. He's not respected, honestly. But 1, 2, 3 is why Alabama will check in with Prime if their job is open so Prime has a different value than all others.
I know ya'll will hate me for this but I don't think Pat is a bad coach. I think hes a decent coach. I just think he's just not very good at nothing and all college coaches tend to be excellent or elite at something like Rob for example. Even Brett is an elite tactician. Hart for his severe flaws is a master motivator. When you think of Pat, he's standard and that's not good enough. The reason why he gets things is he does everything well and gets fired because what are you good at? That's Pat.
I think Helow is the best on the staff. Rob 2nd. Sapp is better than we think, Faulk is a damn good coach, he could actually be a HC like Eddie George and be successful. Eddie was a better coach at Tennessee State than Prime was at JSU. I think Marshall and Brett got legit HC potential. Jason is mid and always been mid to me but he knows how to develop talent at a high level. That's where he's special but his coaching is mid.
I've been telling ya'll Coach Pollock is underrated. I think he could shock people. He's the best at talent developer mix with tactician that we have. Coach Mathis is decent. Always been decent. I did think he really transition well compared to Coach Hart and Coach Flea. Coach Peko is too new to grade for me. Same for the OL coaches outside of Big George who's decent. I think Prime did good with the 3 headed mix like the DL has but Helow is better than everyone else. The question with Helow will be recruiting. That's where I believe he may have issues. I just don't know. Rob can recruit. Rob is good if it's the NFL or college. We got a good staff. We could be better. We need to be better. But the Coach we need to improve the most are both Hart and Prime. Considering Hart time here, it's time to go.
@Buffnik mention that HBCU coaches are just as good as P4 and G5 coaches, just dont get the opportunity. I think they are better in certain areas like motivator and especially talent developer because you are able to get the kids to realize we are one and we need to be our best version if we want to win. That's where every HBCU coach shines and they all have a tremendous ability to multi task and value the person as that's just as critical if not more than winning games. That's where HBCU coaches shine.
But they tend to lack the tactician side and strategist side to a degree but generally are good architect, sometimes great ones. The one thing I think people fail to realize is if you are a tactician there, it is so difficult. My coaches who post here know what I mean. HBCUs are so much about what not happening with Football that it completely impacts what's happening in the game. Hal Mumme coached at a HBCU and was disastrous. It's not for the weak. But the issue is, many just struggle with the quality gap of tactician and strategist. That's where most struggle. The best HBCU coach in the last 10 years is Willie Simmons and he's a tactician who shined at the HBCU level.
