When Arizona State hired Herm Edwards as their new head football coach in December, most people thought they were crazy. The 63-year-old hasn’t donned a headset in a decade, hadn’t coached in college football since the 1980s, and had become mostly known for intense yelling about football and life on ESPN. His introductory press conference didn’t do much to quell those concerns as he seemed to be unaware of his school’s mascot and blamed a lack of “huddling” as one of the major downfalls of modern society.
If you weren’t already thinking this experiment was doomed, Herm’s appearance on ESPN’s “Golic and Wingo Show” Wednesday may have sealed the deal for you.
Edwards shared his seeming bewilderment at how modern recruiting works in college football.
“Where recruiting has gone. Mike, this is almost like professional football when it comes to recruiting kids and evaluating these guys. It’s big. We’re already on the 2019 guys.”
“I basically came in here and set up a pro model of how we’re going to go about evaluating players. But the evaluation is the key here in college football. It’s not like in pro football. In pro football, it’s interesting because when you win, you draft last but in college football you recruit. You have to go after guys.”
It is true, five-star recruits don’t just show up at the university’s front door begging to be a part of your football team. Well, maybe they do at Alabama, but not ASU.
Edwards continued by marveling at the fact that part of the recruiting process was actually speaking with the parents of recruits.
“It’s, I’ll tell you what now, you’re not only recruiting kids, sometimes you’re trying to recruit the parent too. That’s what amazing. You have to stay in contact with these kids.”
Weird that the people who have raised these teenagers are interested in where they’ll spend the next four years of their life.
“I’m calling these kids all the time, making visits, I’m all over the place and you’re asking an 18-year-old kid to come to your university and a lot of these kids have no idea why they’re going to go to your university. They don’t know. They want to be recruited. They want to know how many people are coming to their house, how many head coaches are calling them. It’s an amazing deal.”
It’s actually kinda cute when you read it out. Either Edwards is genuinely gobsmacked by the basics of college football recruiting or he thinks that people outside of coaching staffs have no idea how recruiting works. If you’re an ASU fan, you better hope it’s the latter. Even then, that’s pretty weird for an FBS head coach.
Herm Edwards every day of college football coaching pic.twitter.com/0RV21UV6C8
— Billy Gomila (@BillyGomila) January 24, 2018
Good luck with all that, ASU.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.