Various things...
- Better to live east of SC (Whittier/La Habra/La Mirada/Downey) from a commute standpoint than West or North. South (Long Beach) would also be OK, but much of that area is less suburban and more urban. I'd expect Harrell to choose east, if family environment is more important to he and his wife than glitz.
- I am not sure that Harrell is ready to be the SC offensive coordinator. Maybe he is. If they hire him, I guess we will find out. Even with the best offensive coaching staff it will be a multi-season shift to the air raid, not a single season shift. And with Helton on thin ice, I'm not sure that I'd want to be implementing a multi-year transition with a boss who may not be a multi-year HC. This does not appear likely to end well if they try to go immediately to a true air raid.
- What I suspect is more likely is some sort of hybrid. As you know, that has worked OK at some places and not so well at others. Depends on the personnel, depends on the form of hybrid, and depends significantly on the capability of the staff. As Biggs likes to say, "Coaching Matters".
- This will bring a significant recruiting strategy shift. No more tight ends. No more fullbacks. Unless they decide they still need a power formation for short yardage/goal line situations. But the 85 scholie limit makes it hard to have your cake and eat it, too. You either need a fleet of WR's for the air raid or you need a complement of TE/FB types for the power game. Difficult to make both fit in an 85 person roster...it is theoretically possible, but only if you don't miss on any recruits. Helton has missed on many recruits, and many alums feel that he needs more help with recruiting than he does with coaching. Side bar: that is a 2-3 drink argument. Is Helton a mediocre coach? Or is he a mediocre evaluator of talent? Or both? You could hear that argument in a lot of sports bars in greater LA every Saturday this past fall.
- You can bet that Chip is hoping that SC will try to move to the Air Raid...both because he thinks they will not fully succeed, and because that will leave the power game recruits (and to a lesser extent, Chip's Oregon spread option type recruits) with only one local choice.
I'll finish by echoing Bruce's post, just before mine. A hard nosed football coach with the right recruits can always win football games. SC has not had enough of the right recruits for several years (recruiting failure) despite being able to easily fill a class with kids who have lots of stars. Nobody really knows how capable Helton might be at a hard nosed game because his teams have never looked like they could play hard nosed football. Is that all coaching? All recruiting? Or both?
