Why athletic directors keep hiring the same guy with different names every five years

The Universal Coaching Hire: How Every University Makes the Same $4M Mistake

There’s a coaching hire playbook, and it’s identical at every university in America. The script never changes. Only the names rotate.

Act One: The Crisis

Last season was a disaster. Record: 4-8. Fans are angry. Alumni are demanding change. The athletic director convenes an emergency meeting where six people discuss something an email could’ve covered.

Act Two: The Search (That Isn’t)

“We’re conducting a national search,” the athletic director announces. What this actually means: we’re calling our friend who knows a guy who once worked for a guy who won a bowl game in 2003. That’s the national search. One phone call to someone’s cousin.

Act Three: The Justification

The new coach is announced. His qualifications: he worked with someone who worked with someone important. He has “connections.” He brings “experience.” He understands “winning culture”—a phrase he learned from a LinkedIn article.

Act Four: The Inevitable Ending

Four years later, 3-9 record. Time to start over.

As Jerry Seinfeld once observed: “Have you ever noticed that all the people claiming to be successful are usually just the people with the best excuses?” Universities have weaponized this principle. They don’t hire coaches. They hire excuses with credential chains.

The genius part? After the inevitable failure, the athletic director claims they “made the best decision with the information available at the time.” What information? A recommendation from someone’s hotel bar conversation?

Every university thinks their next hire will be different. None of them are. They’re all the same guy wearing different colored polo shirts.

Auf Wiedersehen, amigos.