Yeah, but he had hardly nothing to do with that. They had a generation team that year that you or I could have coached to a winning season.
But here's where I have a problem with this level of analysis, and
I don't disagree with the general point being made. But we can't have this argument both ways.
If a coach is awful and his team is 3-9, he gets blamed for it and - in the SEC - probably fired. We can't say that if a coach gets fired he deserved it but not give him at least SOME credit for WINNING. Even if one wants to go with the argument "but coaching staff, but Joe Burrow," the guy in charge who is "responsible" if they lose has to get some credit if they win. All of it, no.
And YES - mediocre head coaches can win championships.
Does anyone really think
Barry Switzer was even minimally passable as an NFL coach? Does anyone believe that Gene Chizik, Bobby Ross, Larry Coker, or Orgeron were really all that great? When Coker imploded, everyone wanted to say, "well, he was okay when he inherited Butch Davis's players."
Excuse me, but
what the hell has Butch Davis done? He was 103-75 as a head coach (I'm giving him the wins the NCAA took away for academic misconduct), but take away his 11-1 season in 2000 that was obviously an anomaly and he's 92-74 (.554), meaning his average year was 6.6-5.4.
So Larry Coker was no great shakes, and Butch Davis proved his ineptitude over and over again (he was 24-35 in the NFL and blew a huge lead in his only playoff game)....and yet somehow they managed to compile what a lot of folks insist was the greatest college team ever.
So yes, I would put Orgeron in that category of coaches who were basically .500 schlubs who caught lightning in a bottle with the right staff or right recruits or both plus some schedule luck. But he has to get some credit for it, too; unless the entire coaching staff was picked by the school administration and the recruits came there because of that, Orgeron gets some credit.
It's like the old "Belichick never won anything without Tom Brady."
OK, fine.
But who drafted Tom Brady?
Who stuck with Tom Brady when his starting (and pretty good) QB came back healthy and won the AFC championship to make the Super Bowl?
I'm willing to call it lightning in a bottle for a one-time champion, but Belichick won a bunch of Super Bowls with a quarterback who has probably no HOF teammates on his side of the ball in the Super Bowl years at the helm, too.
