The XFL bucked a trend when it came to hiring head coaches. Will it pay off?
Time was, if you wanted to be a head coach at a major college or in the NFL, there was a certain path you had to follow: You’d break in as a quality control or a similar low-level coach; you’d work your way up to position coach, followed by coordinator, and finally, head coach. There were of course exceptions to the rule, but they were rare.
Even secondary leagues followed this protocol, more or less. Both the XFL in 2020 and the USFL in 2022 hired those who had either been head coach elsewhere, or were long-tenured, high-level position coaches or coordinators.
In 2022, the XFL bucked that trend in hiring Hines Ward, Anthony Becht, Terrell Buckley, and Rod Woodson as head coaches for four of its eight teams. Those four combined have a total of 20 years of on-field coaching experience in the pros or in college, none as a coordinator.
Eyebrows were raised by observers of the league when these hires were made. There was a feeling that the XFL needed to hire those with more head coaching bona fides to help give the league legitimacy in the eyes of the outside world. There was also thought that established coaches would be able to handle the pressures and nuances of in-game decision-making, something these respected but inexperienced coaches may struggle with, potentially giving the proceedings a minor league feel.
If anything, though, the XFL is just following the trend that we’ve seen develop of late in both the college and pros: The hiring of head coaches with minimal prior coaching experience.
The most successful example may be the one that was just rewarded with a five-year, $29.5 million contract from the University of Colorado: Deion Sanders. Sanders came to Jackson State in 2020 long on fanfare, short on coaching experience. Prior to leading the Tigers, Sanders had spent a few years as a high school head coach and offensive coordinator, but had not coached at all at the college level.
Before Sanders arrived, Jackson State finished with a 5-5 record in 2018, and went 4-8 in 2019. In Coach Prime’s first year in 2020, they were 4-3, improving to 11-2 in 2021 and 12-0 this past season. There’s no doubt Sanders’ personality and recruiting efforts played a large part in Jackson State’s success during his tenure, but that’s not to discount all of the other aspects of coaching that need to come together to reach the kinds of heights he did there.
Amid the same coaching cycle in which Colorado landed Sanders, the University of Alabama-Birmingham took a similar approach to Jackson State’s hiring of Prime: UAB lured Super Bowl-winning quarterback Trent Dilfer from the high school ranks to become their head coach.
Like Sanders, Dilfer has not assisted in college or the pros. He’s most well-known in his post-playing career for the decade he spent as an NFL analyst on ESPN. Sanders came from a similar television background, working for the NFL Network.
It’s not just the college game that has gotten into the acting of hiring head coaches who haven’t traveled a traditional path; so has the NFL. For the past two off-seasons, the Houston Texans have flirted with hiring Josh McCown as their head coach. An 18-year NFL veteran, mostly as a backup QB, McCown’s coaching resume has been limited to high school volunteer and assistant. Yet he interviewed twice with the Texans and was reported to have been a finalist for the job in 2022.
When Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay was in the market for an interim head coach to replace the fired Frank Reich nine games into this season, he chose not to promote defensive coordinator Gus Bradley or senior defensive assistant John Fox, both of whom had been head coaches previously in the league. Irsay instead went outside the box and brought in Jeff Saturday. Saturday spent 13 years with the Colts as a player but had just three years as a high school head coach under his belt before being named interim head coach in Indy.
The move was met with ridicule and derision from outside observers. Saturday silenced some critics by winning his first game at the helm, 25-20 over the Las Vegas Raiders. His Colts dropped the next four, one of which featured a very public time management blunder by Saturday on Monday Night Football. Some used that as ammunition to argue that Saturday is ill-prepared for the job; however, we’ve seen Nathaniel Hackett, who has spent nearly a decade in the NFL as an offensive coordinator and whose father was a long-time NFL assistant, struggle with the same issues to the point that he hired former Baltimore Ravens assistant Jerry Rosburg to help him with in-game matters.
Aside from the obvious lack of experience, the other main argument against these types of unconventional hires seems to be that they are “skipping the line” in a way. Those who toil as low-level assistants for little pay believe the reward one day will be their hiring as head coach of a major college program or NFL team. When someone gets a top job that hasn’t faced the same struggles and obstacles, it can sow resentment, especially in the case of Saturday, who has to lead a staff, not of his choosing, that may harbor that resentment.
All of this brings us back to the XFL and its first-time head coaches. The XFL has the luxury of not being the destination for long-time assistants – no one, at least not yet, gets into the coaching profession with the dreams of landing an XFL head coaching job.
The XFL can afford to take chances like this – they fly under the radar so they won’t get criticized by the national media for bypassing the normal channels the same way Irsay was; and these aren’t billion-dollar franchises throwing multi-million dollar contracts around for these coaches. The hiring decisions, therefore, carry much less risk for the XFL.
One commonality all of these coaches share is that they were well-respected, accomplished NFL players who carved out long careers in the league. The curricula vitae of the XFL’s quartet of coaches has been well-documented. Deion Sanders is an NFL and College Football Hall of Famer who won two Super Bowls in his 15-year NFL career. Trent Dilfer also won a Super Bowl during his 13-year NFL career. Josh McCown played for 18 years, while Jeff Saturday played 14 years and also won a Super Bowl. These are coaches who, despite their lack of experience on the sidelines, garner instant respect from players based on their careers between the lines.
The hirings of Sanders, Dilfer, and Saturday, and the overtures to McCown, have helped legitimize the XFL’s hires that were seen by some as questionable when first announced. Men like Hines Ward, Terrell Buckley, Anthony Becht, and Rod Woodson have all been passed over for other, higher-level coaching jobs. For one reason or another, they haven’t gotten the opportunities they felt they deserve. “I wasn’t getting an opportunity in college to progress or move up the ladder like I felt like (I should),” Buckley told me at the Florida Showcase in June. Just like players in the XFL themselves, these coaches too will try to prove they have what it takes to climb the ladder of success in their profession.
Being a head coach isn’t about diagramming plays or teaching technique. It’s about being a leader of men, about building a culture, and about being an effective communicator. Sometimes, those qualities come from unexpected places.
