Jackie Sherrill discussess hiring coaches, Kyler Murray, CFB playoff

Key quotes from Jackie Sherrill interview

“In this profession it is driven by performance. There is no question, the performance on the field was not what was expected, and you see this in a lot of cases. You have a coach now gone at Auburn who’s been in the profession for along time. Two years ago they went to the national championship, you can’t stay the same; you’ve either got to go up or down. You’ve got to work so hard to make sure you go up.”

“We say coaching is Xs and Os but it’s really not, everybody is smart. You’ve got 11 players out there, you can draw Xs and Os. It’s the coach that can get the players to play at a higher performance or peak then where your opponents play.”

“I’d like to hire the coach that has the ability to adjust. What I’m saying is when you’re trying to stop LSU, Alabama or Arkansas versus trying to stop A&M, you’re going to put different people on the field to stop them. A great example is all the way back in the 80s, we took our defensive linemen out of the game. We put our defensive ends at defensive tackles, and left out our nose guard. We put in two linebackers at defensive end, and we put in two strong safeties. You have a hard time matching personnel, and that’s what you’re looking for in a defensive coach.”

“You have to be able to adjust. It doesn’t matter if you play a 3-4 or 4-3, you have to have people on the field that can get into formation.”

“I’ve said it before, I’d play Texas in a mud pit.”

“If you go back to strength and schedule. There’s no question that TCU has played a better schedule than Baylor. However, head to head really counts.”

“If you look at the top 12 right now and look how many games are right there. It’s all going to be changed after this weekend because Baylor gets a chance to move up, TCU is not going to get a chance to move up because they play Iowa State. You look at Georgia Tech and Florida State, there are so many games there.”

“Kyler Murray is Johnny Manziel but he throws the ball a little bit harder meaning a tighter spiral. He won the accuracy competition at the Elite 11. He can throw the football to a moving target; his feet are so quick too. He has been coached extremely well.”

“Johnny wasn’t coached like Kyler has been coached. I can tell you his dad is hard on him, he puts him in tough situations. The young man talent wise, we all would like a 6’5 or 6’3 quarterback, but in his case it hasn’t mattered. Everybody wishes you’d break records, and they can win the state title three years in a row.”